Mycelium by BlobRoss

[raw]
made by BlobRoss for Ludum Dare 46 (JAM)

Plant friendly fungus to defend against hordes of eldritch horrors! Use your mighty watering can to heal your friends with the blood of your enemies. Make sure to keep the mother mushroom healthy to aquire the most uncanny of shrooms to aid you in this chaotic tower-defence-like game! The game may be a bit too hard at first but I believe in you <3.

The highest score I have ever seen so far is 7916 by * Ausstein*!

cover.png

different species of mushrooms to discover and befriend!

friends.png

Horrible eldritch horrors!

horrors.png

Controls:

W A S D or Arrow keys to move.

Mouse Click to water. Keep the mother mushroom hydrated for better spores!

Gather spores and throw them with Mouse Click. Make sure to give them space to grow!

Changelog:

fixed issue where game wouldn't restart when losing.

Ratings

Overall 78th 4.179⭐ 136🧑‍⚖️
Fun 107th 4.068⭐ 134🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 212th 3.893⭐ 133🧑‍⚖️
Theme 153th 4.225⭐ 133🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 37th 4.645⭐ 140🧑‍⚖️
Audio 193th 3.98⭐ 78🧑‍⚖️
Humor 872th 3.15⭐ 115🧑‍⚖️
Mood 295th 3.944⭐ 128🧑‍⚖️
Given 160🗳️ 33🗨️

Feedback

Paroxysmal
21. Apr 2020 · 01:06 UTC
Love the graphics and good gameplay with tight controls.
Owinmowe
21. Apr 2020 · 01:14 UTC
I really like it!
Reid Willis
21. Apr 2020 · 01:16 UTC
Tough, but fun. I'll have to revisit and play for longer. Love the color scheme. I would've benefited from a bit more explanation of what to do
HomoLudens
21. Apr 2020 · 01:19 UTC
The game is beauitful! I love the color pallette and that adds a lot, but maybe a bit too much. Initially couldn't figure out what seeds because they blended in with the environment too much. There are some issues with the balance as well, it is difficult in unpredicitble ways. All of these being said the mood of the game is spot on. Loved it
NomadicRockMan
21. Apr 2020 · 01:20 UTC
Oh my god this game is polished.
perfectfitz
21. Apr 2020 · 01:24 UTC
This is beautiful, but I had some issues with it being buggy. The middle thing died and the game still ran. I think it's a little too hard as well. Overall really good job!
cavedens
21. Apr 2020 · 01:24 UTC
A bit buggy. When I put out plants didnt work a lot of time. Great graphics. Controls and gameplay can use work.
CooperJKnapp
21. Apr 2020 · 01:25 UTC
Well done! The game was a bit hard to learn but after a few minutes of testing I was able to figure out what to do
Pie-Tras
21. Apr 2020 · 01:26 UTC
Nice art!
Listonos
21. Apr 2020 · 01:26 UTC
The graphics are just gorgeous and the music is pretty great as well. Little unbalanced especially the beginnings. Your really want knock-back shroom and AOE shroom close each other. The fact that you can't reposition the mushrooms once planted makes total sense "lore wise" but it hurts the gameplay in my opinion because if you have a wave from a less defended side you are screwed. The "water" income is very low as well making this little too hard I think. But overall would love to see more games from you.
Nogam
21. Apr 2020 · 01:26 UTC
wow really nice , the gameplay is really good !
Roey_Shap
21. Apr 2020 · 01:28 UTC
The overall experience is really enjoyable. I'd say that it just doesn't last very long in that state for me, though, and it takes a while to get close to it again. The core gameplay loop could use some more challenge earlier on and/or more ways to influence things, but on the whole you have something that feels cohesive enough to facilitate the mechanical additions nicely.
Physi3
21. Apr 2020 · 01:31 UTC
Amazed you made this in 3 days :)
Aditon
21. Apr 2020 · 01:33 UTC
This game is quite fun! You are going in a wonderful direction, continue! I thought it was quite original and felt really nice to play. Some CC:
-A tutorial would be really nice to acclimate the player on different concepts
-I played a bit and thought there should be more water earned from killing enemies, or maybe even perhaps generating water over time all over the level as if it's raining (maybe there could even be times it rains and gives more water)
-I found a bug where dying or letting the center mushroom die does not bring the player back to the menu.

