Shroom and Gloom is finally on Steam, and its Early Access build is already stuffed with cards

Team Lazerbeam and Devolver Digital have launched Shroom and Gloom in Steam Early Access for Windows and macOS. A free demo remains available alongside the paid build.

The launch also closes one small campaign for the studio. Team Lazerbeam once set itself a target of 250,000 Steam wishlists before release. Its launch post reports 326,696, with the game briefly reaching number five on Steam's Popular Upcoming chart.

Two decks divide the dungeon into two different problems

Combat and exploration do not draw from the same pool. The Combat Deck handles attacks, healing and the increasingly elaborate ways players can roast hostile mushrooms. The Explore Deck is used to search rooms, open routes, dig, manipulate objects and alter the cards carried deeper into a run.

That distinction is more important than the phrase double-deckbuilder initially suggests. Resources spent while exploring can shape what happens before the next fight even begins.

Enemies can also become resources themselves. Fungal creatures can be seasoned, roasted and eaten to recover health, or thrown into a pot to create soups with additional effects. Blocking is apparently much less attractive when the opponent looks vaguely edible.

Early Access opens a second route

The Facility is the biggest addition for players coming directly from the demo. Team Lazerbeam describes it as a separate path toward The Gloom with its own card pools, enemies and rewards rather than a cosmetic variant of the existing dungeon.

Steam's Early Access description lists two distinct pathways and roughly 300 Explore and Combat cards per pathway, alongside quests, synergies and unlocks.

Five characters are available at launch: Paperboy, Janitor, Lunchlady, Activist and Concerned Parent. They begin with different Combat and Explore decks, plus individual Foresight cards that change their starting approach.

Some of the biggest launch additions are deliberately boring

Saving is one of them. Runs now autosave after winning a fight or leaving a dungeon, something the developers describe as one of the community's most requested features.

Controller support is another. Targeting has also been revised so cards communicate whether they affect one enemy, multiple enemies or the player, while invalid targets move out of the way during selection.

A card inspector has been added with handheld play specifically in mind.

The drawings still do most of the selling

Shroom and Gloom's dungeons are built by combining hand-drawn illustrations and animation with spaces that create the impression of first-person depth. The result looks more like wandering through layered pages of a grotesque sketchbook than a conventional 3D dungeon.

PC Gamer highlighted the art alongside the combat in its post-launch impressions on September 11, particularly the way layers of hand-drawn scenery form the tunnels surrounding each encounter.

Cards are designed to mutate just as aggressively. Starting attacks can be repeatedly grown and modified into much larger combinations, while rarer cards can be pushed toward deliberately excessive builds.

This is still the beginning of Early Access

Team Lazerbeam currently estimates a 12-to-24-month Early Access period. The studio explicitly presents that as a plan rather than a guaranteed 1.0 date.

A third and final pathway to The Gloom is planned, along with more characters and cards. Larger content updates are expected to introduce those additions, with smaller patches used for tuning and improvements between them.

The first roadmap will be shaped after launch with community feedback. That continues the development approach Team Lazerbeam has used since its early prototype, rather than treating player input as something that begins only after money changes hands.

Devolver's launch announcement lists the Early Access price at €14.99. The developers currently say they do not plan to raise the price when the game eventually reaches 1.0.