Fear & Hunger

Fear & Hunger
Developer: Miro Haverinen Publisher: Happy Paintings Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X Released internationally: December 11, 2018 This game has unused animations. This game has unused areas. This game has unused playable characters. This game has unused code. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused items. This game has unused abilities. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has revisional differences. This game has a prototype article

Oh dear, I do believe I have the vapors. This page contains content that is not safe for work or other locations with the potential for personal embarrassment. Such as: Depictions of rape, child abuse/murder, gore, cannibalism, suicide... etc.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

To do: Revisional differences. A page covering the game's demo. Scour the maps to check for any more player-accessible debug tiles. A "Bugs" page may be warranted, the game has a lot of them and is no longer being actively updated.

Fear & Hunger is a bizarre fusion between RPG, survival horror, and roguelike. The character you choose to play as is tasked with infiltrating the eponymous Dungeons of Fear and Hunger to rescue a man named Le'garde. Though, you may find yourself going deeper into the dungeon's depths than you signed up for...

It's also EXTREMELY dark and graphic (for an RPGMaker game, anyway) if the NSFL warning at the top of the page wasn't indication enough. Do not take it lightly.

Sub-Pages

Prototype Info

Unused Graphics How would the story even work playing as Le'garde?

Alternate Cahara Recruit

Normally to recruit Cahara, he first must be freed from his cage in the Level 3 Prison, then met again in the Mines in the passage leading to the Level 7 Catacombs. However, there exists an alternate, earlier scenario that is disabled due to the Event being disabled and no flag activating it. Cahara will be sitting on a ledge at the Level 4 Caverns, contemplating suicide.

"Oh another human being?"
"I never seriously contemplated on the idea of suicide..."
"I always figured you could just start your life over
in a new part of the world. Just leave all of the dirt and past
sins behind."
"I've done so. Many times before... but these dungeons man..."
"The anxiety and oppressiveness are slowly eating away my
stature."
"They are suffocating me, more so than this darkness. I just
can't see light of hope anywhere."
"Death would be a simple answer..."

After visiting Ma'habre for the first time and backtracking to visit him again in the same place, his dialogue will change.

"Now you've seen it too, haven't you?"
"The golden glow on the walls of the ancient city."
"The realization that all the macabre tales must be true
after all."
"Tell me... Should the older gods be stopped?"

If the player answers "We must stop the older gods.":

"Yes... They've always looked down on us humans with a
look of pity."
"Nah, not even pity. It's more like they despise what we
represent."
"Maybe once they cared about us, when they created us for
whatever sick purpose that might have had."
"But they abandoned us."
"For us to be truly free from their grasp, we need to take
them down. To tear down their ivory tower called Mahabre!"
"Suicide is not an option for me. But this sounds like a
grand enough plan to get me killed in the process."
"Count me in! You can call me Cahara of the desert."

If the player answers "The new gods are the true root of our evil.":

"The new gods huh?"
"In a way I agree."
"The new gods represent wealth, power, sex and science."
"The new gods, who used to be just regular folks like you
and me, wanted to create a new world order around those 
values."
"Believing those would lead us all to happiness. To paradise."
"But look at where it has gotten people, where it has gotten
me!?"
"I've done cruel things in pursue of all those values.
My bad deeds have lead me to great despair. And I've seen
the same happen to many others too."
"I've grown to fear whatever paradise the new gods are really
after."
"They need to be stopped."
"Suicide is not an option for me. But this sounds like a
grand enough plan to get me killed in the process."
"Count me in! You can call me Cahara of the desert."

If the player's party is full:

"Seems like you already got quite a party with you..."
"If you ever have room in your party, you can count me in!"

