There probably aren’t many situations where a Yorkshire pudding is the only thing standing between you and being eaten alive. Hungry Horrors is quite happy to create one.
Developed by two-person indie team Clumsy Bear Studio, Hungry Horrors is a card-based roguelite where a spoiled princess finds herself trapped in a kingdom crawling with ravenously hungry creatures from British and Irish folklore. Killing them isn’t an option. Instead, you’ll need to cook for them, learn what they like, and fill their stomachs before they decide the princess looks considerably more appetizing.
Thankfully, you do have some help. Unfortunately, that help comes in the form of a talking cat with a recipe book, so things clearly aren’t going particularly well.
Dinner Is Served, Hopefully
Things begin with the princess waking up in a dungeon with absolutely no idea how she got there. The kingdom has been cursed, monsters are everywhere, and getting back home means traveling through forests, bogs, meadows, and other places now occupied by creatures that would quite like to eat her. The solution is food.
Encounters play out using cards, with your deck made up of different dishes that can be served to the Horror currently blocking your path. Instead of whittling down a health bar, you’re trying to fill its hunger meter before it reaches you.
That would be easy enough if these things weren’t also incredibly picky eaters.
Even Monsters Have Standards
Every dish has one of five tastes including salty, sour, savory, bitter, or sweet, and each Horror has its own preferences. Serve something it enjoys and you’re heading in the right direction. Start combining the right dishes and you can create craving chains, letting you fill that hunger meter much faster. Get things wrong and your chances of becoming the next course start looking considerably higher.
You can also use seasonings to change the flavor of your cards, while different cookware alters how encounters work and gives you more options for putting together your deck.
The dishes themselves are taken from British and Irish cuisine, so you’ll be serving up everything from Cranachan and Toad in the Hole to Yorkshire pudding and jellied eels. Whether jellied eels should calm a monster down or make it considerably angrier is probably a debate for another day.
The Customers Are Worse Than the Food Critics
The Horrors are drawn from folklore across England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and Clumsy Bear Studio has gone considerably deeper than simply throwing a few recognizable creatures into the mix.
Jenny Greenteeth, Dullahan, Marool, and Y Fad Felen are among those currently lurking around the kingdom, with each having its own tastes to learn. The game also includes information about the actual folklore behind its characters and creatures, which is a nice addition if you’ve ever wondered exactly what’s supposed to be lurking at the bottom of that suspicious-looking pond.
It’s not all frantic cooking either. Your journey will see you meet different characters, complete quests, collect artifacts, discover new cookware, and eventually unlock fishing.
There’s Plenty More on the Menu
Hungry Horrors entered Steam Early Access in January 2026, and there’s already a fair amount to get stuck into. The developers have continued working on the game too, and it’s due to leave Early Access on October 13th.
Progress carries between attempts, allowing you to gradually unlock new recipes, abilities, seasonings, and other useful additions. Once you’ve got a handle on keeping the local monsters fed, there’s also Spicy mode for a tougher challenge, along with modifiers that can shake up future runs.
At the time of writing, the game has just over 200 Steam user reviews, with 98% of them positive. So, iff you fancy discovering some lesser-known British and Irish folklore while desperately trying to convince a monster that a plate of Toad in the Hole is much tastier than a princess, check out Hungry Horrors today.