The Visible Mushroom Man

by JC Fletcher { Aug 12th 2008 at 4:35PM }

This new Mushroom Men screen demonstrates the intuitive and slightly gross "life meter" used in the game. Rather than displaying some life bar, Mushroom Men alerts you to reduced health in a slightly more "natural" manner, namely loss of cap. Pax's mushroom cap is divided into chunks, and a section disappears with each hit taken, revealing more of the brain underneath. No, mushrooms don't normally have brains, but they don't usually have spiked clubs either! Neither do fungi usually have ... adventures.

Both the club and the brain would seem to come in handy in a pitched battle against ... is that a jackalope?

Gallery: Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars

Tags: action, gamecock, mushroom-men, platform, red-fly-studio

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

TWOO DEE @ Aug 12th 2008 4:54PM

being a sort of visual design guy myself, i welcome any decision to keep the hud as completely bare as possible

Ty @ Aug 13th 2008 8:50AM

the jackalope is a dangerous beast, half rabbit, half antelope, luring men into the wilderness with it's human calls, and setting traps that await them, only the bravest of men have hunted him.

Yaktastic @ Aug 13th 2008 10:25AM

Not to rile the masses with mycological talk and veer too far from the suspension of disbelief/alternate reality that is this game (and boy am i excited by it) but before you start to rag on about fungi not having brains and not weilding spiked clubs you should look into the research that is going on now by Paul Stamets and other Mycologists.
I've seen mycellium do some amazing things (like solve mazes and remember solutions to problems) and there is a supposition that is growing in many that some fungi can be classified as sentient. (Mycellium knows you are there, when you pass it rises up to meet you and to collect food from the debris fields we create by walking).

alright, maybe i don't have a response for the club comment, but mycellium, just a single cell wall thick, can grip onto and hold up to 30,000 times its mass, so if one were to craft a small club i am sure we could find examples of its use :)

anyway, super excited for this game. and love the design choices i have seen so far.

p.s. if anyone is interested in more of this mushroom craziness that i was spouting (and ways fungi can be used to restore habitat, serve a mycoremediation function for reclaiming toxic sites, purify water, accelerate agriculture, and generally provide a stepping stone for saving our planet) you should check out Paul Stamets's TED talk, and his book Mycellium Running.

Learn how to start sequestering carbon and rebuild the carbon banks of our planet today by using leftover carboard as a growing medium and start marking your world with an ecological footprint that helps everyone! :)