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Watch trailer on Steam ↗Hunt for the Lost Folktales
Howling Lost Tales · Published by Howling Lost Tales · Official site ↗
Last updated 28 Sept 2026
A folklore hunting, turn-based battling, creature collector adventure where you follow trails to hunt escaped folktale beasts, engage in strategic tactical battles where fear is your strength, and capture the lost folktales so they may live on in memory. Will you be another folktale to be written?
Adventure, Indie, RPG, Strategy · 2027 · More free games
Follow mysterious trails to hunt escaped folkloric creatures in this turn-based strategy RPG. Gather lost folktales before they fade, using fear as your weapon in strategic battles.
About this game
Cursed to become the very beast that you have hunted. Will you become the next folktale to be written in the books for the Library of Lost Tales or will you take the Afterlife Scribe’s offer to hunt down escaped folktale beasts to trade for your life back from before the curse?
When the hunter becomes the hunted...
Hunt for the Lost Folktales is a folklore hunting, turn-based battling, creature collector adventure where you follow pawprint and scent trails to track down folktale beasts escaping from their storybooks, engage in strategic turn-based tactical combat focused on stacking fear to deal damage, and capture their lost tales to return to the Library so they may live on in memory. Will you be another folktale to be written or will you rewrite your own story?
With a hunter instinct & wolf senses, you track down the escaped Folktales by following trails left behind...
Investigate Folktale sightings in your Hunt Contracts to discover hints of about their trails.
Follow the pawprint and scent trails to find the escaped Elder Folktale beasts.
Uncover Hidden Rifts in the world to dive into New Locations in the Wild Woodlands.
Discover hidden dig sites that contain buried lost curiosities.
Sneak stealthily to avoid the detection of patrolling Folktales or Ambush them into battle.
Fear is both your strength and your weakness...
Fight fearsome Folklore Beasts in Turn-based combat on a grid-based battlefield.
Deploy your own party of allied Folktale Recruits to aid you in battle.
Stack up Fear on your enemies to deal Damage equal to their Fear.
Plan your strategy on how best to use the Environmental Tiles to your advantage.
Defeat Folktales to break them back into their fallen storybooks to bind.
Return captured Folktales to the feathered scribes of the Library of Lost Tales so their memory can live on...
Capture all the Lost Folktale books to complete the Library's collection.
Return books to get rewarded with Bones, Skulls, and Claws.
Upgrade your party of Folktales to level up their stats & unlock new combat skills.
Hunt all the lost Elder Folktales by taking on new Hunt Contracts from the Scribes.
Dive into the Wild Woodlands world book to travel to any discovered level locations.
3 Wild Regions to explore... 3 Storybook Rifts to seal...
Explore the Wild Woodlands across 3 regions each with their own environmental hazards & weather events.
Solve the Writer's Block Puzzles to gain powerful Ink Stamp combat passives for your party.
Beware of the roaming Hunter as you're not the only hunter roaming these lands.
Defeat the Elder Folktales in each region to gather Quill Keys for your story.
Unlock your storybook, face your past, and confront the Hunter to rewrite your tale.
Full Game Content Features:
16 Hunt Contracts to guide you through the folklore hunting experience
25 Level Locations to explore the wild, battle folktales, and discover buried curiosities
100+ Battles with Folklore Beasts along with 13 Elder Hunt Challenges
150+ Folktale Books to collect and return to the Library of Lost Tales
13 Writer's Block Puzzles to solve that each grant powerful Ink Stamp combat passives
4 Party Recruits to upgrade and deploy to aid you in battle
Upgrades for your Party of Folktales to enhance your battle strategy & survivability
Shop for Trinkets that grant special abilities to aid you in exploration and combat
You may enjoy this game if you like:
Witcher meets Into the Breach - With the investigation and tracking of folklore trails inspired by the Witcher mixed with the strategy-puzzling combat inspired by Into the Breach, this indie game is inspired to bring the folklore hunting exploration together with deep strategy tactics in the turn-based battles with these creatures.
Strategic Turn-based Tactical Combat - With a focus on stacking fear to maximize damage output, strategic positioning on a grid-based battlefield, using the environmental hazards to your advantage, and planning your combat turn to find action synergies between folktale beasts in your party. Every region features new folktales to battle, new status effects to counter, and new powerful passives to assign to your party.
Tracking & Following Pawprint & Scent Trails - With a sniff of your newfound wolf senses, a detection beacon will ping on any hidden trails or dig sites in the nearby vicinity. Beware there are decoy trails too! So keep an eye on the trail details to identify the right path to follow.