This idea is brilliant, and I definitely see a successful released product within it! I'm glad I got to play it. Thanks for submitting :)
Pandapear
21. Apr 2020 · 01:40 UTC
I love the art style! It's so vibrant and alive. I did have some issues with the game being buggy, though. My character randomly disappeared on a couple of my runs. But for a game made in 3 days, this thing is amazingly polished!
giraffesareburning
21. Apr 2020 · 01:50 UTC
My longest play I scored a 267, I don't how good that is. Graphics are amazing. Sound is good. I really like the gameplay. It was hard to understand at first what was going on with the watering can - but after that I really got into the flow of the game and had a lot of fun. There is something odd about watering mushrooms though..
PerfectSquare
21. Apr 2020 · 01:55 UTC
Wonderful graphics and music, this game has an amazing level of polish for 3 days! It took me a few seconds of running around to figure out how to get more water after uselessly pouring my first bit on the floor but after I realized how the water worked the gameplay was really fun in a hectic kind of way :)
Svetoslav Godzhev
21. Apr 2020 · 01:57 UTC
Awesome graphics and neat music. The gameplay is nice I would suggest a timer or a bar or something else to track the time to the next wave.
pvp
21. Apr 2020 · 02:10 UTC
Graphic and sound are amazing. Tutorial would have been perfect.
OldManWinters
21. Apr 2020 · 02:19 UTC
Cute graphics and a fun little take on the tower defence genre. Took me a few tries to figure out what was going on. The action gets a bit cluttered and the water can feels a little under-powered but everything else felt great. Spent about 10 mins playing and got a high score of 161.
SamLeCreator
21. Apr 2020 · 06:21 UTC
The polish here is top notch! From the animations to something as simple as your choice of palette, it just works as one. It for sure took a few runs and quick deaths before I really understood what I was doing, but tight gameplay once I had the hang of it.

If you're looking to make Mycelium quicker to understand for new players, some more visible information about the timing and size of enemy waves would be a neat touch.
MysteriousBaboon
21. Apr 2020 · 10:47 UTC
Really amazing ! Super fun to play and really nice to look at. But despite multiple run, couldn't win xD
Snarkusius
21. Apr 2020 · 13:55 UTC
gret game love it its very hard thou
Snarkusius
21. Apr 2020 · 14:38 UTC
score 966 bet that
Slothtimistic
21. Apr 2020 · 14:55 UTC
The visuals of this are fantastic, so bouncy and organic! Sound is great too, the game plays well and I didn't encounter any (noticeable at least) bugs or issues, well done!
Slothtimistic
21. Apr 2020 · 14:55 UTC
Also, GREAT frickin dev name!
Pabricka
21. Apr 2020 · 15:03 UTC
Beautiful graphics and a great game! I wasn't sure if there was going to be some kind of an ending, so I kept playing until the screen was so filled with stuff I couldnt see properly anymore :P
TortoiseGames
21. Apr 2020 · 15:05 UTC
I love the colors and the pixel art style keep it up!
Snarkusius
21. Apr 2020 · 15:54 UTC
amazing art and great great gameplay. would love to see more from blobross.
Reino Angelo
21. Apr 2020 · 16:00 UTC
The pixel art is outstanding n' beautiful for a jam game, how are you guys so good at 2D art please teach me haha the music also compliments the game, but it was a little hard for me though. but other than that amazing concept. congrats :)
the_martijn
21. Apr 2020 · 16:11 UTC
Fun game and looks beautiful!
The first time I played it, the controls didn't work (the throwing), but after restarting it did.
Draelent
21. Apr 2020 · 16:13 UTC
Graphics are gorgeous ! kinda hard to see where we spray with the water but nice work on various enemies and mushrooms. felt good to play it
TwoWolf
21. Apr 2020 · 16:16 UTC
The visuals are amazing! I saw the pic and I just had to play it. I couldn't ask for better in a tranditionally animated pixel game. The music is good also.
🎤 BlobRoss
21. Apr 2020 · 16:17 UTC
I just wanted to say thanks for all of the posetive (and negative) feedback i have been recieving! Making games alone is not easy, but you guys make it worth it :D
Leonardo Fraga
21. Apr 2020 · 16:41 UTC
That's an incredible game!
I just spend a few good minutes playing it. It took a little while to understand how things work, but I love it!
I love defense stuff like that. I tried to do something similar with my own game, but I didn't finish on time to be "good".
Great game, I love it!
Maryush28
21. Apr 2020 · 16:46 UTC
I probably have nothing more to add, everything has been said. Great, refined game. I hope you get high rank. You deserve it.

