A cozy board game about foraging for mushrooms, designed by a mycologist!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Mycology is in the final stretch!
about 1 month ago
– Thu, Apr 04, 2024 at 04:19:44 PM
Greetings Mycologists!
I'm delighted to tell you that the printer has nearly completed their work. The game will then ship to our fulfilment partner, Quartermaster - probably in the next week or so. At that point, Quartermaster will begin the process of sending out your games to you. I don't yet know what their roll-out will look like, but I'm expecting to know in the next 1-2 weeks and will provide details. However, in my experience with Quartermaster (as a backer of Kickstarter projects), they work pretty quickly and efficiently.
In the meantime, you should all have received a final notification of your shipping address details from Backerkit. Please make any updates or correct any errors. If the system won't let you make modifications yourself, please email me asap and provide your information ([email protected]), because I will be finalizing the shipping information for Quartermaster in the next 2 days.
There are still a few of you (60 or so by my last count) who have not yet provided shipping information to me. I need that urgently in order to provide it to Quartermaster - you will not receive your game copy until I get it, and I don't want that to happen!
Once the fulfilment process begins, Quartermaster will email you (at the email address you provided) with tracking information for the shipment along with your expected delivery window. If you have not received the tracking information, don't worry - it just means that your game has not yet been sent out. I'm hopeful that we can get the fulfilment process completed by mid-May, but I'll confirm that with Quartermaster and let you know.
May thanks again for being our partners on this fungal journey. I hope we can all celebrate the spring mushroom season (at least in the northern hemisphere) by playing Mycology!
Best wishes,
James
Now processing shipping charges
4 months ago
– Fri, Jan 19, 2024 at 10:45:04 AM
Greetings Mycologists,
I think I've sorted out as many shipping and address-related issues as I can, so we've gone ahead and run your credit card charges through (for those who did not use PayPal or Strip - those charges processed as soon as you entered your information). The credit card charges will show up as "Bioprospectus", which is the name of the business that we're running the game production through.
A few of you still need to provide shipping payment information, and you can still do that - but please do it as soon as possible because I want to make sure that you receive the game!! A few others used an Apple-id to log on to Kickstarter when you made your pledge, and thus may not have been receiving the campaign-related Backerkit reminders. I'll try to deal with these manually but if you are in that category, please let me know and I can assist.
You can locate your Backerkit information by visiting the project page:
As always, please let me know if you have any difficulties.
Best wishes,
James
The home stretch!
4 months ago
– Sat, Jan 13, 2024 at 11:56:49 AM
Dear Mycologists,
We are in the home stretch! Thank you all for your patience as we have dotted our i’s and crossed our t’s through this last part of this journey. We had initially estimated a completion date by the end of January 2024 for the game production, and we are running a bit behind but not too far. Our current completion target to begin fulfilment is the first week of April, 2024. So for those in the Northern Hemisphere, you will have the game in your hands as the morels start to appear!
Our schedule got pushed back a bit by the need to develop and design some additional elements. The expansion of the mushroom card deck by 50% took a bit longer than expected in order to maintain the appropriate balance for seasons and resources that the game needs to function. Also, the expanded booklet ended up being 32 pages which required some further design refinement. And lastly, we decided at the last minute to produce custom, mushroom-themed dice. After running through a few different design concepts, we ended up with a design in which the pips (dots on the D6) reference the familiar spots of white that adorn the caps of the Fly Agaric mushroom, Amanita muscaria. This keeps the design visually within the realm of dice but adds a distinctive mycological twist. We’re extremely happy about it, and we think you’ll be too. Here’s a preview:
Although our final materials and signed production contract have already gone to the printer, the production schedule will be a bit slowed by the Year of the Dragon celebrations which runs nearly 3 weeks in February. Once that has concluded, our game production is slated to begin. I plan to lock-in the BackerKit information this coming week, so if anyone has last-minute modifications to their shipping information, now is the time to post it. If you do need to make a modification after the BackerKit closes, please let me know by email ([email protected]) and I will make a record of it manually. I also ordered some extra games in case you happen to know someone who missed out during the campaign and post-campaign but wants one.
