I absolutely love Mudborne! I want to start by saying that I love Apico and was looking forward to the release of this game. It does not disappoint! While Apico is more focused on the collectathon aspect, Mudborne is more puzzle-based. For example, you want to use specific frogs to unlock parts of the world to move the story forward. The trick is that the specific frogs needed are created by altering the genetics of their offspring using mushroom science. The devs hit it out of the park again!

this is single-handedly ruining my life. i love it <3

highly highly highly recommend this game to literally everyone its so cute and peaceful and im barely halfway through the game and I do not want it to be over. rolling around in the grass and flowers smiling thinking of the little frogs.

I'm diagnosed bad at math and this game is so fun that i will do the math instead of avoiding it. on my way to play another 7hrs with no breaks.

This one is for those who go through the negative reviews to find drawbacks. I wish steam finally made the "informational/mid" option. The core puzzle side of the game is actually really good. The concept of adjusting stats through generations is simple but surprisingly captivating. But most of the other aspects of the game are really lacking for my taste.

The musroom growth based on the environment is good. But the forecast system is either unclear or just doesn't work at all. And you will need it to be sunny or to rain all the time after the most basic steps are over. So you will find yourself constantly trying to get the weather to fit the thing you want. Your sleep otions are limited to four wake-up times which have loose corellation with weather schedules which means you will likely have to wait for multiple in-game hours to have that rain happen. At least you can carry the bed with you and place it where you want.

The metroidvania style exploration progression with new ways to traverse unlocking as you reach new areas is fine. But the shortcut system is far from providing enough coverage for all your needs. It is 2 points per locale so far and it is not a fast-travel gateway, it is a noticeably shorter path but not instant. Sure, the "gateway dimension" has it's reason to exist other than fast-travel but still it feels unnecessary.

The respawn at last bed/pool is a good thing on its own. But when you have to constantly use pools and beds to get the conditions for mushrooms it simply becomes a mess. You cannot really set up a bed as an anchor because it will always get overritten if you move to make any progress.

I've read the dev comment saying that fast-travel item exists later on but when you're done with the progress and enter the final "completionist" stage you can use a bed-anchor better (at least I think it should be like this since you no longer need to cycle the weather with all musrooms collected in vast amounts).

The pipes in the cold region are a menace. Like why would they have to be walls? Is there really a reason for that other than a style choice? Even more questionable when you get the water freezer and can easily cross anything except the deep water and them. They look cool though XD

The lilypad jumping is cool and atmospheric but it feels a bit inconsistent or rather just unintuitive in the range aspect. Sometimes you can just jump from one shore to the lilypad connecting to the other, but sometimes you are just a bit short of that. Again, it is very fitting and a great thing, but the feel of movement is kinda off. This is more of a nitpick but maybe it would be better if you could navigate them with movement controls (as in "hold W to jump to the next lilypad above you") The jump puzzles exist so the click-to-jump kinda has to be avaliable too though

Overall still a good puzzle game but it is fast to frustrate me enough to stop playing. I am coming back though and i think I will get to the end of it regarldess of all the things I listed above.

P.S. is it me or is diagonal movement not scaled down to match horizontal/vertical speed? Not a problem at all, just curious.