Cheers!
CrisFalcon
21. Apr 2020 · 17:18 UTC
cool game! At times I felt a little helpless, but once I understand it more it got more pleasant.
The pixel art is amazing.
Scharma
21. Apr 2020 · 17:20 UTC
Incredible game. Superb art style, music, gameplay is tight. Really wish it was less random, and I had more control over the outcome (which shrooms were spawned, for example). Incredible job, congrats
Crispy Chicken
21. Apr 2020 · 19:04 UTC
Great game, the Graphics and Game play is very polished. It would be cool if you could also use the water to damage the enemies too!
Kiln
21. Apr 2020 · 19:11 UTC
I loved the art direction for this game, it's very uniform and cute-yet-creepy at the same time (and I mean creepy in a good way). I was a little confused for a bit what to do from the get-go, but I eventually got the hang of it. Nice and interesting concept!
Anchry
21. Apr 2020 · 19:55 UTC
Yes, brilliant.
Almax
21. Apr 2020 · 21:11 UTC
This is really cool and reminds me a lot of a previous LD winner: Dark Soil
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/dark-soil

The graphics, as others have mentioned are amazing. Music was fitting and the controls were tight. It took me a minute or two to cotton onto the mechanics though, but once I got going it was a lot of fun! Great work :)
PabloGooseman
21. Apr 2020 · 22:11 UTC
Wow man this one is great i really like it, not too hard but not too simple, really good and simple art, great idea
SplitPainter
22. Apr 2020 · 06:57 UTC
Really cool visuals, the purple art direction is lovely.
Howard Duong
22. Apr 2020 · 07:13 UTC
Amazing game! One the best I played so far.
LapisRaider
22. Apr 2020 · 07:45 UTC
Really enjoyed the game! It felt really smooth and polished to play. The game was pretty challenging, and the enemies were pretty brutal, I got destroyed quite early on and ended up playing the game a few times hoping to get a better score XD

The visuals and audio were on point and I greatly enjoyed the game!
Purrseus
22. Apr 2020 · 10:57 UTC
Your game has STYLE! Grphics are awesome (I love the palette!), the soundtrack is dope, gameplay is tight, everything is super polished!
Awesome entry!
Keithdae
22. Apr 2020 · 13:24 UTC
Incredible game, great work!

I ended up blocking myself by throwing a lot of mushrooms a little too randomly :laughing:
Drums
22. Apr 2020 · 16:01 UTC
I love mushrooms in every videogame, so a game made out of them is amazing. Runs smooth, looks and sounds good. Great job! It does get tricky at parts but that's the point.
ReadyPlayerTom
22. Apr 2020 · 16:03 UTC
I had a lot of fun! :D Keep on! And your also always invited to visit me on twitch ;p
Panzerr
22. Apr 2020 · 20:19 UTC
A really nice game, with great art direction
Annie Owl
22. Apr 2020 · 22:16 UTC
Really cool game! The art style is amazing and the gameplay feels very nice. I only wish that you could use your watering can while holding a seed, so you won't accidentally stop healing your turrets.
MaggardJosh
23. Apr 2020 · 02:46 UTC
Fantastic entry! Tight controls, good gameplay, great graphics and music. Well done!
mhykah
23. Apr 2020 · 06:10 UTC
Got a score of 400! At the start I was confused about what was going on and what I had to do, but once I got the gist of it, it was a really fun game with very innovative gameplay! I enjoyed the unique colour palette used, the character designs, sound, and music. They all fit in really well with each other! One small thing is that when I first started playing, I didn't notice the things which I could pick up as they didn't particularly stand out to me. I do realise however, that you're working with a limited palette, and once I noticed I could pick them up it wasn't an issue. Sometimes during the game I disappeared. Maybe I died? Either way it wasn't very clear what happened and I was pretty confused. As I was playing I was thinking that it might have been nice to be able to see something like my score or how many waves I have beaten so that I felt that there was some progress. Of course, these are small nitpicks from what was a really fun game. Great job!
JoAMD
23. Apr 2020 · 06:25 UTC
Amazing tower defense game! Loved it, gonna play more xD. Got 100 score at firt
MicroChasm
23. Apr 2020 · 07:06 UTC
Very well done. Graphics, juiciness, theme, palette, all amazing.

