Devour is an indie survival horror game that takes the gameplay loop of the old Slender games and applies it across multiple team-based maps. Players are tasked with gathering items of some sort depending on the map and destroying them. These items range from sacrificial goats to cursed books. Destroying these items or sacrifices make's the map's respective "boss" enemy more and more agitated, which in turn leads to more player deaths.
Like Slender, getting caught by the boss enemy in Devour will lead to a one-hit down. Players can revive their fallen teammates with limited med-kits found throughout the map, but it can be easy to fall into a loop of only reviving and not completing the objective. As such, Devour is quite a challenging game. Beginners will find that despite the simple premise, winning a round can be quite tough. There are a few tips that new players should take into account when tackling Devour.
7 Split Up & Explore Early On
Devour becomes harder and harder as a round progresses. Unlike a game like Risk of Rain, where the rising difficulty is tied to session time, Devour becomes more difficult as more objectives are completed. This means that the early game is one of the most critical parts of a round of Devour. During the early stages, the map's boss enemy will roam the map, but they will rarely attack and their "hunting" run speed isn't too fast.
As a result, players should take the early game time to learn the map, discover locked doors, and gather items that they will need to make the objectives happen fast. Depending on the map, not every key will spawn early enough for the entire map to be opened before the first objective is completed. Regardless of this, players should take the early game time to split up and open as many paths as possible. There is little fear of getting killed by the boss enemy in this early phase, so sticking together as a group is unnecessary. In fact, it can actually slow progress in the early game.
6 Gather Any Possible Keys As Early As Possible
While this tip may seem obvious, it still stands as one of the best things for new players to get used to doing. Instead of immediately focusing on gathering the objective items, the map should be as explored, with every possible locked door being opened. This serves a few purposes.
Firstly, opening all the doors and finding all the keys will be necessary to eventually win the round, as objective items will assuredly be hidden behind these doors. Opening locked doors also directly benefit the team's chances of survival. Many locked rooms house hiding places or shortcuts that can be used to dodge an aggravated boss. Though it may seem tedious, gathering keys and unlocking doors before the real intensity of a match will greatly increase a team's chances of winning.
5 Communicate Item Locations With Team Members
Devour can have multiple different forms of voice chat and communication. Hardcore players might like to only turn on proximity chat for the most immersive experience, but new players would be better suited with regular voice chat. Devour is surprisingly team-focused for a game in its genre, so good communication can go a long way in winning a round. When exploring a map, players should be sure to share item locations with one another in case of an emergency.
Knowing where med-kits or objective locations are will become critical as the game progresses. As more objectives are completed, more hunts from the boss will occur, leading to more deaths of team members. Near the late game, players may not have time to search for items accurately, so a helpful call-out could go a long way.
4 Stick Together In The Late Game
While it is best for teams to split up and explore in the early game, teamwork becomes more and more of a focus as the objectives are completed. As the boss becomes more agitated, more mobs will spawn, more hunts will occur, and the boss will move faster. As a result, players may need to band together to stun the boss with UV lights as the hunts increase in frequency.
More mobs spawning will also lead to a shortage of UV charge unless teams work together to fry the mobs quickly. While objectives still need to be completed, and it doesn't hurt to split apart in the late game, doing so will directly put the lone team member's life at risk. Near-perfect execution is needed to win rounds of Devour, so try to stick together and work as a team when things get intense.
3 Learn To Dodge Mobs
The only weapon players have in Devour is a UV light. The UV light can be enhanced with batteries located across the map, whidh are best used in the late game when the mobs stack up and the boss hunts more often. The UV light drains rather quickly, although it can kill multiple mobs caught in its purple glow. It can also be used to temporarily stun a hunting boss, which is sometimes all a player needs to make a quick escape and survive.
As the game becomes more difficult, getting rid of mobs becomes more of an emergency choice rather than a luxury afforded by the UV light. There will simply be too many enemies on screen to fry with the UV, so it's best for players to learn how to dodge around the mobs. Each mob acts a little differently depending on the map. Learning map layouts is crucial to finding alternate routes and dodging mobs as well. Dodging mobs may save enough UV to stun the boss or reclaim a stolen objective item, so it is an invaluable skill to learn.
2 Combine UV Lights To Stun Bosses Faster
The power of UV lights can be combined via multiple team members using them on the same foe. This effect applies to both mobs and the boss. Stunning the boss enemy gets more and more difficult as the game goes on, but it can also be the difference between life and death. As such, it helps to stick together and stun the boss with a teammate. UV becomes a valuable resource as the game goes on, so combining it to save charge for both teammates is definitely a good habit to get into.
Large groups of mobs can also be dispatched faster and more efficiently with multiple UV lights. As the game progresses, more and more mobs will spawn. In tight hallways or dead ends, having an extra UV light can save a player from getting downed by mobs.
1 Gather Items In One Location (On Certain Maps)
Generally speaking, this strategy is the key to winning on most maps in Devour. Players will usually need a few different items to complete an objective. For example, the default Farmhouse level tasks players with sacrificing cursed goats at an altar outside the house. This can be done using wheat bundles to catch a goat, then gasoline to burn the goat at the altar. Instead of looking endlessly for gasoline throughout the map, players should gather all the gasoline they can find at the altar during the early game where the boss isn't hunting yet. Gathering all the wheat bundles and gasoline cans in one general spot makes completing the objectives much more streamlined.
Time is a crucial resource in Devour, and any wasted time will lead to unnecessary deaths. Spending time looking for items that could've been gathered early is definitely wasting time, especially when a team will be juggling revives and objectives more and more as the game progresses.
Note that this tip doesn't always apply to every map. The Inn map, for example, works much differently than the other maps. The objective items are cursed eggs. These can be placed for later, but the roaming spider mobs can take these eggs and run away with them, making the item gathering strategy less effective on the Inn.
Devour is currently available to play on PC.