Unused Items

Icon	Name	Description	Notes
	Flashlight		An item from the Demo for the Terrax Lighting System. It shares an icon with the Rotten Egg (both items using Icon #108, which is a magic staff in the stock RPG Maker MV asset pack). The item itself displays the message "You turn the flashlight on" when used, and will emit a cone-shaped beam of light in the direction the player is facing (in addition to the light the player always emits on Fear & Hunger difficulty). It lasts indefinitely and slows sanity drain the same as Torches do. Using the item again will display the message "You turn the flashlight off", and the light will disappear. In higher difficulties, due to the way the game removes the player's natural light (by setting the radius of their light source to 0 whenever they do not have an active torch), the flashlight has no apparent effect unless the player is also using a torch.
	Branding iron	A branding iron to mark those caught by the black plague.	Use unknown. May have been used in the Rondon dream sequence, or related to Isayah who does have the plague.
	Arm of the nameless	A huge arm given to you by the nameless.	Likely intended to have been a kind of "trophy item" similar to the Red Scarf received from defeating the Old Guardian.
	Lockpick	Lockpicks can break easily. It requires training to successfully pick a lock.	The Lockpicking skill in the final game requires no item, and the only time Lockpicking fails is on the door leading to Miasma requiring the Crow Emblem Key (or Leg Sweep) to open.
	Cloth cape	A simple cape to keep you warm.
	weapon1		Has 0 Attack, and is Blunt element.
	weapon2_girl		Has 0 Attack, and is Blunt element.

Playable Le'garde

Le'garde has all the makings to be a playable main character rather than just a recruitable party member. All playable characters have a "SELECT" switch in the game which designates them as the main character, "MERCENARY SELECT" for Cahara, "KNIGHT_SELECT" for D'arce, etcetera. An unused one exists that would have been used for Le'garde called "CAPTAIN SELECT", and if Le'garde is made the party lead and this switch is activated, he will work mostly without issue, besides some obvious problems later in the story leading up to Ending D or C, even having unused graphics for most situations.

Unused Party Members

Buckman

Although he will refuse when asked to join you in the final game, Buckman has entries for being both a party member and a class. Despite having his own class, his party actor still uses Mercenary as a place holder, and will appear as Cahara in the party screen and in battle, and as a Marriage in the overworld. He battles automatically like Moonless and the subjects of Necromancy. As a class he cannot equip anything, and will only ever Guard in battle. It's possible the player at some point was meant to escort him to Seymor themselves.

test

A rather nondescript "test" party member. It also uses Mercenary as a placeholder class, and appears as an Embryo in the overworld and the Penance Armor in battle.

First verse, Second verse, Third verse

The function of the Empty Scroll item is to write three verses to obtain a skill or item. In order to actually write on the scroll, the game uses the party naming screen and checks if the verses are correct by checking the names of these "party members".

Debug Tiles

These tiles were placed by the developer to activate certain effects and make testing easier. However, several slipped through the cracks and are still able to be triggered by the player by standing on them and pressing Z.

Fortress

The game's first map, Fortress has two debug tiles still accessible to players. Because the debug tiles are invisible, the screenshot to the right has indicators to mark their exact locations. The effects of each debug tile are as follows:

Tile 1 will:

• Add D'arce to the player's party
• Add Ragnvaldr to the player's party

Tile 2 will:

• Set "MERCENARY SELECT" to "ON", marking Cahara as the main character.
• Increase the party's Hunger by 50
• Give 2 Torches
• Give 4 Tinderboxes
• Give 2 Cloth fragments
• Give 2 Sticks
• Give 5 Light blue vials
• Give 1 Cursed short sword
• Change the Mercenary's equipped weapon to a Cursed short sword
• Give the Mercenary the skill Dash

Temple of Torment (Past)

There is a debug tile in the past version of the Temple of Torment. To activate it you stand in the exact spot pictured (essentially, align the top of your character's head with the right-bottom of the middle door's frame) and press Z. This debug tile will:

• Set "STARVATION_MODE" to "ON", activating all events and enemies only seen on the higher difficulties (despite this, if you're playing on Fear & Hunger difficulty and save after this is activated, the savefile will still say "Fear & Hunger")
• Set "MARRIAGE SELECT" to "ON", marking Marriage as the main character. This can cause some issues if you aren't already actually playing as a Marriage.
• Add D'arce to the player's party
• Add Ragnvaldr to the player's party
• Add the Girl to the player's party
• Increase the party's Hunger by 50
• Give 2 Torches
• Give 1 Tinderbox
• Give 1 Cube of Depths
• Give 2 Cloth fragments
• Give 2 Sticks
• Give 5 Light blue vials
• Give 1 Cursed short sword
• Change the Mercenary's equipped weapon to a Cursed short sword
• Give the Mercenary the skill Dash
• Give 1 Fur armor
• Give 1 Penance armor (normally not obtained as an inventory item)
• Give 1 Quill
• Give 1 Empty scroll

Unused Maps

MAP131

"MAP131" is an unused map that seems to be an intentionally garbled-looking version of the Level 1 Entrance, littered with copies of a yellow, featureless and faceless person who will say cryptic messages. Unknown what the purpose of this room actually is, unless specifically created for dataminers to find.