Collections for the Completionists - Lost Folktale Books, Powerful Stamp Passives, Puzzle Lore Scrolls, Oh My! For all the completionist gamers out there, the progress book menu will track all your stats on the various collections to complete. Fill up those empty library shelves with every collected folktale book! Solve every Writer's Block puzzle to collect all the stamps! Sniff through every Woodlands location to find all the hidden lore scrolls!
Learning about Folklore Beasts - Inspired by folklore, all the creature characters are hand-drawn recreations of what these beasts could look like based on my interpretation of researched descriptions of them. Their imagined stories are lightly told through investigating their trails and reading the scattered puzzle lore scrolls.
System Requirements
Will my PC run this? →Minimum
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
- Processor: Intel Core i5 (4 cores) 2.5 Ghz
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce GTX 1060
- DirectX: Version 10
- Storage: 1 GB available space
Recommended
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS: Windows 10/11 (64-bit)
- Processor: Intel Core i7 (8 cores) 3.0 Ghz or better
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: GeForce RTX 2060 or better
- DirectX: Version 10
- Storage: 1 GB available space
Supported Languages
Latest news
Patch NotesOfficial
Demo Patch v1.4 improves Tutorial!
🐺 Greeting Huntresses & Hunters!This is a little developer update about the latest Demo Patch (v1.4.26.0801) to bring more improvements to the demo! Check the patch notes below for details!⚙️ Demo ImprovementsTutorialTutorials are now shown in center view and disables gameplay inputs until the tutorial is dismissedSome Tutorials have multiple panels to read through to help present information in smaller chunksUpdated images for Tutorials to help with new flow of information presentedAdded "Wolf Sense Tutorial Book" in Woodcutter Glade level to remind players of how to track trails (replaces the single ghost combat encounter)UI / UXInvestigation sites are now always visible (before you had to use your Wolf Sense to detect them)Trail Tracker UI will only show one Folktale Type in the Tutorial Region since you are only hunting one there (Elder Teakettler in Hunting Trials region)Gameplay TuningThorns (passive ability) - will only deal damage back to the melee attacker if this character has taken damage (no longer will deal damage back when dodging attacks)Display SettingsOn first time launch, checks which Screen Resolution best fits based on the end-user display resolution and sets it correctly in the Options menuOn first time launch, set VSync to toggle on if end-user display refresh rate is 60hz and sets it correctly in the Options menu💻If you have a high-end display (more than 60hz refresh rate), then it's likely you won't need VSync on as the target framerate is capped at 60fps. So if you found that the player character was zooming across your screen, turn off VSync in the settings.✅VSync is best to toggle on if you get screen-tearing (most likely for displays with 60hz)🔨 Demo Bug FixesFixed bug where sometimes player character can be offset on grid-tile space (when rapidly pressing the movement inputs when returning to exploration gameplay from a menu screen)🎮 Demo Playtest Learnings🏗️ They say Tutorials is one of the more difficult features to implement. This is ...Read full article on Community Announcements (HowlingLostTales)Patch NotesOfficial
Demo Patch v1.3 with New Game Bug Fix
🐺 Greeting Huntresses & Hunters!This is a quick fix (v1.3.26.0628) for a softlock bug with Demo Patch v1.3 that affects only the New Game flow for new players who don't have an already existing save data file.🔨 Demo Bug FixesFixed New Game flow where "Choose your starting Difficulty Mode" popup did not appear for fresh New Games (no previous save file) which prevented players from starting a new game📢 Have feedback to share?With lots of updates from the latest demo patch v1.3, it was a lot of work to playtest all the user flows to ensure everything worked as intended but sometimes 🥲you miss one bug.🫶Thank you for your patience as I pushed a quick fix for this softlock bug!📋 Feel free to keep on sharing your Feedback on the Google Forms survey!🐞 And if you encounter issues, help fill out a Bug Report on Google Forms so I can fix them!Read full article on Community Announcements (HowlingLostTales)Patch NotesOfficial
Demo Patch v1.3 introduces Difficulty Modes!
