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This weekend I grew a fungus daughter in eerie narrative RPG Mushroom Musume, which has a demoThe morel the merrier
The morel the merrier
Image credit:Mortally Moonstruck Games
Image credit:Mortally Moonstruck Games
I don’t plan on having kids, but in the event that I change my mind, commissioning a forest Witch to grow one from a mushroom seems a lot easier than the usual human procreative process, though possibly just as abundant in screaming. I’ve been playing the demo for “cute-creepy” RPG and life simMushroom Musume, in which you - an unnamed “Recluse” - cultivate and play as a series of mushroom daughters. My current mushroom daughter is called Alia. She’s a Common Turquoise Truffle. She’s got a small pig acquaintance, who so far hasn’t tried to devour her, and a cute fuzzy hat, which she stole from outside a church - precise impact on character development still TBC.
You can find Mushroom Musume onSteamandItch(the WIP Itch version is part of Itch’s latestQueer Games Bundle). I think it could be something special. Each round of the game begins with you fetching various ingredients for your filial fungus, at the behest of the aforesaid Witch. A colour, for example, which you might glean from a flower or the bottom of the river, and an heirloom, like the hairpin you gave to your previous lost child.
Image credit:Mortally Moonstruck Games
After a few turns in the fungarium, your daughter reaches fruition and moves out, whereupon the game becomes a light-touch journalling RPG that reminds me a little ofReigns, made up of short text-based quests whose outcomes are often decided using dice. You’ve got ability cards, including a self-explanatory “Nope” card and a limited supply of “Soma” (aka, your own lifeforce) to spend on quests. Choices in quests affect your mushroom’s personality stats and thus, presumably, the other quests you’ll discover, while occasionally rewarding you with an item such as a magic handbell.
Ireallylike Mushroom Musume. It’s cuddly yet nasty, whimsical but rotten, eerie but enchanting and perhaps, endearing - a fairytale of the old school, in short. The premise is gloriously unwholesome, the visuals are a pleasing scrapbook of Game Boy photography, and the writing is as slight and flavourful with mounting bitter undertones as any redcap you’d find in the woods. Small flourishes abound: choosing a colour for your mushroom also decides the colour of the HUD, and there’s a music player in top-right which you can turn on and off. Go on,try the pre-release build. It’s free, but they’re accepting donations.
