Underbloom

Underbloom is a portrait, one-finger strategy puzzle about rebuilding mycorrhizal networks beneath eight storm-silenced groves. Read a fixed soil cutaway containing a bright mycelium front, substantial host roots, wet pockets, cracked dry ground, and rival mold. Place a limited nutrient pin into a visible socket. Before you commit, a white preview shows the exact path that the next Pulse will use, including where growth can stop and which host root can be reached. When you confirm, the living thread grows along that same deterministic result, while green return signals make a successful exchange visible at the root and across the stable network.

The first session teaches the complete loop through three playable actions: identify the only highlighted socket, inspect the route preview, and send the Pulse yourself. Success has immediate growth, root response, surface recovery, animation, and sound. Failure does not erase the healthy network already built. Instead, the game preserves stable branches and marks the precise nutrient shortfall, dry fracture, contamination contact, sleeping front, or unbalanced host that stopped the new growth. A recommended safe socket remains visible. Reduce Motion replaces broad movement with readable static end states while preserving the same rules, evidence, and rewards.

The launch version contains eight handcrafted soils: First Thread, Shared Fork, Dry Step, Fallen Giant, Twin Hosts, Burrow Shift, Violet Border, and Ancient Ring. Difficulty begins with one direct root connection, then introduces nutrient sharing, moisture relays, staged log decomposition, two-host balance, opening and closing burrows, mold containment, and a synchronized four-front finale. These are not palette swaps, renamed species, random node lists, or speed changes presented as new levels. Each grove changes the network topology, resource flow, hazard relationship, timing pressure, or milestone sequence. Fallen Giant and Ancient Ring use dedicated multi-stage conclusions rather than ordinary levels with extra roots.

Connecting a root group can earn Spore Notes and open a choice between three perks with visible benefits, limitations, and costs. Twelve authored perks can alter water tolerance, branching, decomposition, or recovery without placing pins automatically. Grove Marks record restored patches. The Living Atlas keeps the player's real network, thirty-two observation cards, route records, and Fine Web mastery. Fine Web is calculated from nutrient waste, root coverage, and Pulse count, so achievement comes from the path the player actually built.

Advertising remains optional and bounded. A rewarded video may restore one practice pin, redraw the current three perk choices, or double eligible remaining Notes after settlement. It cannot place a pin. It cannot grow a path, award a Grove Mark, change Fine Web, or restore a grove. Interstitials are only attempted while returning from non-gameplay views and remain subject to a shared cooldown, timeout, and fail-open navigation. Every promotional image is composed around a real English Godot gl_compatibility runtime capture. Underbloom is an offline single-player strategy puzzle, not a claim of real ecological simulation, infinite procedural growth, freehand fungal drawing, a connected online forest, or offline cinematic artwork as gameplay.

Recent changes:
Updated the SDK version