🐺 Greeting Huntresses & Hunters!This is a little developer update about the latest Demo Patch (v1.3.26.0627) to bring more improvements to the demo! Check the patch notes below for details!⚙️ Demo Improvements New ContentIntroducing 3 Difficulty Modes:Story Mode - For shorter & easier battles (Enemies start with more Fear)Hunter Mode - For balanced battles (Players & Enemies both start with 1 Fear)Tactician Mode - For more challenging battles (Enemies start with a Buff/Passive)Starting a New Game will allow players to select their starting Difficulty ModePlayers can change their Difficulty Mode at anytime in the Pause > Options > Gameplay menu (only while in the Library Hub or Main Menu)You can view your current Difficulty Mode shown in the top center of the exploration HUD Character HUDNew icons for the Health and Fear on the character HUDHealth is now represented by whole hearts on the character HUD (1 heart = 1 health)Updated ticker text to use a thick outlined font style for better legibility on the character HUDUpdated tutorial images to use the new Health / Fear iconographyAdded tooltips to the Health / Fear icons to give players more information on those statsUpdated tooltips on the player's combat actions UI to better provide information that the attack's Total Damage = Target's Fear GameplayPlayer characters are no longer limited to 1 move per turn in combat (can now move as many times as you have AP for that character)Reworked exploration trails pathing to shorten the distance to travel to find the level's exit rift and also ensures each trail goes through 2-3 combat zones (starting from easy to harder encounters)Reduced total trails in Ghastly Graveyard level from 4 to 3 (1 correct trail, 2 decoys) UI / UXAdded text to label the Hunt Contracts quest board in the Library hubAdded signage to point players towards Party Upgrades (to the left) or towards Level Selection (to the right) for ease of navigation in the Library hubChanged the Back input to show \ f...Read full article on Community Announcements (HowlingLostTales)AnnouncementsOfficial
Demo is participating in Strategems!
🐺 Greeting Huntresses & Hunters!Excited to share the news that the Demo is taking part in the Strategems Event!This is the first ever Steam event that the game will be a part of and I'm so grateful to be joining in alongside all the other indie strategy gems!📜 Since Demo Launch one month ago...📝 There have been 2 patches to bring a variety of gameplay improvements and bug fixes to the demo.💬 Here's a quick recap of the bigger gameplay changes:Shorter Tutorial - get your 1st party recruit faster so you can dive into the bulk of battles soonerMore Claws for Upgrades - additional objectives for the Ghost Hunt side quest for more claws so you can purchase more upgrades for your partyTuned Line Move combat skill - allows characters with Linear movement to pass through other characters to bring more versatile movement options on the battlefieldTuned Animations - shortened animations for Wolf Sense & Howl abilities for quicker explorationBacktrack to Trail - if you stray far away from the trail or get lost wandering on the map, your Wolf Sense will spawn a trail nearby to point you back to the main trails to follow❓ What's coming next?Full Game Development - building out the next 2 Wild Woodlands regions with their own unique challenges (new status effects, stacking attributes, folktale types, environmental hazard tiles, etc)Demo Support - continually checking feedback and bug reports from the Demo to provide new patches when necessaryNext Major Demo Update - developing the "Hunter's Presence" gameplay system to add that feeling of the hunter being hunted, which ties into the main storyline of our huntress protagonist💖 Big thank you to Strategems!📅 With so many more indie games being launched on the Steam platform every year, it's Events like this which help connect fans of the genre to new & upcoming strategy games on the horizon!🐺 If you're a fan of turn-based tactical battles with a focus on stacking attributes and grid-positioning that matters, stealthily prowling arou...Read full article on Community Announcements (HowlingLostTales)Patch NotesOfficial
Demo Patch v1.2 (mini update)
🐺 Greeting Huntresses & Hunters!This is a little developer update about the mini Demo Patch (v1.2.26.0518) to bring QoL (quality of life) improvements and bug fixes to the demo!📝Note: The Demo Patch version is displayed in the bottom left corner of the Main Menu screen.⚙️ Demo ImprovementsUpdated characters with Line Move skills (Teakettler, Water Leaper, Dingbat, Wraith) to allow them to pass through other characters to make them more versatile in navigating a crowded battlefieldUpdated the Teakettler (party recruit) upgrades to make Dodge Fog + (second skill upgrade) more appealing by having it reduce cooldown time and remove any negative debuffs on the characterAdded paper ruffling SFX when the puzzle scrolls unravel during their animations when interacting with the Writer's Block PuzzlesGame Audio will stop playing when the game application is Alt-Tab off focus or minimized, and will resume audio when the game application is back in focusGame Audio will play at a lower volume when the Steamworks client overlay is active, and will return to the player setting's volume when the overlay is offAdded link to the Patch Notes to the Main Menu for ease of viewing latest updatesUpdated Demo Complete popup to have a link to the Demo Steam page for ease of writing up a review after completing the demoAdded link to the Demo Steam page for leaving a review in the Pause Menu🔨 Demo Bug FixesFixed audio issue where overlapping SFX was played before the books dropped onto the stack when returning books to the LibraryFixed gameplay issue where the puzzle scroll clues were not highlighted when the cursor was already overlapping the area where the scrolls unravel during their animation when interacting with the Writer's Block PuzzlesRead full article on Community Announcements (HowlingLostTales)
