The joy of breaking a video game in the dumbest ways possible

Breaking something in a video game often brings a unique kind of joy—a feeling of having gotten away with something. This delight is currently being experienced by many players of Shroom And Gloom, a new roguelike deckbuilder from Team Lazerbeam. The game is particularly fun when players deploy cards that seem incredibly stupid, like dealing massive damage to an enemy or drawing their entire deck and filling it with their foes' corpses.

Shroom And Gloom isn't the only game that allows players to break its rules. Card games, especially those inspired by Magic: The Gathering, have been encouraging this transgressive pleasure for years. Games like Balatro, Monster Train, and Daniel Mullins' Inscryption all invite players to upgrade and modify cards into increasingly ridiculous forms.

Shroom And Gloom seems to be built explicitly to create those moments when a single card can blow up the whole board. It's full of opportunities to upgrade cards in ways that are utterly ridiculous, such as doubling their damage output or causing them to draw more cards when they defeat an opponent. From the start, the game encourages players to create a card so manifestly stupid that there's no challenge the game can't overcome.

Traditionally, game design has been strict about preventing overly powerful strategies. However, Shroom And Gloom embraces this approach, understanding that breaking the game is part of the fun. The game's design makes breaking it not only possible but highly encouraged, especially in its final bosses that require players to use their broken idiocy to counter serious threats.

While Shroom And Gloom may not be as "pure" as a less strict deckbuilder, it is far more euphoric. When a run goes from struggle to a smooth, escalating experience, where everything is crushed under the weight of a well-designed strategy, it's hard not to feel giddy. After all, games are about interacting with rules, and making breaking those rules part of the game adds a genuine thrill to the art of deploying fake cards.