Using the genetic keys of the new species you create you can unlock the paths between the waking and dreaming worlds, explore the land of those still hibernating, and embark on a journey to help restore the lost populations and find out what happened.

Mushrooms will not grow outside their general environment, so you'll need to have access to each of these locations in case they appear.

It originally started as a gamejam entry for FletchFest 2023, with the theme of ‘pond’. Ell had always joked about ‘what if APICO but frog?’ before, and this seemed a perfect opportunity to play with the concept and how to take things in a new direction.

You awaken from your hibernation to find your pond abandoned and empty. Through a combination of crafting minigames, menu management and puzzle solving, experiment with genetics to breed new frogs and recover what was lost.

Those are the main areas, but there’s also some other bits and bobs that’ll be included or expanded upon in the full game, such as:

Using the genetic keys of the new species you create you can unlock the paths between the waking and dreaming worlds, explore the land of those still hibernating, and embark on a journey to help restore the lost populations and find out what happened.

Mudborne is being created by ellraiser, one half of the indie-dev studio, TNgineers. A spiritual successor of sorts to APICO, Mudborne instead focuses on genetic manipulation and generational puzzles to create and discover all sorts of frog species, with experimentation being encouraged.

Now that you’ve had a taste of the new demo’s bugs, here’s what you'll discover in the full game!

It has since turned into a spiritual successor of sorts to APICO, with a similar menu system and 'collect them all' style gameplay - however Mudborne instead focuses on genetic manipulation and generational puzzles to create and discover all sorts of frog species, who's genetic keys unlock paths between the waking and dreaming worlds...

Use Composters To Encourage Spore Growth If you're not willing to wait for nature to take its course and spawn a few odd mushrooms around the world, you can always use cultivators around the Mudborne Game map to grow mushrooms when conditions are right.

In the mud on cold nights, with a Heater and a high Umbrage frog as well as a Dehydratior with a low Saturation frog nearby.

With a careful blend of using the right kind of compost to encourage mushroom growth and a sharp attention to the weather forecast, you’ll find all sorts of mushrooms in Mudborne. Use them to make different magic mud recipes and change the next generation’s A.N.Este.U.R.E.S. stats.

I introduce ancestry towards the end of the spawning pools - I didn’t want to have things too complex just for the demo/tutorial region, but in the full game there’ll be a lot more advanced frogs requiring some clever magic mud across several generations to form.

When you spot them, mushrooms need to grow from spores before you can collect them, which takes a bit of in-game time. This can be frustrating as the weather conditions change, so look for new mushrooms right when the weather changes, since you may have a relatively small window to find them.

There’s other bits that I don’t want to spoil, but I think that should give you a good idea of what to expect!