HUNGERHOLD

Starve. Learn. Reign.

You wake in a cave, starving, with no memory. Find water. Strike a spark before the wolves come out. Make it through the night.

Then you die, because everyone does. Your child picks up where you left off, with your traits in their blood and your keepsake in their pack. Every life teaches the next. Generation after generation, your family climbs Maslow's hierarchy of needs, from a cold cave to a kingdom.

A world that reacts

• Fire spreads through dry grass, bushes and your own camp. Wind carries sparks. Burnt land grows back richer.
• Water flows. Scoop it from the pond with a bark bowl, splash out a blaze, or dig a channel and let the pond do it for you.
• Dig into layered earth and rock. Tunnels can cave in, and you'll hear them creak first.
• Weather has causes: dry spells, storms, lightning, floods, hail and quakes, each one warned before it hits. Most lives meet at least one, even down in the Cave.
• Animals flee fire, and wolves back off from a burning brand. Your family fights fires at camp.

A family that remembers

• Every tombstone says how you died, and whose fault it was ("burned in the grass fire you lit").
• Choose your heir from your own children, each with inherited traits. Keep a family tree and a chronicle of every life.
• Find the graves of your ancestors, and the ruins of families that fell.

From a cave to a kingdom

• Your first camp works from day one: stack a woodpile, give your family jobs, dry meat on a rack, and follow the goal line to what's next.
• Five tiers: Cave → Cabin → Village → City → Kingdom. Each one automates the chores of the last.
• Your camp grows while you explore: store food at the fire, raise a lean-to, then huts, then a town.
• Hire hunters and foragers, pass laws, make inventions, deal with other peoples, and win one of six Legacies.
• The Pyramid dashboard shows which of your people's needs are met, with advisors who suggest the next fix.

Lives that fit an evening

• A life lasts about 15–25 minutes, with warnings before the end.
• "A good place to stop" at every dawn, and a card that shows what each life banked.
• Save and quit anytime. Continue drops you back exactly where you were.

Play your way

• Keyboard, mouse, gamepad or touch. On phones, tap to walk.
• Full screen in one click, with separate music and effects volume.
• Cozy or Standard pace, key and pad rebinding, high contrast, bigger text and reduced motion.
• Up to five family houses, each founded in its own homeland: forest, marsh, highland, coast or valley.

Controls: A/D or the arrows to walk, W to jump, E to use, Q to eat, F to fight or use the held item, Z to rest, Esc to pause. Or tap and click to walk.

Pay what you want. $0 is fine; $5 keeps the family growing. Your save lives in your browser. Use Move family on the title screen to carry it to another device.

How this game was made: The code, most in-game text and the tools were written with AI coding assistants and edited by us. The art and sound are made by people: 94% of the art and 97% of the sound and music come from 21 licensed packs by human artists and composers, all credited in the game (About → Made by other creators). Some of that art was edited by AI to match one style and is credited as "modified". A few things are still drawn in code (AI-written): the ground's earth and rock layers, the cave's back wall, the camp's huts, the sky effects and a few fallback sprites. Settings → Art → Classic shows the all-code look. No AI-generated art packs or AI music are used.

Designed in 2014, built in 2026 by Biosic Studios, biosicstudios.com/hungerhold.