Platform: PC
Developer: Zerocreationgame
Release: Apr 22, 2024 (for Steam)
Price: $10 USD
The Hungry Lamb is a visual novel that differs from most visual novels in that it’s not Japanese and it’s set in the Late Ming Dynasty in Ancient China.
Plot: You play as Liang, who along with his companion Tongue, offers to take a job trafficking 4 young girls (called ‘lambs’) to Luoyang for payment. Along the way, you discover the horrors that villagers have to deal with during the famine of the era and also get close to one of the girls Sui who offered to be one of the ‘lambs’ that will eventually get delivered to ‘Swine Demon’ and does so for revenge.
Gameplay: This is a pure visual novel with very little gameplay. There’s some choices here and there, some of which will result in a game over, but it doesn’t happen very frequently. It’s 90% to 95% reading.
Characters:
-Liang: The main character. You rarely see his face on the screen. He is essentially a smuggler and scoundrel who has killed dozens of people in his line of work, but is actually one of the few people in this game that has any kind of sympathy or morals at all.
-Tongue: Liang’s companion. In contrast to Liang, he sees the girls purely as commodities to be bought and sold. Not a very nice person most of the time.
-Sui: The secondary protagonist. A girl who grew up in tough conditions and offers herself as to be one of the lambs on the journey in order to get revenge on the Swine Demon because he murdered her sister.
-Hong’er: One of the ‘lambs’ on the journey. She is very protective of her younger sister
-Cui’er: The younger sister of Hong’er. She is the youngest of the lambs and often very naive and gets herself into trouble.
-Qiong Hua: From a well off family, she was kidnapped and made to be one of the lambs. Her personality is more quiet and refined.
-Swine Demon: A huge 500lb monster in the capital of Luoyang who feasts on young children
Graphics: Typical for visual novels, well drawn anime style graphics but without the typical ‘fanservice’ type appearances.
Music: Mostly fits the mood of the game but it doesn’t try to stand out too much and is mostly ambient and soft.
Conclusion: 8/10. I like this game for it’s dark and realistic portrayal of the horrors of war and famine in the late Ming Dynasty. It’s not a setting that’s often explored. The Hungry Lamb pulls no punches. You see cannibalism in this game. You see a young 11 year old girl (Sui) forced to behave like a 30 year old due to how much burden she’s had to deal with in her life. Most of the characters in this game are outright unpleasant assholes. Life as a peasant is harsh and unpleasant and you really feel that in this game. It’s not your typical slice of life Japanese type visual novel with the cheerful bubbly girls and I’m all for this change in variety. I do think that the other characters other than Sui could have been fleshed out a bit better. I use the native Mandarin voices and they sound superb. It’s not for everyone, but for the low price of this game it’s definitely worth a try and I do recommend it.
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