HEY Funguys!
Welcome to the January 2026 Funguys Swarm Dev Update!Our fourth major update, the New Characters Update, is live now!In this blog, we introduce six new characters and reveal a new system where skills and passives now have rarities. We’ll also cover new gameplay mechanics, including Shrines, Luck, and Armor.Finally, we showcase brand-new content, such as fire curses and blessings.
We're adding not 1, not 2, but 6 new characters this time!
Here they are:
Groovba: Debuffs deal +20% damage for each Nature card you have. Enemies killed by debuffs have a 2% chance to drop a half heart.
Joomba: After standing still for 3 seconds, gain +50% damage, plus +20% for each Sky card you have.
Fuzzbug: Start with 1 pixie that damages enemies. Pixies are affected by amount modifiers. Gain +1 projectile for every 2 Night cards you have.
X-Olotl: For every 5 Beast cards you have, spawn a copy of yourself that deals 50% of your weapon damage. Dash cooldown is reduced by 5% per Beast card. After you dash, gain +50% attack speed for 2 seconds.
NutsNBoltz: You can now find Nuts in the arena. Nuts charge your mecha by 20% and grant +50% movement speed for 5 seconds. Nut bonuses are increased for each Earth card you have.
Chimpy: Convert all HP into Armor. HP pickups no longer drop. Taking damage while armored causes an explosion, dealing 100 damage. Explosion damage increases by 20% for each Nature card you have.
Check out two of their many bonkers abilities
[This is a bug. We will not fix it.]
Fuzzbug focuses like Night cards, she starts with 1 pixie and gets more pixie the more for every 2 night cards she has.
[Every clone makes him slightly angrier.]
X-Olotl summons clones of itself for every 5 beast cards she has, passive or active cards both count.
[How was the Savage Fist? Legen—wait for it—dary.]
Skill and Passive now have random rarity each time you level up. More gacha mechanics, more fun.
Here are the rarity levels:
Common
Rare
Epic
Legendary
Each higher rarity will give a higher stat boost. E.g., Legendary Green Heart will give more hearts than Common Green Heart.
Skills levels are also reworked a bit. Skills now maxed at level 10, mutation at level 5 and 10.
[Stand here for 5 seconds to receive mild anxiety]
Shrines: New interactable you can find in arena. You must stay within them for a short time before they give you their rewards.
Funguys Evolutions are now also findable in Funguy Shrines instead of getting it every 5 and 10 minutes.
Armor shrines drop Armors. 1 hit = 1 armor. You lose 1 armor for 1 hit from any enemy.
The higher your luck, the higher the skill and passive rarity chance.
[I'm feeling Lucky!]
You can also find the Luck skill passive to increase it even more. Try a luck-focused build!
[Shroomba be like: This is fine. 🔥🙂]
That handsome ball of fire is Death Follows, the highest-level fire curse at level 30. Think your extra lives will save you? Psych! Death Follows comes back for you after you revive.
We hear you like fire curses, so we add some more. Here they are:
Fire Curses:
Infused Projectiles - curse lvl 10
Enemy ranged projectiles move faster.
Slowing Heat - curse lvl 15
Spawn slowing fields that reduce your movement speed.
Internal Catapult - curse lvl 20
Fiery meteors fall around you.
Scorching Treasures - curse lvl 25
Resources and XP Beans expire after a duration.
Death Follows - curse lvl 30
A mass of death appears and slowly moves toward you. Touching it results in instant death.
Fire Blessings:
Treasure Hunter - blessing lvl 5
An additional bonus when picking up resources.
Lucky Cards - blessing lvl 15
Chance for Rare cards to appear more often.
Forest Power - blessing lvl 15
Chance for all damage you deal to be critical hits.
We also allow you to level up the fire skill up to level 30 for those of you who like a bit more heat.
We release 4 new skills with this update:
Infernal Escape - Dash skills.
Your Dash is replaced with a leap into the sky. After a delay, you land and deal damage to all enemies in the area.
Sexy Totem
Every time you pick up 10 XP Beans, summon a totem that deals constant damage for its duration.
Water Snek
Spawn a slithering Water Snek that damages and slows enemies it passes through.
Frog Support - Weapon Skills
Spawn a frog that shoots projectiles based on the ranged weapon you use.
That’s all for now, folks.
The next updates are already in the works, including:
More arenas
We know you've been waiting for more arenas.
New characters, and more:
Get ready for more characters and more content!
Thank you,
Stairway Games
6 new characters, each with a unique ability that utilizes your card elements.
Locked characters now appear as Red Crystals in the Sanctuary.
New characters are unlockable via Starpath.
Mechanics for old characters’ unique abilities have been reworked.
Rarity now also appears on Skill and Passive Cards.
Skill Cards now max out at level 10, with mutations at levels 5 and 10.
Passive Cards still max out at level 7.
The number of Skill Slots and Passive Slots at the beginning of the game is now 3, upgradable to 5 via the Shroomshop.
You can no longer banish upgrade cards (you can only banish new cards).
Banishing a card now concludes the level-up (previously you could still select a card after banishing).
Skill Slots are no longer restricted by character level 10 and 20.
12 new interactables that can be found in the Arena.
Some of them replace Unique Breakables.
Obtainable by standing inside a circle (similar to Encounters).
We received feedback from the community that projectiles and danger from enemies is hard to see/detect.
To address this we rendered dangerous VFX on top of the environment, enemies & other VFX so players can track them better visually.
Various VFX of Skills and effects have also been improved to reduce visual noise and increase readability.
Tweaked the shape of environment occlusion when the player stands behind a structure, now it should look rounded and less noisy.
Fire Curse now maxes out at level 30 with brand-new deadly curses.
2 new Fire Blessings replace the old ones.
New blessings: Lucky Cards and Forest Power.
Fire King’s Offer now occupies one of the 3 level-up choices (instead of always appearing as a 4th choice).
Blocks one instance of damage, then is discarded.
You can pick up armor during your run.
Increases the chance for higher-rarity cards to appear.
Can be increased from various sources across the game.
Funguy Evolution can now be found in the Arena inside a Funguy Shrine.
You still need empty relic slots, purchasable via the Shroomshop.
Added 4 new Skills.
Such as Water Snek, summon a long Snek that goes through enemies and is upgradable with strange Mutations.
Or summon Sexy Totem, a muscular sculpture that radiates earthquakes (hopefully the design doesn’t distract you.)
Added 2 new Passives, increasing your Luck and your XP Growth.
Rare Chance Increase and Epic Chance Increase have been replaced by Luck.
Costs have been refunded for old save files.
New Upgrade: Flameguard.
Increases Max HP for one random character for the next run.
Skill Slot Increase.
Passive Slot Increase.
Costs have been refunded for old save files.
Reduced Hornet Spike unlock condition from 100k to 50k.
Reduced Slo-Moe unlock condition from 1,000 Guppy kills to 250.
Rebalanced all Weapon Upgrade Card values.
Reduced Douse cost from 20 Dew to 10 Dew.
Twin Punch has been replaced by Empowered Punch
Reduced initial damage by 30% (due to now being upgradable).
Debuff Upgrade Cards are now upgradable to level 7 for all elements.
Reduced initial shared damage from 50% to 40% (due to now being upgradable).
Now has a link limit of 8 enemies, prioritizing those closest to the target.
Now affects skills of the same element with a flat percentage damage bonus (previously based on how many cards of the same element you had).
Various VFX improvements.
Various UI improvements.