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Hey Hangry Fam,
We’re back with another behind-the-scenes dev drop after a week or R&R, and this one’s got chocolate flying everywhere.
We’ve been experimenting with interior delivery challenges, and something’s clicked. Literally. Certain moments in NomNom Express now flip into a first-person perspective, letting you hurl your non-essential food items (looking at you, Choctagons) straight into the faces of unsuspecting (and often claw laden) enemies. We’re toying with this being optional in open gameplay or purely in close combat situations indoors, but testing will provide feedback on this one for sure.
It’s weird, but it works
Expect:
🍫 Splat effects as chocolate covers your enemies
🦀 Bonks and bounces of flying snacks that aren’t tough enough
🍕 Slippery trip-ups, we’re making surfaces in our levels vary the difficulty to navigate.. I.e. Grease, Oil Slicks, Water Puddles and Mud
😱 I’m sure a taunt or reaction from the player at some point will be cool too!
These segments add a deeper sense of fun, urgency, and chaos to play… and we’re loving how they contrast with the broader third person platforming flow. There’s a lot to be said about games that bridge genres and styles being a no go, but we say why not?? Research shows that gamers love variety around a core narrative to believe in, and so one of our goals is to expand on this core theme and play with and between the boundaries of what people love most about collectathons, 3D platformers and the thrill of an FPS.
We’re continuing to block out the core structure of our hybrid game, and currently working across:
A mix of collector-thon mechanics and FPS choices
Delivery-based objectives that connect each area through a bigger social impact loop
Naming of worlds, rewards and the different challenges players will face
Each world will have its own vibe, its own logic, and its own group of very hungry (and picky) residents waiting for their recipe drop-offs. Your job? Keep them fed, fight off chaos, and try not to get melted by lava loafs or eaten by giant rabid squirrels..
We’re still early on visuals (gameplay first, always), but we can already feel the influences seeping in:
Overwatch – For that expressive, stylised character design
Looney Tunes – For the elastic humour and cartoon logic
Dishonored, Prey – For layered worldbuilding and atmosphere (Ambitious much?)
We want worlds that feel alive, but also leave room for food fights and slapstick gags. There’s beauty in chaos. Controlled chaos, anyway. So we’re all for it. The first world we’re exploring and building out is called Woof Creek and it’s a sleepy town with feral Squirrels trying to steal your orders while you deliver to the folk of the town. There will undoubtedly be weirdness, aliens and animals to rescue along your trip for extra badges and kudos for sure. Slowly slowly connecting the dots of a fair few experiments in Unity to flesh out this core playable loop before we invite testers at this early stage.
Here's Hangry Andy's latest ramblings and in the trenches development progress with this FPS/Platformer hybrid test:
In the coming weeks, we will be reviewing and submitting to three different grant funds... with £20k, £30k, and £50k maximum pots on offer. These funds will help us develop:
Our core game loop 7 playable vertical slice
Web3 and charitable integrations
And community tools that bring everything full circle
Grants are competitive, but we’re proud of the work so far, with a success rate of 3 out of 5 key funds - the Hangry Animals ecosystem is starting to click into place. Thanks to everyone cheering us on, we’re building this for the long run as always.
So yes: we will have FPS elements now. It’s still silly. It’s still impact-driven. And it’s all coming together nicely.
Catch you in the chocolate splatter zone soon.
Stay classy!
Team Hangry
