[h3]While it has appealing graphics and natural ambiance, Mushroom Challenge is a hollow, pointless exercise to click and drag blossoms to a basket, and then trek back to your truck. There's no progression, no challenge, and most importantly, no fun to be had.[/h3]
[i]This game is a carbon copy of the similarly-named [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1391990/Berries_Challenge/]"Berries Challenge,"[/url] so the contents of my review are largely repeated here.[/i]
[i]Mushroom[/i] represents one of the latest iterations of Steam shovelware, cobbled together with easily obtainable assets and little to no care for the user experience. The game's starting screen serves as both a flimsy tutorial and an upgrade menu, telling you each bloom's value and teasing you with things to buy to presumably make better gains. But, spoiler: They don't really do anything.
Upon clicking start, you'll be spawned in a dense woodlands, with nothing but a basket. You must click and hold this basket as you walk around in search of tiny little shrooms hidden among the grass. Clicking on one will pluck it, after which you can put it in the basket or eat it. Eating it is meant to serve the purpose of restoring stamina in hardcore mode. Of course, this comes at a cost: Getting high. These shrooms are poisonous (maybe)!
Returning to the truck is how to cash out your run, and with your newfound wealth you can buy a bigger basket, a knife (that does nothing but add a passive point multiplier), stones to create trails if you venture out too far, a horn, and a dog. The horn teases us about enemies in the game (wolves), but I couldn't find a single one. Your pet points you in the direction of more psychedelics... And that's about it. None of these are necessary.
While the game is playable, it's not fun. Other miscellaneous observations:
[list]
[*]The game loses focus each time you start, so your mouse desyncs. Try clicking over the black text box to continue.
[*]Clicking Menu after completing a run instead restarts a new run. You need to ESC and select Menu once more.
[*]You can clip or run off the map and get stuck in infinite freefall, there are no borders
[*]No objects (besides the truck) have collision. You can phase through the trees
[/list]
TL;DR - Overpriced asset flip with easy achievements. Get it if you're a collector, but only if discounted all the way. Otherwise, pass. Consider all of the challenge games at risk of removal, if valve QC audits them.
[u]Achievement Hunters[/u]: Pick one of each fungi. <1min to 100%, use easy mode to spawn butterflies, revealing their locations.
