Shroom and Gloom · published · build 18130332
Yo Shroomers! Ben from Team Lazerbeam here, checking in with the July Dev Log for our first person, roguelike double-deckbuilder, Shroom and Gloom! It’s been a wild 2 months for Team Lazerbeam since we dropped our demo on Steam.
We were blown away by the overwhelming response to the demo - we were so stoked to see so many people trying out this early demo for Shroom and Gloom! Between Steam reviews, community discussions, lets plays, streams and posts on our Discord, we received mountains of feedback on the demo. Aside from giving us heaps of encouragement, this feedback highlighted many aspects of the demo that could be better. Over these past 2 months we’ve relentlessly been improving on the demo, and rolling out regular updates. Today we're very happy to announce the launch of Shroom and Gloom 0.4.71, our latest demo update, and likely the last one we’ll sharing for the next while.
0.4.71 is the last in a string of updates that have dropped since we put out our June Dev log. Curious about what’s changed? We’re share a list of highlights at the end of this dev log, but the TL:DR is that we’ve focused on improving three things. First, we’ve aimed to significantly improve the user experience of our core cardplay, particularly how players are able to navigate huge hands of cards (an essential in a game with no cap on how many cards you can hold). Second, we’ve poured tones of energy into improving our final boss fight, the nightmarish Gloom Worm. Lastly, we’ve done a deep dive on giving the games visuals an additional layer of love, particularly on the look of our levels.
While we could easily keep updating this demo for another 2 months, we’re very stoked to be in a place where we can happily put a bow on this thing for now. We’ve addressed the biggest issues and requests from players. We’ve made the demo far more fun, immersive and stable in the process. And best of all, we have an even better idea of how to deliver on our goal of delivering the most immersive, inventive and dazzling new game in the deck builder genre.
Infinite thanks and high fives to everyone that’s been part of this journey over the last 2 months. Thanks to everyone that picked up the demo, left a review or shared the game with their friends, family or communities. Thanks to anyone that joined our Discord, logged bugs, engaged in conversations or shared feedback. Thanks to everyone that’s inspired us to keep making Shroom and Gloom the best game it can be.
We’ll keep in touch with how we’re progressing with developing this lovely game. If you would like to keep up with us between dev logs, follow us on TikTok or Instagram or Youtube, join our monthly mailer, or hang out with us on Discord.
Thanks again!
Mega list of change from the last month of updates to Shroom and Gloom:
0.4.71 (Steam demo 11) - 8 July
* Art: huge amount of visual improvements across various levels.
* Gloom Worm gameplay: Changed when Cosmic Horror will increase costs (food and curses no longer trigger it. Changed how Inescapable rule works (Cosmic Horror now added to the top of your deck rather than being auto drawn)
* Gloom Worm visuals: Improved UI layout on Gloomworm. Added more illustrated an animated elements.
* Fixes:
* Fixed wrong return damage on hovering card
* Can't use a stacked toasty kebab to buy cards at the shop
* Fixed a bug where starting combat deck was thinning out after the first combat
* All soups can now be used as currency at shops
* Stopped Buttdoor from loading a new tunnel more than once
* Hard-coded that the player can never have less than 0 energy
* Fixed multiple add card to hand intents with different cards not displaying correctly.
* Fixed when adding a new trigger that adds cards on a card that already has at least one of those triggers, not actually adding the new cards, but just increasing the existing trigger's card count. (It now actually adds a new add card intent with the correct card)
* Made gloom worm face no longer jump on evolution.
* Various card tweaks and improvements
0.4.70 (Steam demo 10) - 4 July
* Cosmic Horror added to the Gloom Worm boss fight! Yipes!
* Guts added to Gloom Worm limbs. Yum!
* Gloom worm glow up
* New animations
* New art
* New layout
* 2 Exploding blossoms replacing 4 blossoms on first evolution
* Stacking changes:
* All identical cards can now stack if you have a large hand
* Fixed that most consumables didn't stack- i.e. stone picks now stack
* Fixed that an entire stack would take on the setting of the main card
* Cards with different Modifications won’t stack
* Cards in stacks are properly discarded and exhausted, then re-enter your deck
* Environment glow up:
* General polishing and tightening of tunnels
* Beginning to implement bespoke mini-boss environments
* New tunnel colour gradients & lighting (earlier tunnels, currently in progress)
* Gloom Worm’s den looks more awesome.
* Gloom world looks more awesome.
* Fixes:
* Fixed card descriptions, line breaks and italics
* When a card increases max health negatively, it now says "Decrease max health by"
* New Lazarus will always bring you back on a new turn, with a fresh hand.
* Burrows and enemies hide when dead
* Wrecking Ball draw a card
* Sneaky mole will look at all your picks as currency
* A locked card in soup pot will show its energy requirement
* Soup pot shows card values for easier cooking
* Cards are sorted in your hand according to type - 1) Handy 2) Passives 3) Skills 4) Attacks 5) Foods 6) Curses
0.4.67 (Steam demo 9)
* Attacks cary over on evolving enemies (So for example hot poker attacks will carry over). Statuses do not.
* There is some more feedback and timing has been worked on during evolution.
* Gloom worm changes
* Limbs apply vulnerable on the main body on death
* There are a number of intent changes to make the gloom worm fight a bit less overwhelming.
* Animations and VFX have been updated.
* There are some WIP lighting changes in the gloom worm tunnel and fight
* Deck randomization has been improved, you should not draw cards in the same order that you see them in the deck view.
* Tooltips for enemy intents and statuses have been improved (they now give a bit more information on what they apply to)
* Flykick no longer removes status effects, and acacia mace has been removed from the card pool. This is in response to people getting confused, or disliking that statuses that are good for the player are removed.
* Camp structures can no longer draw evolve cards, or cards with limited uses.
* Text that is hovered to see a tooltip has an outline so it doesn't blend into cards that are the same color.