alt view

This is a demo for a game I’ve been making for a bit but spent a bit too much time on. So, I’m putting it up as a demo and taking a break from to try and put my brain back into gear before coming back to it. What is here is the core of the game, just without the polish it needs to be a complete experience.

Mushroom Game is made of three levels that together create a picture of the changing life cycles of a generic mushroom forest. You start as the mycelial network living underground in a beneficial relationship with a specific type of tree (based off a pine). After this, you go above ground and play as a pig that explores the forest and is hunting for mushrooms to eat. Finally, you play a human foraging for mushrooms with a pig to later sell. These three perspectives are to show the changes of life cycles in a human-disturbed forest and explore how changes we make effect the wider environment.

Now, there is a lot of themes and connecting tissue between levels that are not complete or even present. This is the core of why I consider the game incomplete, although there is a lot of player feedback and other basic features that need to added still. Just based off what is in the game presently, the broad ideas I mentioned earlier are hard to see, let alone the somewhat more nuanced stuff I’m going for.  

For one, between the first two levels I want to add a scene of the forestry industry felling all the larger, old-growth trees that the mycelial network can’t live with. This leaves more room and sunlight for the faster growing pines which in turn increases the ability for the mycelial network to expand. I find this extremely important to the game as it is the main moment of change in this life cycle. I would also emphasise this change more by having a soundscape that changes; from a healthy sounding environment with birds and insects all over to a reduced environment with just wind and some pigs. This is unrealistic, but showing this change like this should emphasise the change that has occurred.

I also want to increase the presence of pigs in the world instead of there just being the one. With the impact of forestry on this forest there was a decline in many creatures, but the presence of the mycelial network has blossomed which in turn increases the pig population. This compares the idea of destruction from human interaction with the idea of how environments change and adapt to keep existing. And from this change, humans now have land prime for foraging mushrooms, another way to survive and make a living. This however creates more exploitation of the environment by using pigs to find the mushrooms. The way environments change is complicated and often end up beneficial to humans even by mistake. We change it so much and then take advantage of this new state even further.

The final addition would be a sort of epilogue that tries to explore the idea of preserving the environment as it is now. Fire prevention is a surprising aspect of this where we manage foliage, do controlled burns in specific places, and so much more. This is seen to be good, and yeah, it is broadly speaking. Except these environments expect these fires and use them to maintain itself. Old-growth trees are typically more fire resistant than pines. The pines grow and encourage the mycelial networks which feed the soil and let trees grow more easily. As fires come through, the pines burn leaving more space for old-growth to start growing in the more fertile soil from mushroom and fire. This old-growth then takes over more of the forest and relegates pines to smaller areas where they can’t take over the land.

Even in this changed state of all pines, the forest can still eventually return to what it once was. Instead, due to our need for the mushroom foraging and the ideas of keeping environments as they are as a for of environmentalism, we protect the forest as it is and prevent fires perhaps more than we should (not that bushfires aren’t horrible, especially with the climate crisis making them more common and more dangerous, but that is out of scope here).

And this provides more thought to what preservation is. Although we have drastically changed what this forest is, should we preserve this current forest with its new environmental interactions that we benefit from and can live in harmony with, or should we let it run its course and return to what it was? That’s what I’ve been trying to go for anyway.

I did mention earlier that I just need a break from this project before I come back to it, and I do want to come back to it. I really like what I’ve done with it so far and it is really far along all things considered. The ui does need work as I am trying for it to be much less intrusive, there are not enough sounds or animations in yet leaving it feeling empty, and there is plenty of player feedback and game feel to improve upon (I already have more feedback from a friend with changes that are going to improve it a lot). The problem is that I’ve put too much pressure on myself for this to be a game that I actually finish, and that has gotten to me. I am still gathering my understanding of how I work and how to best accommodate this, so I need a break from this for now until I ease off the pressure I’ve placed on myself. Putting it out there does feel good though, like a mini cap-off that presents itself like a finish for now because it is playable, and I find it pretty enjoyable too.