BIOSIC 
HUNGERHOLD
Every life teaches the next.
Hand-me-down survival: one short life, one family that remembers. Free in your browser, pay what you want.
Watch the v3.0 trailer
Everything in the trailer is captured from the game. The goat is fine. Watch on YouTube
Trailer credits
- Music: "Fantasy Medieval Ambient Music Pack" by alkakrab (alkakrab.itch.io): Silverbrook, Throne of Storms and Elven Dawn.
- Sounds: Raccoon Chatter by antumdeluge, from video by jnargus, CC BY 3.0, opengameart.org/content/raccoon-chatter (edited). Flint and steel by Benboncan (freesound.org #66457), CC BY 3.0 (edited). Grey Heron XC432919 by Joost van Bruggen, xeno-canto.org, CC BY-SA 4.0 (trimmed).
- Goat bell: goatbell by skoul (freesound.org #546844) and Cowbell.wav by HUMANOISEMAKER (freesound.org #148931), both CC0. More sounds (CC0) by haeldb, AntumDeluge, technopeasant, zeroisnotnull, qubodup, rubberduck and StumpyStrust; "400 Sounds Pack" by Chequered Ink; "RPG Essentials SFX" by Leohpaz; "Nature Ambient Pack Vol 1" by JC Sounds, CC BY 4.0, re-encoded.
- Art: Anokolisa ("Legacy Fantasy" and "Hero's Journey"), LYASeeK ("MiniFolks"), Elthen, sfelly79, Digital Moons ("Pixel Skies"), carysaurus, Glionox, RottingPixels and Crusenho. Campfire animation by SMStudios, CC BY 4.0, downscaled. Fonts: Pixelify Sans and Chivo Mono (SIL Open Font License).
Live, die, hand it down
You wake in a cave, starving, with no memory. Find water. Strike a spark before the wolves come out. Make it through the night. Every new family wakes to its own opening: a dying ember, a sleeping rabbit, a storm on the way, or a stranger's cold camp outside.
Then you die, because everyone does. The valley warns you first, and your stone says how. Your child picks up where you fell, carrying your lesson, with your traits in their blood and your keepsake in their pack. Generation by generation, the family climbs from a cold cave to a kingdom.
Roguelikes follow a lone rogue. Hungerhold follows a family. We call the form a kinlike.
- Version
- 3.0, out now
- Price
- Pay what you want ($0 is fine)
- Play
- In your browser, or download for Windows, Mac and Linux
- A life
- About 10 to 25 minutes
- Controls
- Keyboard, mouse, gamepad or touch
What's new in v3.0
A family that remembers
- Every death gets a stone. It says what happened and why, with an epitaph that is fair, named and usually yours.
- Hand down. Your lesson passes to your heir. They wake by the hearth knowing it, and can visit your stone.
- Family traits. Quirks that run in the blood: the one who hummed, who walked in their sleep, who sneezed at the rabbits. And heirs who look like their parents.
- Make and Know-how. The family keeps its own book of what works, and who figured it out.
A valley with opinions
- The Elder. Has advice for everyone. Mostly about goats.
- Things happen. A raccoon raids the food store at night. A goat eats the lean-to, right before the rain finds the fire. A child brings home a wolf pup, and it stays. The Elder sleepwalks toward the pond.
- Evenings at the fire. The family dozes, chats and dances, trades rumours of the cave, and watches a pond busy with fish and a heron.
- A bigger world. 14 new places, 16 backdrops, new skies and new weather.
By hand
- Strike the spark yourself, or stare down a wolf. Both optional, both skippable.
Quality of life
- The title hillside. A stone for every life you have played.
- Streaming mode. One switch in Settings. Numbered heir cards let your chat vote on who wakes next.
- Backups. Your family is kept safe through every update, and you can save it to a file from Settings or the death screen.
What's in it
A family that remembers
- Every stone says how you died and whose fault it was ("burned in the grass fire you lit"), with a line on what to try next time.
- 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 before yours.
Lives that fit an evening
- A life takes somewhere between ten and twenty-five minutes, with warnings before the end.
- Every dawn gives you a good place to stop, and a card shows what the life banked.
- Save and quit any time. Continue drops you back exactly where you were.
The valley warns you first
- Snakes hiss. A boar paws the ground before it charges. Every rockfall creaks twice. Deep water turns your breath red early.
- Fire spreads through dry grass, bushes and your own camp, and wind carries sparks. Burnt land grows back richer.
- Water flows. Scoop it with a bark bowl, splash out a blaze, or dig a channel and let the pond do the work.
- Dig into layered earth and rock. Wide tunnels creak, crack and cave in unless you prop them with timber.
- Weather has causes: dry spells, storms, gales, lightning, floods, hail and quakes.
A home that outlives you
- 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, from Cave to Cabin to Village to City to Kingdom. Each one takes over the chores of the last.
- Hire hunters and foragers, pass laws, make inventions, deal with other peoples, and win one of six Legacies.
- A needs board shows which of your people's needs are met, with advisors who suggest the next fix.
Share it
- Share this life: turn any stone into a picture card, square or tall for stories. Only what's on the card leaves your device.
- Today's valley: the same world for everyone, every day. Compare how you died.
- Friend links: send a world or a gift. A friend can visit your valley for one life without touching their own family.
Play your way
- Keyboard, mouse, gamepad or touch. On phones, tap to walk.
- A gentle Guide points out each new system as it arrives. You can turn it off.
- Cozy or Standard pace, key and pad rebinding, high contrast, bigger text, reduced motion, and separate music and effects volume.
- Up to five family houses, each founded in its own homeland: forest, marsh, highland, coast or valley, each under its own sky.
See it in action
Real captures from v3.0. Tap any shot to see it full size.
Free in your browser
Play right in your browser on itch.io, or download the zip, unzip it and open index.html: Windows, Mac or Linux, no install, and it works offline. It's pay-what-you-want: $0 is fine, and $5 keeps the family growing.
Your family is saved in the browser you play in, and kept safe through every update. Save a backup to a file from Settings or the death screen, or use Move family on the title screen to carry it to another device. Playing in Safari? The game suggests adding it to your Home Screen, which keeps your family safe. 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, S to dig, Z to rest, Esc to pause. Or tap and click to walk.
How this game is made
The code and most of the text were written with AI assistance and edited by us. The art, sound and music are by human artists, all credited in the game (About · Made by other creators). Much of that pack art was edited with AI tools to fit one style, and those pieces are credited as "modified". No AI-generated art packs or AI music are used.
Designed in 2014, built in 2026 by Biosic Studios. Pixel artists, composers and sound designers: we're commissioning more human-made work, and every contributor is credited in the game. partners@biosicstudios.com
