Tag Archives: adventure

Hunger Looks Like The Horror Game I’ve Been Waiting For

Image gathered Tarsier Studios’ Hunger press kit

Earlier this week, as I was checking through my usual internet haunts, I happened across the first teaser for a new indie game; a called Hunger. …In fact, before I say anymore here’s that teaser. Just watch it. Right now.

The game’s developer, Tarsier Studios, describes the game as an “adventure-suspense” game on it’s official page. I’ve never heard of the genre before, in fact I’m willing to be that it didn’t exist before Hunger, but hearing it described that way definitely makes sense based on what’s shown in the teaser. From what I’ve seen of the response so far, many are making comparisons to LIMBO and Little Big Planet and I can definitely see why. The perspective and visuals definitely resemble LBP while the dark tone is very reminiscent of LIMBO, but this strikes me as more than a simple combination of those games. This definitely doesn’t look like a simple mash-up of platforming and heavy atmosphere. No it looks like it’s going to shape up to be something…else.

What I’m seeing shown in this teaser is definitely a horror game, just not the sort we’ve gotten used to over the last several years. For the longest time now, horror has meant getting in the player’s face. It’s meant jump-scares, blood and gore, mangled abominations, and always from a first-person or over-the-shoulder perspective. They’re either shooters or stealth-based, with observation/concentration games like Five Nights at Freddy’s being more of an exception than a rule. So it’s definitely a surprise to see a horror game based around exploring and puzzle-solving (with what looks like some occasional hiding).

This teaser is really only first taste of a game that is still early in development according to its page on Tarsier’s site, but if the final game is anything close to the kind of experience this teaser is hinting at, then I think all of us horror game fans will be in for a treat. In the meantime though, we wait.

What were your impressions of Hunger? What sort of game do you think it will shape up to be?