RPGM - Completed - Mushroom Grounds [v1.0] [RedPines]

Very short and straightforward game.
Main part of the game is to decide what do you want, a chance to survive or to have a good feelings before death. If your choice is pleasure, you need to farm and guess, what do you need to say or give to one of the girl, to get her... "heart".
There is no horny scenes, only somewhat romantic, with nude pictures.
Everything in this game ends badly, Plot is feeling a bit empty, many things untold. Guess parts of this game world are in other games ?
Anyway, giving 3/5 for unique style, atmosphere and gameplay.
VERDICT: barely can recommend this game to play it

To start off with the negatives:

The lack of a save button is extremely negative, since you always die in two successive hit to a single character during a raid, with no chance to upgrade your weapons or armor. After that happens all progress is lost and you have to go through the whole farming of mushroom caps all over again...

The game also needs an overhaul of the tutorial, since all that is really explained are the combat and the dating aspects. Turns out that you can swap the people in your party and that the clown on the top floor sells pictures for the steep price of 50kg. And that's pretty much it in terms of things to spend your "money" on.

As for the gameplay, it's as simple as can be - go outside, farm mushrooms without dying, buy photos, decide what photo to give to whom based on the vague hints you get, date them, get a password once you complete their whole route and repeat the whole thing over again. Not the best gameplay loop, but I'm guessing that the dev went for the atmosphere and an overall feeling of dread and helplessness.

The positives are short and simple:

Unique, hand drawn 2D art, with a slight pixel look. The characters are varied enough in terms of looks and have interesting designs.

Dreary and atmospheric post apocalyptic world. You can't see much of it, but it's there and it's oppressive.

In general, the art style and feel of the game draw me in, though the gameplay loop and lack of save function are big red marks against it.

I'll edit this review once I've finished at least one ending and can speak about the experience as a whole.