Shroom and Gloom Reviews: What the Numbers Say So Far
Reception checked:
What is working in its favour
- ✅ Demo review score is Overwhelmingly Positive across 1,112 reviews — a large sample for a demo
- ✅ Hand-drawn art is the most consistently praised element in demo threads and creator coverage
- ✅ Big creator reach before launch: Northernlion, Aliensrock and MoistCr1TiKaL videos each sit in the hundreds of thousands of views
- ✅ Devolver Digital publishing, plus a Playtopia Fest award win in December 2025
- ✅ June 2026 exploration rework shipped to the free demo first, so buyers can test the current systems before paying
What demo players actually complained about
- ❌ Difficulty ramp: multiple demo threads say deeper floors spike hard — the developers replied that enemies scale with depth, not with how well you build
- ❌ No save and quit in the demo, which hurts when a run goes long
- ❌ Motion sickness reported by some players in the first-person exploration phases
- ❌ Rest was mapped to E next to W, so a misclick could end a run — the developers say Early Access changes that binding
- ❌ No controller support in the demo; it is in progress but not shipped
- ❌ One player reported a stuck auto-walk bug the developers could not reproduce
Why there is no score here
We do not play review copies and we do not invent a number. Until the Early Access build is out and Steam user reviews accumulate against it, the honest answer is that the only measured reception belongs to the demo and the prototype — both listed above with their sample sizes and dates.
Complaints in the list above are taken from titled threads in the game's Steam discussion board, several with developer replies; they describe the demo build, not the Early Access build.
The numbers, with sources
| Signal | Value | When | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam demo reviews | 1,077 positive of 1,112 (96.8%), Overwhelmingly Positive | Sep 7, 2026 | Steam appreviews API, app 3602770 |
| itch.io prototype rating | 4.8 / 5 from 324 ratings | Sep 7, 2026 | teamlazerbeam.itch.io |
| Steam wishlists | 206,233; August dev log put the game 8,500 short of 250,000 | Jun 16 and Aug 22, 2026 | Team Lazerbeam dev logs |
| Demo downloads | 100,000+ | Jul 31, 2026 | July 2026 dev log |
| Award | Award win at Playtopia Fest | Dec 2025 | December 2025 dev log |
| Metacritic | No page or score yet | Sep 7, 2026 | Metacritic |
Before you buy, check the system requirements.