In Hunger, you play a young girl trying to escape an unsettling world beneath the waves - a place called The Maw. Imagine the worst venue from Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares filled with oddly proportioned horror people and dropped at the bottom of the ocean.
Chilled? Charmed? Creeped the Hell out? Yeah, a giant wailing figure chasing you through a darkened dining room will do that to you. Hunger looks to follow in the tradition of atmospheric platformers such as Limbo, Never Alone, and The Swapper with its bleakly beautiful blend of evocative imagery (long bony hands clutching at you under a table, giant chefs hacking flesh at stained counters) and wordless execution.
If the protagonist's floaty clambering over dynamically lit 3D environments look a little Sackboy-esq, that’s with good reason: Tarsier developed LittleBigPlanet for PS Vita and are currently working on Tearaway Unfolded for PS4. It’s a genre they’re calling ‘suspense-adventure’. The 40-person Swedish studio write on their blog: "At its heart, Hunger is a simple idea. A young girl is trapped in a labyrinth full of monsters and wants to escape. It will be your job to help her do this.”
“Coupled with an unnerving 'Dollhouse Perspective', tactile controls, and characters with soft, dark centres, Hunger will take your hand and let it go at the worst possible moment!" With the game in its early stages, entering development last summer when Tarsier received €200,000 in funding from the Creative Europe Programme, a release date has yet to be announced, but it is heading to PC with further platforms unconfirmed.
