Make Way for Mushrooms

PLEASE READ
This game can grind your computer to a halt! If you get in a situation where you have a lot of puff balls on screen like this:

DO NOT MAKE ANY FURTHER MOVES

Consider yourself a winner and either press "R" to reset the game or close the page 😅

With that out of the way... Make Way for Mushrooms is our submission to GMTK Game Jam 2024. Its about spreading mycelium in exponential ways, drawing inspiration from the jam theme--"scale"--and Conway's Game of Life.

You play as a trio of little brown mushrooms.

Use the arrow keys to traverse the grid to inhabit oak trees.

Once all trees on the grid are inhabited the grid will grow along with more oak trees for you to inhabit.

Additionally, inhabited oak trees will spawn chantarelles in a clockwise fashion every few turns.

 If any mushrooms collide with each other (including with the player) there will be an explosion of puffballs around that space that move diagonally outwards.

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It's no Game of Life, but it was an interesting design space to explore. Besides all the collision bugs, the rules (and the runtime performance) definitely need some tuning. It doesn't take long before puffball explosions have occupied the screen. Had fun learning about game maker and drawing mushrooms with friends though!

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A game by:
Sean Spearman (https://bates550.itch.io/): Art + Programming
James Bescos (https://jbescos.itch.io): Programming
Cameron Basham (https://clambordan.itch.io/): Programming