Bugged Encounters

There are two enemies in the game that are rendered unused due to a bug caused by the Troops they call being empty, causing the player to instantly win the battle and render the enemy dead in the overworld. Their individual body parts (head, torso, arms and legs) DO exist as Enemies, however, and would have been used for these encounters.

Marriage of Flesh (Enki)

On Terror & Starvation difficulty, if not talked to in the Level 1 Library first or not recruited when first met in the Level 7 Catacombs, when the player returns Enki will have become an Abominable Marriage and attack the player on sight.

His torso would have used the same basic Tackle attack the Guard enemies use, he would have used a skill called Hatchet with his left arm (identical to the Hack skill used by Guards), and would have been able to cast Hurting and Locust Swarm with his right arm.

Ragnvaldr (Brain Flower)

On Terror & Starvation difficulty, if talked to in the Hidden Backyard but not found and recruited in the Thicket in time, Ragnvaldr's decapitated body will have been infected by a Brain Flower and attack the player.

The Brain Flower would have used Pollen, his right arm would have used Hatchet, and his left arm would use Punch.

Steam Achievements

The game on Steam only has a single hidden achievement, which is simply called "Test achievement" and is unobtainable without API hacks. However, there are calls in the code for many many more, mostly for defeating bosses and getting certain endings. A full list of the unused achievements can be found here. The test achievement's icon is unique, being the sigil of Gro-goroth.

Unused Audio

To do: Check for more.

zelda_jingle.ogg

Unused is this short jingle that sounds somewhat similar to the fanfare for pulling the Master Sword heard in most Zelda games.

Oddities

• Even though Ser Seymor is neither a monster/deformed nor nude, he will trigger Teratophobia and Erotophobia when encountered in battle. This seems to be because a Guard was copy-pasted and used as a base for him, and Miro forgot to remove the inflicted phobias.

• The Passages of Ma'habre book is used to teleport the player to an otherwise inaccessible area of Ma'habre for a chance at some loot, and then automatically teleport them back to where they were after a set amount of time. However, due to missing collision, players can easily clip through the wall and enter the Central Square area in the city proper. This leads to incredible sequence-breaking.

• Leg Sweep will instantly break down any door that you have the choice of attempting to open by force. This is due to doors being coded as if they were the "legs" of an enemy. This is also highly exploitable in normal play.

• Out of bounds of the game's final area where the player will fight either the Traces of Gro-goroth or the God of Fear and Hunger, there is a yellow featureless NPC like the ones in MAP131 that, after some dialogue, will start the battle against the God of Fear and Hunger, and if beaten play the S-Ending for your played character. This is accessible through normal play via the use of Phase Step.

Internal Names

Given that English is not Miro's first language and the game has misspellings abound, we will ignore those instances for not being notable.

• Like the four playable characters, Le'garde's graphics and code more frequently refer to him as his class, "captain", than his name.
• The Common Event that makes an enemy use their (usually instakill) coinflip attack is called guard_break neck, which is what the Guard enemy's coinflip was in the demo. Upon failing the coinflip the screen would fade to black and textboxes describe the Guard lifting the player with its bare hands and twisting them until their neck snaps. In the final game they'll instead do a move called "Mad rush", which hits multiple times and can be devastating, but isn't an outright instant kill.
• The majority of Trorturr's graphics are simply called dwarf.
• Isayah's assembled battle sprite instead calls him sadon.
• Internally the Lord of the Flies enemy is more frequently referred to as bodysnatcher or just snatcher, fitting for its occupation of kidnapping victims for Valteil. Not to be confused with the other enemy actually called "Body Snatcher" or "tomb raider" in the Tomb of the Gods area before entering Ma'habre.
• The enemy graphics for the Traces of Sylvian are called gigaloth.
• The skill "En garde" is still mostly referred to internally as Backstab, due to having replaced the move in an update.
• The Old Guardian's graphics are simply named nameless2.
• The Night Lurch is sometimes referred to as clicker.
• The Black Witch's graphics are labeled black_angel.
• The Abominable Marriage is called fusion.
• The tileset for the Void is named As_Plane, likely for "Astral Plane" or "Ascension Plane".