If I have one true love in this world, it’s horror. Give me things that go bump in the night, things that threaten to grab your ankle if your foot hangs off the bed, or even a human pie baked by a demented barber, and I’m there. I don’t know how to explain it, but there is just a sense of peace and tranquilly that washes over my soul when I’m watching Billy the Puppet explain a puzzle or listening to Ghostface make a call – which is why I should probably start budgeting for therapy.
Anyway, if, like me, you need some severed limbs to be able to truly wind down, then boy, oh boy, do I have the game for you. Ravenous Devils is a cooking simulation game that is every bit as macabre, morose and gory as your favourite 80s slasher flick.
If you’ve ever seen or heard of the tale of Sweeney Todd, then you know the basics of what you’re in for with Ravenous Devils. Players control Percival and Hildred, the crazed husband and wife duo who have just successfully faked their deaths to start anew. The couple’s new life consists of running a combination tailer/pub together; only this isn’t your average tailer/pub. This is a place that sells you clothes made from the clothes of others and pies made from the aforementioned mentioned others whose clothes were upcycled.
The decision to serve some long pigs was clearly a good one because customers love the food. As you progress through the game and unlock new recipes, you’ll start using the bodies for more than just fillings. You’ll also start using them as fertiliser for your organic vegetables – only the best for your customers.
Now make no mistake; if anything is more brutal and unforgiving than the game’s theme, it’s the mechanics. Between constantly having to murder customers, cleaning up the mess that killing them leaves, cooking them up and serving the food while also sowing new clothes, there will barely be a moment’s downtime while playing.
To deal with the game’s fast-paced nature that gets more and more complicated as the game progresses, you will have to constantly be planning your next move to make sure you keep your customers happy, paying and returning so that your reputation and cash will grow.
As you progress through the game and unlock more and more actions to complete during the day, you can also pay to upgrade your equipment, allowing you to cook faster, sow quicker or even just get more resources from fewer corpses. This allows your day to feel slightly more manageable as you get more and more things to manage.
The main selling point for me is how addictive Ravenous Devils truly is. I remember going into the game “just to see”, and then the next thing I knew, 5 hours had passed, and I had a higher kill count than Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer combined. However, this is also the game’s biggest downfall. Ravenous Devil is a cooking sim with a story meaning that, unlike endless games such as Overcooked, Ravenous Devils very much ends – and quicker than I’d have liked.
