Thank you 2P Games for sending us a review code!

The Hungry Lamb Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty is a visual novel that takes place in the 1600’s. During this time period, drought and famine claimed many villages. Even those who resorted to cannibalism only bought a brief respite before they too succumbed to starvation. Some families sold their children to slavery in hopes that they would be fed and cared for. The protagonist, Liang, is a bandit who murdered many men after robbing them of their possessions. He drew the line at not harming women or children, though his actions impacted them too when their bread-winners/protectors didn’t return home.

Liang describes himself as a wolf and calls his male targets sheep. Ladies are referred to as lambs and are occasionally misspelled as lamps. Young children are called ewes. Liang’s partner is nicknamed Tongue and he has connections to job opportunities and is a smooth talker. Liang is the muscle.

Tongue has a job proposition of escorting four young ladies from different families/backgrounds/circumstances to a wealthy individual several hundred miles away. The journey will take several weeks and will require staying on the side roads to not draw too much attention to their group. There are other bandits, rebel soldiers, starving townsfolk, and official soldiers who will not take kindly to human traffickers.

Liang wasn’t initially onboard with trafficking these children, but Tongue convinced him after stating that most of the girls were relinquished by their parents because they could no longer afford to feed them. Between the two bandits, Liang is level headed and is more understanding when the girls ask for bathroom breaks and other requests within reason. Tongue enjoys scaring them and threatens to harm the girls if they misbehave.

Of the four girls trafficked, Liang becomes closest to the quiet, nine year old Sui. She is incredibly smart and is the cause of multiple bad endings, so Liang has to keep a close eye on her. By getting to know her past, Liang questions his life’s direction and has the option to redeem himself.

Depending on the choices you make, you’ll get to experience different endings/routes. On the title screen, you can access a flowchart which lets you resume the game from different chapters. In total, you can expect about ten hours of gameplay.

The story is good and the characters have depth to them. However, in order to experience the story to its fullest you’ll have to wade through a sea of moral issues. While the Steam store description says that you’re escorting four girls to a prosperous city, they should make it clearer that you’re TRAFFICKING them. At their destination they could be slaves, concubines, or eaten. There are many references to cannibalism and you’ll see blood stained rooms and chunks of human corpses laying around. Murder is also shown and you’ll see people get stabbed and dismembered. This is not a cheerful visual novel. In fact, you’ll get to see flashbacks of Sui’s childhood and the hardships they had to endure after her father disappeared.

There is some foul language (d*mn, b*stard), but it’s all spoken in Chinese. The bandits and their “lambs” stop at some cities along the way. There are bathing scenes, but no nudity is shown. A spanking is given to one of the girls; it’s described but not displayed. There are references to rape and prostitution. Thankfully the bandits are decent enough to not harm the girls in that way. In fact, depending on the choices made throughout the game, Liang can be redeemed and walk away from his shady life. Some of the bad endings are really thought provoking. If you do play through this game, I highly recommend exploring all of the routes.

The Hungry Lamb Traveling in the Late Ming Dynasty is quite an experience. Because of the dark nature and human trafficking, it’s hard to recommend with a clean conscience. The developer's aim is to create a virtual reminder of the dark time in China during 1600-1630+. By remembering humanity's moral failures, they hope that it won't happen again. I don't know if it will make any difference as humans are sinful and throw morals out the window when they're starving to death. Aside from a few translation issues, this game is really well polished. The artwork, voice acting, and background music are exceptional. The soundtrack is free to add to your Steam library. There are sixteen Steam achievements available as well. The asking price of $9.99 is quite reasonable. Just make sure that you’re onboard with the many moral issues and fully read the Steam store page description before purchasing it! The paragraph summary is quite deceiving and I hope that the developers add some clarification that there's more than escorting happening here.