#funger — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #funger, aggregated by home.social.
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I say it that way as a troll, but I mean it. Fear & Hunger is a point and click.
You don't grind or level up, so despite appearances, it's not really a full RPG.
Gameplay ultimately boils down to the player themself gaining knowledge, solving puzzles, paying attention to lore, and when all else fails, and painful, run-ending trial and error.
You proceed through the game by memorizing what to do, where to go, and what items to use where. Even combat has been described as a puzzle: it becomes trivial (and many enemies only possible at all) once you know what order to play which moves in, and this generally follows some kind of logic, if only in retrospect after learning via mistake.
The brutal RNG may arguably be less like a point and click, but if you include the meta-game of knowing when to save, that just becomes part of the puzzle, too.
It's a point and click with alternate endings where consequences matter.
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Fear & Hunger is arguably a point and click.
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I'm realizing that another thing Funger has in common with Disco Elysium is detailed, complex, and mysterious worldbuilding that never fully explains itself. You're expected to piece it together yourself.
Worldbuilding is my favorite part of writing fiction, and my favorite part of reading it. So it makes sense I'd be mesmerized by this aspect of both games.
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Probably the best entry-level let's play for Funger would be the series by Morning on YouTube. It's edited down to keep it moving, and his voices for the characters still echo in my head when I watch other let's plays. He really brings them to life.
Super Eyepatch Wolf's video essay, The Cruelest Video Game, is also a really great intro, but as an analytical summary.
I just finished Worm Girl's recap of the canon storylines in the first game, which helped connect some of it for me. The story is told in so many pieces, through lore books, environmental storytelling, in-game events that are hard to understand, bits of character backstories, and the fact that choices can divert you from the canon... it's a well-rounded world and all the ingredients are there for a coherent through-line. I just need someone to draw a map.
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What's super weird is that... I actually did download Fear & Hunger to my SteamDeck in 2023, a year or two before I knew what it was via seeing the Super Eyepatch Wolf analysis video that launched it into fame.
Somehow, without knowing what it was, I downloaded it, and actually logged under an hour of gameplay.
I do not remember any of this. I don't know if I paid for it. I don't know why I got it. I don't remember gameplay. I don't know if I got eaten by the dogs at the beginning.
I generally have a sense of visual familiarity looking at any game I've played before, even a little. But didn't realize any of this until I found it in my library a few weeks back.
AFAIK, it was an obscure indie game at that time. I was avoiding everything but idle and rougelike card games at that point. Any game where failure was even an option gave me anxiety in 2023.
It's a huge mystery.
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You know, given how sloppy these streamers are playing Funger, I probably could play it actually. I've seen enough let's plays to know enough of the mechanics and what to look out for that I'd probably do ok.
Like Super Eyepatch Wolf is constantly forgetting to do little things that would make his runs so much easier. He forgets to level up on the Hexen, forgets to use a bunch of his items, misses loot, doesn't try to create any synergies at all. And still manages to beat it repeatedly for the various endings.
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Do you disagree?
I'm thinking of examples of problematic horror, for sure. I'm thinking of some horror that went to far in how it was made, where the horror was way more real than it ethically should have been. Where the horror reinforced systems of power or justified real-life horrors. Where it punched the wrong direction or depicted untruths.
But I can't really call *any* of it "edgelord." Because in every case, the creators were trying to do what horror is meant to do: shock, horrify, disgust, challenge, question, push boundaries, and demolish taboos.
It's fine to not be into any of that. You simply don't like horror. Or you don't like certain kinds of horror. Totally cool.
But those of us who like horror, that's what we're here for.
/🧵
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CW: SA, CSA, Fear and Hunger
That's hardly gratuitous "only there to be edgy" stuff. That's deep storytelling that resonates with a survivor like me. It says something about intergenerational trauma and the very core nature of trauma to self-propagate. The ending gives power back to the most victimized, in a "last shall be first" kind of way, though it's a terrible kind of power, which itself is a statement.
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CW: CSA, Fear and Hunger, the most shocking parts of the game, one major SPOILER in last paragraph but it's offset with brackets
Funger is set in a terrible world that is arguably even more terrible than our own, where even the gods are indifferent (at best) to your suffering, and the humans are actively seeking it out. There is no one to care about you, even if you're missing both arms and have an infection, so you'd best soldier on.
The game *does* make commentary on it. SA and child exploitation are among the bad things like everything else. The choices you can make with regard to the child ("Girl") in your care can create the only sense available in this environ that someone is getting care and attention. It is entirely up to you whether you spend your last resources to care for her. It generates feelings of dissonance within the player, because also...
Everything in this game wants to take Girl for various awful reasons, and it's beneficial to your immediate gameplay if you give her up.
That is not gratuitous. It is not there just to be edgy. It's to reflect on the horror of your own pull to become the monster when pressed in dire situations. It is a reflection of yourself.
There is one choice you are offered where, if you DO choose the bad option, the game actively does not allow you to, and defers to Girl's opinion on the matter.
All of this was done with forethought and is saying some very important things, largely through uncomfortable emotions.
All this culminates in quite the statement in the canon Ending A:
[SPOILER starts here]: Girl's suffering twists her into one of the most powerful, terrifying gods the world has ever seen, and it kicks off a new age of Fear and Hunger leading into the sequel. Getting her to the end alive is the whole point of the game. [Spoiler End]
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CW: SA, Funger
I've gotten in the habit of not assuming when someone has not been a victim of SA. It's way too easy to mistake, and it's a retraumatizing thing to accuse someone of, especially in a disagreement. I've been at the receiving end of this too many times.
But this reviewer took on such an air of distance from the topic that I can't help it. So I'll make the exception here: I don't think he has ever been the victim of SA, and likely hasn't spoken in-depth with anyone who has.
For example:
Reviewer: "I don't really care about the nudity or sex [in Funger]. That's just a part of life like anything else. But SA and implied child exploitation?"
I had a visceral reaction to this dismissal.
Because, YEAH, unfortunately, for many of us, that stuff's ALSO "just been part of life." It has been for significant part of your audience. Some of us are living with it years after it repeatedly happened, and that's why some of us turn to seriously dark media like this for comfort.
I enjoy Funger let's plays, reviews, and analysis because after being broken in real life, I want completely unglamorized, emotionally unfiltered depictions of my experience, in a completely hopeless setting the way my life feels sometimes, to really mirror the devastation and horror that sexual violence created.
Funger looks like the inside of my head on a bad day. I'd rather it be outside my head than swirling around in it.
Straight-up, he's saying,"That's never been a part of MY life so it's pointless to include it. But the dismemberment, that's perfectly ok!"
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CW: SA, Funger
If you find that a sensitive topic in horror is handled in a certain way — for instance, if it is excusing, promoting, or glorifying terrible behaviors without any extra comment or contrast — it may be problematic. Let's crack it open!
But in order to do that, you have to understand the topic fairly well. More importantly, you'll have to understand *yourself* and the feelings it's bringing up.
This reviewer stopped at "This is making me uncomfortable and I don't like it. EDGELORD!!"
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CW: SA, Funger
I would say that in this setting, removing the SA would be a glaring omission. A contrived, gratuitous omission.
As a survivor, ignoring the SA that would clearly occur in such a setting would cause me more pain than the fact that it *is* depicted in the game.
After all, SA happens here, in our relatively calm and nice world, even in its peaceful places, like churches and schools.
Leaving out the SA would be saying something else. Something incredibly problematic.
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CW: SA, Funger
Funger is shocking. It takes the themes of the manga/anime Berserk and amplifies them.
You are playing in the darkest dungeon within a hopeless, soul-sucking world. You will frequently see immense suffering, causal torture, dismemberment, human sacrifice, gore, cannibalism, body horror, religious corruption, child exploitation, and yes, sexual violence. Humans and hideous monsters alike are trying to do something nonconsensual to you, and whatever it is, you won't like it.
Out of all that, this reviewer took issue with the SA.
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@unhottu Pocketcat?? Is that you??? #funger #fearAndHunger
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CW: clothed erection
attack on @hacksaw
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If I were in the world of Fear and Hunger, I would definitely be in a Sylvian cult. The probability only increases the more modern the setting.
Not necessarily the Bunny Masks though. But definitely a Sylvian cult.
#funger #funger2 #sylvian #fearAndHunger #videogames #gaming -
Just got Ending A for Fear and Hunger. If I'm being totally honest, it was a bit underwhelming. But maybe the real ending was the friends we killed along the way? ♥️
#funger2 #funger #FearAndHunger #videogames #gamer #gaming -
I was playing Fear and Hunger 2 in the gym while walking on the treadmill. A friend came up behind me to say hello and I almost jumped out of my skin! 😅
Good morning !
#gym #horror #survivalhorror #videogames #funger #funger2 #FearAndHunger #FearAndHunger2 #GoodMorning #games #workingout #walking #scarey -
So I started up the oven, I set the timer, and then when the timer went off, I opened the oven and there was nothing inside. I had left the food on the counter! I exclaimed, "Adam, why are you like this?" And now I'm back to playing Fear and Hunger for another 20 minutes.
#neurodivergent #actuallyautistic #adhd #funger #funger2 #FearAndHunger #food #audhd -
I slept so poorly last night. I went to bed at 10pm and fell asleep after 2am. I was supposed to wake up at 5am, but let me tell you, that did not happen. No idea why. Maybe playing Fear and Hunger 2 before bed? But I was just running around, collecting loot in places I forgot it and fighting a few enemies I forgot but now can oneshot here and there. It's not like I was doing anything spooky! Anyway, good morning!
#videogames #insomnia #funger #fearandhunger #termina #sleep #goodmorning -
"A terrifying presence has entered the room..."
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