It was a little annoying to get caught on your shrooms when walking around, and the concept took a minute to grasp. Other than that, I wanted to see the game transcend somehow-- a boss, or you can start making new mother mushrooms. Really, I just want to see more. I want this to be a full game. You should be proud.
Gaming Night
23. Apr 2020 · 08:20 UTC
Hey, really nice pixel art here :)
DocGeraud
23. Apr 2020 · 09:28 UTC
Wow, really good game! The art is really cute and well done, and the gameplay was super fun. I'm too bad to win but hey, it was cool anyway.
Khud0
23. Apr 2020 · 10:55 UTC
Please don't take my following comments as an offense, because I really enjoyed the game and it totally sucked me in. Plus it looks incredibly good.

Unfortunately, I found it a bit too slow paced, especially player and camera speed. Also, my "main plant" died on first try and since I didn't get a "you lose" screen, I continued playing whereas later I figured out that restarting was the best option as there was no way to get new plants again.

Again, this is an awesome entry and I loved it! :)
SvartTand
23. Apr 2020 · 11:49 UTC
Really nice game. Here is the video of me playing the game:

https://youtu.be/AuaQr2MJmnc

The music and sound effects were really good. They worked well with the art style. It was a bit hard to understand what you were supposed to do in the beginning and then on my second try I lost the big plant that made me smaller ones. Then I just had to wait until I inevitably failed. So maybe it should have been game over already. I would like to have seen some sort of way to do damage to the monsters with the water like I thought it did in the beginning. Then there would have been an option to either heal or deal damage with your limited resource which could have been quite interesting.

But all in all a really nice game.
Euler Moises
23. Apr 2020 · 15:22 UTC
I loved it!
I love tower defense and you used the theme in a very smart way. The pixel art is beautiful and the soundtrack goes well with the mood. I will leave the game saved on my pc to play with my children later and dispute who has the most points.

Congratulations!

PS: What do I do after the big mushroom dies? I pray?
🎤 BlobRoss
23. Apr 2020 · 15:58 UTC
@euler-moises This is my first jam so please correct me if I am wrong. The rules state that you can fix bugs like these, so respawning should be working as inteded now :D
RIBOUT Horace
23. Apr 2020 · 17:16 UTC
One of the most beautiful game and a good revision of the tower defense principle ! The flow is great and the gameplay is pretty clear and straight forward : no need for a tutorial, we understand it quickly. My two downside is that : i didn't understand how usefull for the spawn of grain it is to water the main mushroom, and the balance need a little rework : it became very easy and you overcome the game pretty quick, and I didn't play that long, but the danger in the end didn't seem to overcome my huge army. But your game was still running smoothly despite the army of shroom attacking ennemy who divide, and the white mushroom who launch as burp of attack are just too fucking good to see ! Love it !
johnnysix
23. Apr 2020 · 21:56 UTC
Great fun, It'd be cool to see this one developed post-Jam. Really love the art style and mechanic.

Maybe some finesse with the collisions, as I kept throwing mushroom 'eggs' ? under the power-core mushroom and couldn't retrive them. I also died a load before got the belching mushrooms.

