I Crave the Loop, A Roguelike RPG for snack time
A ghost hunts you across a map of your home in this fast-paced, solo/duet RPG about snacking and pets. Can you escape with your cereal?
I Crave the Loop is a tabletop roguelike RPG for 1-2 players by Jonathon Boyle, with art and design by Bri de Danann and Emily Enter. Played with a real life snack as the game clock, you flee from an eldritch creature that haunts your midnight munchings and hungers not for your sanity, but your sugary breakfast loops.
Drawing inspiration from roguelike video games, I Crave the Loop is played on maps of homes, apartments, dorms, and other places where snacks can be found. Eating your real life snack gives you an edge against the creature in game, but also makes the creature more desperate to reach you and devour what remains of it! You’ll have to scrounge whatever items you can around your house, rely on unique character powers, and capitalize on the advantages that each map offers you to escape with a full stomach and an empty bowl.
Entner and de Danann have modeled the game with retro cereal designs in mind, mixing light horror elements with whimsical fonts and illustrations to give the feeling of a chase through the zine. Boyle’s writing matches the kinda-cute, kinda-creepy visual aesthetic by marrying charming, internet-aware levity with unnerving prose and silly, storied instruction in equal measure. It is a love letter to hungry pets and their hungrier, haggard humans.
I Crave the Loop is funding through March 4th, 2024, and will be published as a full-color, saddle-stitched zine 30-40 pages in length, including maps of each locale. It is expected to release in June of 2024. You can purchase physical and digital editions on Kickstarter.
To hear more about the game or to get the scoop on our inspirations, check out our interview on AltHaven's What We Know:
