Review - The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty

Developer: Zerocreation Game

Publisher: 2P Games

Available on: PC

I had the opportunity to play The Hungry Lamb: Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty by 2P Games, currently offered for the PC. This game is an interactive story that offers the player decisions at certain points in the story. The story follows the story of Liang, a smuggler in the market of selling and transporting individuals, referred to as lambs, to affluent and powerful families. You’re joined by an associate referred to as Tongue on your adventures. 

Upon first play, the player is greeted with a basic load screen with standard, yet minimal, options to Save, Load, or adjust options. Once the story begins, the story progresses slowly with dialogue in Chinese with subtitles. It wasn’t until a significant portion of the story passed that I was greeted with my first opportunity to choose the direction of the story. The decision-making element did not come frequently enough to maintain my interest in the game. A vast majority of the player input is relegated to clicking to continue, which I would click through as I attempted to find another checkpoint to which to make a choice, which often came very few and far between. At first, the storyline was intriguing but quickly degraded to monotonous, not taking much effort in retaining the player’s interest. 

The characters in the story were one-dimensional and mostly milquetoast. There is very little in the way of character backstory which results in a lack of intrigue or appeal.

The visual effects of the game are monotonous at best, cycling through basic backgrounds with a character image overlay in an attempt to complement the on-screen dialogue. The game also presents a basic Chinese-themed soundtrack that drones into the background the further one plays the game. The game is single-player with no multiplayer capabilities, which makes sense for the genre of this game. 

Overall, my initial interest in the game quickly waned, giving way to the desire to just click through the dialogue in hopes of opportunities to interact with the game. The graphics were pleasant to view but did not make up for the lack of storyline. I also felt disheartened by the lack of English audio dialogue, which may have benefitted the game by allowing the player to avoid focusing on the text on the screen throughout the entirety of the game. I am glad to have experienced this game, but it is certainly not one I wish to repeat.

Thanks to 2P Games for the opportunity to play and review this game.