![MUSHROOOOM.jpg](///raw/028/2/z/32e0d.jpg)
Kerri
23. Apr 2020 · 23:10 UTC
This is so much fun to play! I love the art and graphics, your spin on tower defense, and the theme in general.
Aurel300
24. Apr 2020 · 13:39 UTC
We streamed your game with Danae: [link to Twitch VOD](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/598538752?t=00h25m37s) (approximate timestamp)

Very nice aesthetics. It was a little annoying that I could not quite get all the drops, perhaps they should be higher value and despawn? A larger pickup radius? Not being able to water while holding a seed was also a minor gripe I had. The difficulty scaled pretty well. Maybe there could be an indication of what type of seed I am holding (a little preview of the mushroom that will spawn)?

The game which reminded me of yours, which I was trying to remember during the stream was [Atomicrops](https://www.atomicrops.com/), although that game is primarily a twinstick shooter and the crops are not turrets (although you can get turrets I think).
Patsui
24. Apr 2020 · 19:51 UTC
Great graphics and music, gameplay is polished and the take on the theme is good. Excellent work!
Maytch
24. Apr 2020 · 23:59 UTC
Awesome game, cool take on a tower defence, and very pretty too
SpiRiTs
25. Apr 2020 · 03:23 UTC
Very well done. Art is amazing, music is great and the game-play felt smooth!. Great game
a333
25. Apr 2020 · 15:46 UTC
![иии.png](///raw/0c1/z/33332.png)
Now that was absolutely fun and addictive. Great setting as well =)
Great choice of palette and absolutely beautiful sprites.

Sometimes it felt like the game was impending me (namely, when I tried to aim to that one sweet spot and spore flew somewhere else), but the amount of spores and ease of their deployment helped alleviate that. I also liked the fact that deploying towers was costless.
Mika la Grand
26. Apr 2020 · 17:24 UTC
Great idea, but the game was too difficult for me; my highscore was 21. It was also quite easy to waste water, because you need to be very accurate with the watering can.
FadrikAlexander
27. Apr 2020 · 07:49 UTC
The art style in awesome and the gameplay is fluid and fun, nice job!
fatPenguin
01. May 2020 · 15:03 UTC
Awwww, so cute! :)
At first, I didn't completely get it, but you're able to find out the gameplay mechanics pretty quick!
Makes you want to com back for more!
graphics were amazing. Controls easy (which is a big plus!) I've been meaning to try this out since I saw your post like a week ago. the fat mushroom who attracts the attention of the enemies is ADORBZ! :3 at first I thought he was the protagonist, hehe. :3! (The actual protagonist is cute as well! <33)
The music and programming was nice too!
I'd maybe just try to make it a bit more readable, as in giving more feedback if you've done something good (like watering the plants, maybe make some.. idk "Health icons" apprear to indicate you're doing something good, or like with a noise, also it might be a good idea to distinct the colours between stuff you can interact with and only environment :) (like make the one more detailed, less saturated, a bit of a difference in tone etc.)

All in all a great entry! <3
Sublustris
01. May 2020 · 21:34 UTC
Отличная игра. Графика очень глаз радует. Не сразу понял, что нужно делать, не хватает какойнибудь инструкции в начале. А то сразу непонятно, что делать с теми "камнями" которые гриб разбрасывает. Умер раз 5, пока случайно на них не наступил и не увидел, что их активировать можно. 5/5 за графику.
zubspace
01. May 2020 · 22:45 UTC
This is a really great game! The pixel art is amazing. The small animations and the colors are brilliant. The sound effects are great.

And the gameplay is interesting, although a bit on the hard side. It's great that you can exactly place new seeds and water from afar. The movement speed feels slow sometimes and small mushrooms are gone too quickly I think. Would be great to have more mushrooms with defensive capabilities. But other than that, good job!
rayriver
02. May 2020 · 08:05 UTC
Really good tower defense game! Good job!
Trexxak
02. May 2020 · 08:48 UTC
whoa, this is such a good game o:

I love all the unique things about it:
- the setting is way out of the ordinary
- the cute sprites (I like the thiccshroom the most :3)
- the colourscheme (lovin' the purple),
- the sounddesign and music is awesome and on point
- the gameplay is fluent, fun and, well, very much unique!