Again, thank you so much for your patience, support, and enthusiasm as we work towards this final milestone!
Best wishes,
James
Status update - Game content and files completed
6 months ago
– Wed, Nov 08, 2023 at 08:40:10 AM
Hello Mycologists!
We're pleased to report that the graphic design and print layout of all files has been completed, including the stretch goal items: the custom mushroom dice and the extra cards. Additionally, although we didn't technically reach the stretch goals, we have decided to include the screen-printed season marker and the mushroom booklet as a gesture of our gratitude to you all!
In our Kickstarter campaign, we projected a completion date of January 2024. We're currently in talks with our printer to a final, firm timeline from them. We had wanted to have a precise confirmation of a completion time before releasing this update, but alas we are still waiting. Once we receive confirmation, we’ll provide another update to confirm the timeline. We are hopeful that we’re still on-target for January 2024 completion or at least very close!
Mushroom cards
A total of 126 different fungal cards are now included. Selecting additional species was challenging because the distribution of seasons and resources needed to be balances so as not to compromise the game engine. Our previous update alluded to a couple of these modifications that were in progress at the time. We’re pleased to say that everything in terms of the writing, review, and artwork has now been completed. Here is a summary of some of the fun changes.
Seasonality
Although some grow only in a single season (e.g., the yellow morel in the spring), most grow in multiple seasons. Overall, a quarter of the fungi included in the game grow in spring, 62% grow in summer, most (77%) grow in fall, and one fifth grow in winter.
Ecology
Like seasonality, many fungi also simultaneously have multiple ecological modes. By this we mean that they may be capable of rotting wood, like the Chicken-of-the-Woods mushroom (Laetiporus sulfureus) for instance, and at the same time parasitizing trees to supplement their diet. In this example, two ecological strategies happen at the same time: wood rot and parasitism. In the early prototypes of our game, we selected the most dominant ecological mode as the basis to harvest any given species. However, with a bit of graphical simplification, we decided that the more fulsome complexity of each organism’s actual ecology could properly be reflected on the cards. This required us to go back through the full deck of 126 species and really drill down on their ecologies! In all, an equal number of species in the game are soil-dwelling saprotrophs and wood rotters (40% each), about a third are symbiotic (mostly mycorrhizal with tree roots), 13% are parasites of plants, and 10% are parasites of other organisms (e.g., other fungi or animals).
Edibility
Roughly equal numbers are either choice edibles or at least edible (20-21%), 41% are inedible but not necessarily poisonous (e.g., tough and woody, bitter, etc.), 16% are poisonous, and 2% are hallucinogenic.
Fungal names
We thoroughly reviewed all of the names of the fungi included in the came to ensure that the current Latin names are correct. Because we know that Latin names can be challenging to non-scientists, we even developed a pronunciation guide for each Latin name, so players of MYCOLOGY can say them in confidence. So you no longer need to be afraid of Hohenbuehelia mastrucata [ho-hen-bew-HEALY-uh mass-truck-ATE-uh]! But if you don’t like Latin names, 83% of the species included also have common names in English (and many other languages).
Fungal categories
Of the fungi now included, 15% are ascomycetes (cup fungi) and a whopping 85% are basidiomycetes (mushrooms and their allies). Although just over half of the species included are mushrooms (or mushroom-like), many different forms of fungi are represented in the game. Below is a summary of the variety we’ve included:
Changes to game functionality
In addition to expanding the card deck, we also tweaked a few of the game rules in order to smooth out the game play. The token a player receives after harvesting a magic mushroom now gives that player a one-time ability to turn back the seasonal clock up to two seasons on their turn. If they chose to keep the token though, it is worth more points than previously at the end of the game. We also rebalanced the scoring of the poison cards to increase their face value to the top tier of all cards, and we modified the penalty resources for each of the poison mushroom cards to the least-rolled resources. We found that this change maintains the gamble of harvesting a poison mushroom but lowers the changes of catastrophe. Point values of all of the cards were re-weighted according to an algorithm that considers edibility, rarity of ecology resources, and seasonality, and we are confident this rebalancing will greatly smooth out the game play.
