EDIT: okay this game deserves a proper full review!!
Mushroom Musume is a highly replayable princess raising game. You play as a hermit that wants a daughter so badly you decide to raise a magic mushroom, and she grows up and goes off on adventures.
Mushroom Musume plays extremely like a roguelike. You will raise several daughters, and each of them will take a wildly different path, based on random events and choices you make. A single daughter can live a full life from dirt to dirt in less than 30 minutes. The first act of a run is spent as the hermit, making choices on how you raise your daughter - what do you feed her? are you strict or lax? do you teach her magic or how to farm? - and these affect her mushroom species and her statistics in the second act, where your daughter leaves home to explore the world, where the game begins in full.
Every day your daughter will run into some strange situation or meet some new person, and you are given choices for how she interacts. Some of these have random dice rolls affected by your stats and resources, and can also manipulate your stats further. Choices you make earlier in her life will affect her later: friends will come back a second time, skills will come in handy. If you meet an artist and convince him to teach you to paint, later on (with some luck and magic) you can impress a noble with a stunning portrait. In the final act of each run, your daughter will decide to pursue a great cause, such as slaying a monster, attending a gala, or climbing a magical mountain. Sometimes your daughter lives a wonderful, full life of adventure. Sometimes she is ripped to shreds before her time. Sometimes she falls in love. Sometimes she settles down for a boring, safe retirement.
Here's the thing: This game is so chock-full of secrets. It's been a while since I've seen something that just kept surprising me. You catch a fairy to feed your daughter and she changes shape and suddenly the screen is neon pink and blue. You can stumble into entire subgames full of dungeons to explore. I have never played a VN or princess sim with this level of surprises tucked away. I have raised over 60 mushroom daughters and I have not dug up half of what this game has planted.
Aside from that, there's the tone. The vibes. The vibes are impeccable. It's got all the great hallmarks of a princess sim: sometimes she falls in love, sometimes she dies horribly. Between the stylized photo-backgrounds, the absolutely adorable mushroom girls, and the haunting music, this game oozes a magical vibe. Not your fun, lovable wizard magic, but the unsettling unpredictable magic of witches and nature, where sometimes things are just gross and brutal and weird. Of course, it's silly at times. You can become a pro wrestler.
I love roguelikes and I love secrets and I love weird games and I love mushroom girls, so here we are. Mushroom Musume rules. Treat your daughters well, or not.
ADDENDUM: ah, I'm glad y'all like this! Please check out the game!! I'll have to write about more games like this in the future 😤