Unbelievable thinking one single person came up with all of this.
Certainly you deserve your username, this is one hell of a happy little game! :D

Thank you for this absolute gem! I will certainly come back to it and try to get the highest score!
yxmx_rsx
04. May 2020 · 23:14 UTC
Very good graphics. I wish the walking speed was a bit higher and with the ability to spawn/activate plants when you are not in an active wave. Perhaps you might have done this to keep the game balanced? but overall I had fun, it's a solid entry, well done.
JMad
06. May 2020 · 00:23 UTC
My favorite things about this : palette, art, MUSHROOMS. Had a lot of fun, even if I got the terrible score of 366. Difficulty is super well balanced, punishing the player for trying to grow a shroom in the wrong place is definitely a great idea. Amazing job.
mineiwik
07. May 2020 · 18:59 UTC
Wow. This game is really nice and polished!. I really have fun playing it.
BadPiggy
09. May 2020 · 02:42 UTC
The pixel art is astounding. That's for sure. The audio was great as well. A little more feedback for if the player got hit and something to show if he died would be nice. Just having him or the other mushrooms disappear doesn't really tell much and can lead to you forgetting they got destroyed. Still, it's a polished entry and is a lot of fun. Great game :)
barret
11. May 2020 · 00:20 UTC
wow I love the art in this game, it's full of charm and the color pallete is amazing. I also love the mixing of a top down shooter with tower defense. I was curious can you actually beat this game or is it more of a try to beat your highest score?

I loved the different tower types and how you could use them together. I had a lot of fun with this one
Spyri
11. May 2020 · 21:28 UTC
I absolutely **loved** this game, from the color scheme to the gameplay, I would absolutely buy this if it was a full release.
My feedback on gameplay:

- It seems that the fat mushroom doesn't heal as fast as the others, from time to time I managed to tank more with the cluster mushroom than the fat one.
- Again with the fat mushroom, it pushes enemies that are around him towards other mushrooms, destroying the defense system.
- I would make picking up seeds a button press, late into the game walking into a seed stops watering and as such kills mushrooms.
- Too much visual feedback from attacks, by the time I had 20 or so mushrooms I could barely see the seeds being dropped.

As a final remark, look at my score and tell me how much I've loved it.

![MyceliumScore.png](///raw/c8c/c1/z/34036.png)
yy404
11. May 2020 · 22:19 UTC
The intensive fight is very satisfying! Didn't know that I can be revived so perhaps there could be a message after the first death.
Ausstein
12. May 2020 · 10:04 UTC
Mother Shroom had given me one objective: to protect her. I was determined, it was my destiny. Soon Slime creatures startet showing up, but mother shroom gave me the spores to protect her. It got harder and harder, I planted spores only to see the baby shrooms getting destroyed by the slime creatures, it was horendous. Just about when I thought it was over, that I had failed, there was a slimmer of hope. Mother shroom had provided me with a new shroom spore I have never used. It emmited a poisonous cloud, that would hit many slimes at once. This was it, I needed to build an inner circle out of those. And So I started. Suddenly defending was easy again I thought I had built an invincible setup.

![shrooom1.png](///raw/7a3/22/z/340b8.png)

But I was wrong: One Slime managed to take down one of the poison cloud shrooms. It was a race now, I had to build more poison shrooms than the slimes cold destroy, all other spores became nothing but decoys to distract the slimes for a short while.

I fought and fought, but in the end they were too many. **I have failed you mother shroom, I am so sorry** :cry:

![shrooom2.png](///raw/7a3/22/z/340b9.png)

Great game! , btw In the end it got very laggy with so much on the screen at once
Tarnes
12. May 2020 · 12:55 UTC
Fantastically intuitive and cohesive.
I found myself not understanding what the watering can did, trying to water the little spores, or use it as a weapon.
But man, pushing the baddies around, throwing guys out. it works well as a play loop.