Expanded guide
Finally, we wrote a little guide to serve as an annex to the rule booklet that explains in much more detail some of the key elements of fungal biology upon which the game is built, including (in addition to Latin name pronunciation): ecology, edibility, and types of fungal growing structures (fruiting bodies). We also itemized all of the species contained in the game and provided a paragraph about each one, explaining its various attributes and including some fun trivia for each species. When we initially thought to do this, it seemed possible in a few thousand words, but in the end, it took over 10,000 words to fully capture what we wanted to say! We are hopeful that this information will help to stimulate greater interest and appreciation for mycology as well as help players to get as much benefit as possible out of playing the game.
Lastly, thank you all for your patience as we work through these last, final details. We will provide another update once details are finalized with our printer.
Status update - Finalizing graphics and print files
9 months ago
– Wed, Aug 16, 2023 at 05:33:08 PM
Hello Mycologists!
I'm delighted to let you know that nearly all our backers (87%) have now completed their survey on our pledge manager, Backerkit. There are still a few stragglers and in the coming weeks we will be reaching out to them with reminders.
In the meantime, the final graphic design and print preparation of MYCOLOGY is still underway. Here are a few highlights:
Having achieved our card expansion stretch goal (hooray!), the final version of MYCOLOGY now contains 126 cards in total each featuring a different fungus. Of these, 51 are edible fungi (half of which are considered choice), 53 are inedible fungi, 19 are poisonous species, and three are hallucinogenic mushrooms.
We received a bunch of feedback from early reviewers and play-testers based on the MYCOLOGY prototype, and we have made a few refinements to the game rules. In particular, when a player harvests a hallucinogenic species, they now receive a special token that will permit them the one-time power to roll back time during their turn up to two seasons (as one of their two actions). But if instead they chose to keep the token until the end of the game, it will be worth 3 points.
We also made some changes to the ecology resources. Two thirds of the fungi in the final expanded card deck are saprotrophic (decaying wood or growing on soil, or both), one third form mycorrhizal symbioses with the roots of plants, and up to 12% are either parasites of plants, fungi, or insects. In our original concept of the game, we simplified the ecology so that each species served only a single ecological role. While this is true of many fungi (including nearly three quarters of the fungi in the game), some species can play multiple different ecological roles at the same time.
For example, the Oyster Mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus, mainly causes wood decay but it also is known to supplement its diet by capturing tiny worm-like creatures called nematodes. In finalizing the game, we decided to go all-out and represent the full biological complexity of these organisms. Based on these changes, just over a quarter of the fungi in MYCOLOGY require multiple different types of ecology resources in order to harvest them (up to 4 different types!). During play testing, we found that this modification improved the scientific realism of the game and streamlined the game play.
We hope to have all of the game graphics and print preparation completed in the coming weeks at which point we will be moving forward with the print run. If you know somebody still interested in pre-ordering MYCOLOGY, it's not too late! We still have a month or so to take pre-orders, so please help spread the word!! (Pre-order store: https://mycology.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders) We also want to draw your attention to an interesting mycological crowdsourcing project you can check out if you are interested to grow mushrooms at home. Our friends at Mycoman in Denver, Colorado will shortly be launching a great DIY build for mushroom cultivation that will bring state-of-that-art control systems to home mushroom cultivation at an affordable price. We're really excited about this project and hope that you will be too! Please check them out at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mycomatic/the-45-automatic-monotub-diy-unlock-mushroom-cultivation
