Sometimes a whole game sprouts from a small seed of an idea. In the case of Dungeon Munchies, it’s a simple, funny premise: you’re an unpaid zombie intern. A necromancer chief named Simmer is raising you as part of her plan to unleash a new generation of magical dishes on the world. Why? How? You don’t get paid enough to ask those questions because you don’t get paid at all. So go ahead, search the dungeon for ingredients. Don’t worry about dying: endless, inescapable revival is part of your benefits package.
This concept fits in seamlessly with a mechanical foundation. You explore an (almost completely linear) side-scrolling world, marching, dodging falling and battling monsters. Then you harvest ingredients from those monsters and cook magical dishes that visibly mutate your body, Binding of Isaac style.
That in itself would be a fine game – perhaps a kind of roguelite. But that’s not what we have here. Over the three years that Dungeon Munchies spent in Early Access before it was fully released, it grew into something far more strange. From what I’ve played and seen (about half completed myself, half watching a friend streaming the tail), Taiwan-based three-man indie studio maJAJa let their ideas down in the best possible way.
I’m an idiot sandwich
Dungeon Munchies takes its silly scribble-on-a-napkin concept and expands it into a character-led, story-driven adventure. The cast of screwball crazies, mostly undead or talking veggies, somehow develop into a deep well of pathos as the story explores how strange the world would be if guava fruits were carnivorous and corn was philosophical. (All this while somehow sneaking into a side plot about a canceled manga series called Captain DUI, which is about a man who fights crime with the power of DUI.)
The jokes come thick and fast. The fast-traveling ‘teleport’ shrines you use to go back just cut you into pieces, which are then transported by skeletons to another station to be reassembled. You discover some very questionable ‘alternative’ recipes using poppy seeds and cocoa plants, and you get your air dash prowess by installing a jet turbine sphincter.
While not every joke finds its mark, there are enough deeply silly bits of dialogue, item descriptions, and wacky monster designs to make exploring this strange dungeon world a pleasure, even if the story takes darker, more serious twists and turns. Dungeon Munchies is carried by its story and its characters, as well as a real sense of adventure as the stakes (and steaks) continue to rise. It’s a world built on jokes, but taken surprisingly seriously. Anyone who has seen Adventure Time in its entirety will feel right at home.
Not to say the combat in Dungeon Munchies isn’t interesting – it is – but it’s also… messy. It has an excited amateur feel to it, like that other bizarre indie gem, Vampire Survivors. Movement is simple and a bit stiff, with not particularly satisfying jumping physics, while fighting is essentially all about holding down your attack buttons and positioning yourself so that enemies run out of health before you do. But, like the premise, what looks one-note has surprising flavor and depth.
As movement and combat gradually become more complex as your zombie body gains more upgrades through surgery, most of the subtlety comes from character building. You don’t rise in Dungeon Munchies, but you are what you eat. Your stomach can hold seven dishes at once, some giving simple stat boosts like increased HP and others giving complex powers like speeding up consecutive melee hits at the cost of slightly reduced damage.
Between these food-based powers and separate weapons equipped in your left and right hands, a clever number-cruncher can turn their shuffling sous-chef into a magical Magimix, albeit sometimes at the cost of visibility. With half a dozen effects going off on each hit, battles can feel like two angry particle effect balls smashing into each other. This is probably why many boss fights have phases where you can do no damage and just need to focus on dodging.
soul food
Thanks to the limited capacity of your stomach and the linear nature of the game that constantly introduces you to new recipes and equipment, you will constantly change your character build. It’s messy, but curiously immersive, and I see myself drifting deep into theoretical territory after the credits – a New Game+ mode awaits me there.
Dungeon Munchies is a game with a lot of heart, and that’s especially evident in how much custom art there is. Enemy sprites (especially bosses) are large, clear and playfully animated. There is also a shocking amount of incidental art used in the dialogue. Even if battles sometimes turn into a hard-to-decompose ball of pixels, it’s easy to see that there’s real passion behind this game. It is an infectious form of energy.
Like a team of talented yet casual amateur chefs, maJAJa brings lots of tasty ideas to the table with Dungeon Munchies. Even if the individual ingredients aren’t the freshest and the presentation won’t win Michelin stars, there’s something special about it. Warming and homemade – it’s almost emphatic indie. It would be a bit of a cliché to say that the special ingredient is love, but this isn’t a game shy about worn-out tropes.
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