Inside ‘Mushroom 11’

A swift move of the mouse and you can grow over obstacles, not “go,” but literally grow over them. “Mushroom 11” a new, upcoming indie game from the studio Untame delivers a fresh look at puzzle platforming.

Whether you split into two or slowly, but surely make your way around wastelands to collect DNA, “Mushroom 11” brings a new look to puzzle platforming and caters to a wide audience. The way “Mushroom 11” brings its ideas is not with the art or story, but the mechanic, moving around in this game is something that has never been done. Destroying yourself to regrow and move forward sounds and looks strange, but understanding it is only something that can be done by playing it yourself.

Julia Keren-Detar, co-creator of “Mushroom 11” said the mechanic behind “Mushroom 11” was created over a weekend and then started to grow into what we see now.

“We came up with this idea in the Game Jam, and we probably wouldn’t have come up with this idea if we didn’t have the game jam,” said Keren-Detar. “And after the prototype we saw how fun it looked and it took it a year for it to even be playable and two and a half years brings it up to about now” when Keren-Detar was asked about creating “Mushroom 11.”

But what is a Game Jam? It boils down to a group of indie game developers getting together, to see if they can create something out of nothing in a short amount of time, like 48 hours. This was how “Mushroom 11” was created, well at least the foundation of it.

The process of creating a game is no easy feat and considering that almost everything has been done and making something new can be challenging to say the least. With “Mushroom 11,” we see something that has never been done before- the way you move makes you think certain ways that you never thought you would think. “Should I split into two halves and try grow over this radiation and lava?” That’s just one of the many questions you will ask yourself when playing through this addicting and semi-anger inducing game.

Review Fix Exclusive: Julia Keren-Detar Talks ‘Mushroom 11’

Of course, story is something that the player needs to make, so expect many fan theories, some theories may even make sense. The idea of a story behind this game is actually confirmed, but is kept very vague. There are a few obvious things the player can find out through simply looking at the environment. For example, some kind of disaster happened or a type of police state brought the end of humanity.

“We want players to connect their own story in a way,” Keren-Detar explained. “To make their own sort of backstory.”

The idea of letting the player connect and create a story from small hints has been something that many games have been doing as of late, It adds another gameplay element in a way.

Most may think the game would be perfect for touch-based devices like phones, and consoles the likes of the Wii U. However, Keren-Detar said that the team’s main objective was to release the game on Steam and that putting it on other platforms would only hinder progress.

“We don’t have time to divert into other platforms right now. We have a Wii U dev kit and PlayStation Vita dev kit and there are a lot of technical difficulties right now. It’ll take a lot of work to actually make it work properly, a lot of latency issues where it makes the game frustrating to play,” Keren-Detar said. “We’re are not going to delay shipment of the game just to work on fixing these issues, that’s something we hope we can do at a later date after we have released it.”

Review Fix Exclusive IndieCade East Coverage: Julia Keren-Detar and Itay Keren Talk ‘Mushroom 11’

For more information on the game, head to the official site of “Mushroom 11”, here.