Shroom and Gloom: South Africa’s mushroom-munching deckbuilder is in Early Access

Two decks, one dungeon, and every enemy on the menu. Shroom and Gloom, the fungal roguelike deckbuilder from South African studio Team Lazerbeam, has been in Steam Early Access since 10 September, with Devolver Digital publishing. A month in, players are hooked.

Stop 01

Two decks, one dungeon

Most deckbuilders give you one deck. Shroom and Gloom gives you two. Your Explore deck handles everything outside a fight: revealing rooms, searching, breaking, unlocking, lighting fires and fixing things. Your Combat deck is for the fights themselves. You play it all in first person, with hand-drawn art laid over 3D caves and tunnels that lead down into an underground realm called The Gloom.

Your enemies are fungal, and the twist is that you can eat them. Fallen foes can be skewered, seasoned and roasted to win back health, or brewed into soups. Every attack is also infinitely upgradeable, so a humble starter card can grow into a monster, and a rare one can break the run wide open.

“Every enemy you encounter is edible.” The press release isn’t joking.

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What Early Access gives you, and what is coming

Team Lazerbeam says the game is already fully playable, with all its key features in place. There are two pathways, each with its own characters and around 300 explore and combat cards, plus quests, synergies and unlocks. The launch line-up of characters includes the Lunchlady, the Paperboy, the Concerned Parent, the Janitor and the Activist.

Over the next 12 to 24 months, the studio plans to add a new pathway with its own cards, new character classes, and more quests and challenges across every pathway. It doesn’t currently plan to raise the price at full release, so buying in now costs the same as waiting.

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From a jam team to Devolver

Team Lazerbeam goes back a long way. Founders Jason Sutherland, Richard Pieterse and Ben Rausch first teamed up in late 2014 to make a game for the Ludum Dare 31 game jam. Work on Shroom and Gloom began in 2021. Free Lives, the Cape Town studio behind Stick It to the Stickman, backed an early prototype, and in 2025 the game signed with Devolver Digital and released a free demo on Steam.

The community followed fast. In September 2025, the game’s TikTok and Instagram content passed nine million views in 30 days, and it crossed 100,000 Steam wishlists. By June 2026 it had more than 206,000. It’s also been one of the local titles at Playtopia, the Cape Town festival that returns from 3 to 5 December.

Sources: Steam, the Early Access press release, Games Industry Africa, Games Industry Africa (2025), 80 Level. Details checked on 12 October 2026.

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