Recently Gamecock sent me a preview build of Mushroom Men: Rise of the Fungi for DS.  Although it wasn’t a finished version of the game, it gave a good sense of what playing through will be like.

Starting out in Rise of the Fungi you’re presented with the type of unit to control, Heavy, Sage, or Scout.  Each type controls slightly differently.  For instance the Heavy hits harder, but walks slower, while the Scout moves swiftly and attacks like a wet noodle.  Which you choose is important as you’ll be platforming, solving puzzles, and fighting with the fungus of your choice.

The game offers a few different control schemes that all seem to use the touch screen to perform something.  I picked the basic scheme where you touch the screen to activate the hook device or fire a slingshot, but the rest being done through traditional controls.  While it was nice having a variety of options, I didn’t like the fact I had to switch between the D-pad and the touch screen.  It seemed to segment the gameplay a tad bit.

Jumping and killing enemies is a breeze and gets easier by finding and using bits you find around levels.  Combining weapons to make a better tool doesn’t leave as much freedom as you might think, but there are still plenty of combinations.  I went with a stick and a piece of sharp rock as sort of a crude axe.  It seemed effective and powerful.  If you’re worried about not making the right weapon, as you hold a piece in your inventory it shows what it can be combined with and what the power will be on the top screen.

Although most of the time while playing it was easy to destroy most enemies, some proved to be challenging.  Coupled with a few missed jumps which can injure you if you’re up too high had my life hurting.  Luckily there is a healing area instead of health power ups.  At first these stations seemed optional as I was able to complete levels without them, then they started becoming necessary.  This didn’t help my enjoyment as it meant backtracking and time wasted.

So far I’d say that Rise of the Fungi still has a bit of polish to go.  The few gripes I had might have been due to the control scheme I picked which made it at time uncomfortable to play.  It’s still a fun platformer with a unique story however that just needs a bit more tuning before it’s completely ready.