If you like your roguelites first-person and spooky, there’s a good chance that you’ve played the likes of Clover Pit, Inscryption, and Bucksot Roulette. Don’t Let It Starve is the next game to enter the same conversation.
The inspiration behind the new horror roguelite Don’t Let It Starve is precisely the three games that I just mentioned. That said, Eduardo Scarpato’s twisted creation is especially reverent to Clover Pit and owes a big debt to Panik Arcade, with its dingy location, grainy PSX-era visuals, and macabre sense of humour.
Read More: Check out my Clover Pit review here!
But we’re talking about video games here, and they’re all standing on the shoulders of giants, so the big question is instead: Is Don’t Let It Starve any good?
To that question, I would say: so far, so good. I’ve only spent one full evening in its company, but I have found Don’t Let It Starve to be a highly engaging dinner date.
What is Don’t Let It Starve all about, then?
Just like Clover Pit, you’re trapped in a room and at the mercy of an otherworldly being. In this instance, the thing that you mustn’t let starve is the gangly monster who is hiding in the vents. This beast in the darkness has multiple limbs and a gob full of horrible teeth, but it likes good food, and if you don’t provide it, it’ll source some directly from your body.
While you are able to move around your kitchen-turned-cell, the core part of the game takes place in a bento box, which you must fill with food as elegantly and snugly as possible. This is to satisfy the demon behind you and stave off your own demise, and you do so by picking one of three boxes, filling it, serving it up, and then banking the points you’ve earned.
It’s essentially a randomised puzzle, and the challenge is to arrange each box as cleverly as possible, boosting your multiplier as high as you can in the process.
As mentioned, there are three options. There’s the smaller box that gives you resources for the shop but offers fewer opportunities to pack in the ingredients, perfect if you’re feeling confident and want to boost your economy with three credits. Then there is also a medium one that lets you keep ticking things over with one credit earned, and a large box that costs a credit to play but gives you much more space to play different ingredients and thus earn more points.
Chop Shop
Just like you can in Clover Pit, you can spend your credits in a shop to get items that affect your choices in a variety of interesting ways. Apparently, there are more than 100 in the game. These items come in different rarities, and the longer you play, the more you unlock, bringing new variety to future runs. You also unlock “chef specials” between rounds, as well as items that increase the chances of certain foods turning up in the draw.
Speaking of the draw, it refreshes like a slot machine every time you pick something new to add to your box. This constant turnover creates a stick-or-twist tension, especially as you get to the last couple of spaces and you’re hoping for a certain item to show up and complete your box, giving your score a tremendous boost.
I’ve not got to the endless mode yet, but I’m glad to see there’s one waiting for me if I get that far. There are also challenges, including time-pressured modes, so it certainly sounds like the developer has made a solid effort to build in some longevity for those who want it.
The constantly rising targets, the ever-growing mechanical complexity, and the game’s sassy sense of humour ensure that Don’t Let It Starve engages and entertains. I don’t think I’d recommend this instead of Clover Pit; however, if you enjoyed Panik Arcade’s slot machine roguelike and you’re after something with a similar flavour, there are enough points of difference for me to recommend you tuck into the demo at the very least.
