Eat Your Young

Eat Your Young is kind of like a strategy game. It’s also kind of like an adventure game. I guess you could call it an eating simulator. If you know exactly what genre it is, please don’t tell us; that would kill the mystery.

In Eat Your Young, you step into the role of the Gribb, an almost cryptozoological creature with a penchant for eating its own offspring. You can’t help yourself, really–they’re bite sized! After a bad winter, you are the only Gribb left, and you’re eating yourself into extinction. Struggling vainly against this cannibalistic impulse is the desire to propagate your species, and so you are forever caught in a battle to produce more Gribb cubs than you can eat. Usually you can strike a balance. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen with the hunters around.

You see, hunters have recently descended from various nearby world in search of your head. As you are somewhat difficult to find, much less kill, the hunters are perfectly content killing your cubs once they find your den.

This is unacceptable. Only one creature is allowed to kill your cubs, and he has four legs, dripping fangs and does not wear khaki (it’s you, you dimwitted beast). You just wanted to lounge in your cave, grunt at the missus, and eat the occasional cub. Well, that’s not going to happen. Now you must sally forth to drive away the hunters, collect food for your growing family, discover new and interesting things to ingest, develop your bizarre physiology, and of course, Eat Your Young.

From the manual:

Have a seat here in the light of the campfire and I’ll tell you all about it. You see, Eat Your Young is a Gribb based game from GDIAC. In it, the player is plunged into the world of ML 181, a planet-wide game preserve. Specifically, the player is plunged into Oppada Valley, rumored home of the Gribb. There the player must…

Ah, but you know that, or you wouldn’t be standing here in Oppada right now. Suit yourself, I’ll get right down to what all you greenhorns ask your first time on safari here.

What is the Gribb? Well, that’s a tricky one. Lots of people think it’s just another Bigfoot or Chupacabra. People who haven’t been to ML 181, they think it’s a joke, an old legend of the natives of the planet which happened to make it’s way into the odd horror movie and videogame. I know better. Mark you, the Gribb is very real. With any luck, though, you’ll never see him and we’ll head home with a few blue Waddlers to mount over the fireplace.

Snort, will you? Go ahead. You haven’t walked the Oppada forest at night with only your cold rifle for company, watching the shadows move and flinching at the wind. You’ll see. Just ask the natives. The Gribb is a ravenous beast, an elemental force of the untamed planet itself. Many a man hunting him has had the beast in his sights, only to watch the creature disappear into thin air. Oh, woe betide those unlucky souls. Pray that the last thing they feel is razor jaws slicing through their neck, for what comes next is too terrible to contemplate. No, I don’t know what it is, exactly, but it’s very terrible. The Gribb plucks men from their beds, tears their innards while they live, and devours them. He is a cunning fiend, but whatever cold intelligence he possesses is no friend to ours. The Gribb gives no mercy. Thank your God that there is only one.

I take it by your grunt that you don’t believe me. Of course there’s only one! Why? Hard to say really. Some think that nature will only allow one creature of such terrifying darkness to stalk the planet. That’s hogwash, if you ask me. The real reason, I think, is that the only thing the Gribb fears is another Gribb, and so he whenever a new Gribb is birthed to this unlucky world he sets upon the youngling and devours it whole.

Say, I can’t quite make you out. Come into the light; it’s dangerous to be alone after dark. That’s it, come forward.

Oh my. You’re the Gribb.

*CHOMP*

Features

• The Gribb! Step into the shaggy paws of the feared, dim-witted beast and devour all in your path.
• A dynamic world for the Gribb to hunt in.
• Eat your own offspring. Go on, they’re delicious. Like little Gribbletts.
• The Triangle. The Gribb has three basic attributes: melee, projectile, and movement, all represented by the three points of the triangle. Pushing skill towards any one point takes it away from the other points. Customize the Gribb, but do so carefully.
• Flexible combat system. Engage in either melee or projectile battles, all while teleporting in circles around hapless foes. Combat is heavily influenced by physiology, allowing for different playing styles.
• Unique healing and progression system: both are affected by eating your cubs. Male cubs make the Gribb more powerful while female cubs heal him. Both are great snacks.
• Dynamic physiology. The Gribb’s genetic make up is extremely sensitive to the native fauna of ML 181, and what you eat will change your attributes. Be careful! Food that raises one attribute does so at the expense of the others, but mediocre attributes are useless.
• Attribute based exploration. The Gribb will be able to access certain areas of the map depending on how skilled he is in certain attributes. Even with lesser skills, the main map will play differently.
• Food harvesting. Provide for your ravenous family so there are more to eat later.
• A mating system. Eating too many cubs? Simply shack up with the missus and peed some more!
• Defenseless creatures to slaughter.
• Not-so-defenseless creatures who will try to slaughter you.
• A variety of changing goals. Produce a certain amount of young in one level, devour them the next. Rip apart hunters or round up your wandering offspring.

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