Holy Shroom!

Holy Shroom! is a photorealistic mushroom-foraging game that starts as a relaxing trip into the woods and slowly turns into a fight for survival after dark. You and a group of retired friends pile into an old van and head out to pick mushrooms, only for the vehicle to break down in the middle of nowhere. The local mechanic can fix it, but the bill is steep, and the only way to cover it is to fill your baskets and sell what you find. What begins as a simple errand quickly becomes something far stranger, because the forest nearby is not entirely normal.
The Core Gameplay

The loop is built around a single, constantly escalating question: how long are you willing to stay out there? Daytime is calm and quiet. The forest is peaceful, you can explore at your own pace, and you can return without much trouble. The catch is that mushrooms are harder to find during the day, and the most valuable varieties are scarce. Nighttime is when everything changes. The forest fills with mushrooms, including the rarest and most expensive ones, and that is when the real money is made. But it is also when the forest wakes up. Ghosts, monsters, mutants, aggressive animals, and other strange residents begin to appear, and they do not all behave the same way.

Reading the Dark

The creatures that roam the forest at night are not mindless pursuers. Some are drawn to sound, which means staying quiet can keep you alive. Others can be driven back with light. Some are best avoided by maintaining eye contact, and others will simply take what they want-your mushrooms, or your life. The forest does not always unite against you, either: monsters can chase and attack each other, and if two of them decide to settle a dispute between the trees, the smart move is often to wait out the fight rather than stumble into the middle of it. Weather adds another layer, with rain putting out torches and changing the way you navigate the dark.

Gather, Sell, Repair the Van

Everything you collect can be sold for coins, and those coins go toward better equipment-baskets, tools, clothing, lighting, and consumables-and, eventually, the repair bill for the van. Each trip becomes a risk-reward calculation. Head back early and you keep what you have, but you leave money on the table. Stay longer and the payout grows, but so does the chance that something finds you first. The game features around 20 types of mushrooms and 12 types of monsters, along with glowing mushrooms with unusual properties, absurd humor, and the option to eat a suspicious find and discover the consequences for yourself.

Co-op and Solo Play

The game supports solo play and online co-op for up to four players. In co-op, the experience transforms: one person can scout ahead, another can focus on gathering, and at night you can cover each other with torches and keep the group alive through the darkness. Playing alone is possible, but it is significantly harder-there is more to manage than one person can comfortably handle, and the game does not pause even when you open the map or menu. The social dynamic of dividing roles and watching each other's backs is where the co-op design truly shines.

Reception and Community

The game is very new and has only a handful of user reviews on Steam, so there is no broad consensus yet on how it holds up over long sessions. Early impressions from players who have tried it are genuinely enthusiastic. One reviewer described the co-op experience as doubling the fun, with friends taking turns scouting and gathering while covering each other with lights at night, and said that after two hours they were still eager for more. Another praised the contrast between the relaxing daytime and the tense, horror-tinged nights, calling it worth the price of admission on that alone. Criticisms include stiff and slightly delayed action inputs, an exaggerated physics engine when pushing carts, a lack of clear guidance on details like torches going out in the rain, and a difficulty spike in solo play that can feel overwhelming. The game is still very much a hidden gem, and anyone who picks it up now would be discovering it before almost everyone else.

System Requirements

Minimum: Windows 10 64-bit, an Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB / AMD Radeon RX 580 8 GB, with DirectX 12. You will need a broadband internet connection, 30 GB of available storage space, and a microphone for in-game voice chat. Recommended: Windows 10/11 64-bit, an Intel Core i5-12400F / AMD Ryzen 5 5600, and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 / AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, with DirectX 12. The developers note that the game aims for photorealistic visuals, so performance may be lower on weaker graphics cards-and they suggest that if your computer struggles, you could always go pick mushrooms in a real forest instead.

Who Is This Game For?

If you love co-op games that reward communication, role division, and a little bit of nerve-where the daytime is for planning and the nighttime is for survival-this is exactly your kind of experience. If you enjoy the tension of risk-reward decisions, deciding whether to push your luck for one more valuable mushroom or cut your losses and head back to the van, the day-night cycle delivers that pressure in a way that feels constantly fresh. It is also for players who appreciate a game that blends a peaceful, almost meditative gathering loop with genuine horror elements, and who do not mind a few rough edges in exchange for a genuinely unique atmosphere. And if you just want a cheap, strange, and memorable co-op game about retired friends, a broken-down van, and a forest that does not want you there after sunset, this one has your name on it.

If the game has piqued your interest and you give it a shot, may you win!