Resting in Shroom and Gloom
Resting at camp is the mechanic Early Access reviewers contradict each other on. Some say a rest heals you, some say it only hurts, and one says it used to heal in the demo and stopped. Team Lazerbeam has not answered any of them.
What Team Lazerbeam has said about camp
The fullest official description came with the June 2026 demo, which reworked exploration ahead of Early Access: “Light torches to camp in safety! Feed the creatures you encounter! Reveal, break, fix or unlock to grow your decks and make the most of every exploration phase!” It ends with the warning that if you “overstay your welcome and The Gloom will take you into its cold embrace!”
- Camp structures. The June 2025 demo update announced “2 new camp structures added so you can modify your cards in explore phases!”, naming a kitchen and a book shelf (in Steam announcement: Shroom and Gloom bursts into Turn Based Fest with monsterous update!, 6 June 2025). A month later, “Camp structures can no longer draw evolve cards, or cards with limited uses.” (in Steam announcement: 2 months of demo updates lead to this! Shroom and Gloom 0.4.71 is here!, 11 July 2025)
- The healing the store page names. Eating is the way the store page describes getting health back: you “season, skewer or roast your foes, then eat them to restore lost health” (on Shroom and Gloom on the Steam store, 10 September 2026). It says nothing about rest healing.
- Your first campfire. The Boy Scout achievement asks you to “Set up your first campfire”, and Steam credits 95% of players with it.
What players report
Read the table by the right-hand column. The reports fall into four groups: rest does not heal, rest used to heal, rest costs life when danger is close, and camp heals you through what you do there rather than through the rest itself.
| Who | Build | What they say | On health |
|---|---|---|---|
| fabd, forum thread | Demo | Resting seemed to be only for drawing a new hand, and “rest does not actually heal” (in Steam discussion: So what's the idea with Rest?, 22 August 2026) | No healing |
| foolbunny, same thread | Demo | Resting gives you more actions in camp and can “create opportunities to increase your max hp”, but staying too long with a weak deck can kill you with gloom damage. | Gloom damage if you stay |
| InstallationWizard, same thread | Demo | “Resting also refills your energy, not just a new hand”, and dealing with obstacles is the easiest way to get Green Food to heal between battles. | Heal through food |
| foolbunny, tips thread | Demo | “You don’t need to leave camp if you’re not going to take damage when you rest”, and even a little damage can be worth it (in Steam discussion: Dear Devs, 1 September 2026) | Damage is conditional |
| Steam reviewer who played the demo | Early Access | “When I have positive warmth when resting, isn’t it supposed to heal me based on how much WARMTH there is?” They add: “I know before when I was playing the demo it would heal me for exactly how much the number was in the positive.” (in a Steam user review, 13 September 2026) | Used to heal, now hurts |
| Steam reviewer, first map with every class | Early Access | “You can rest to get full mana and a redraw but if there are threats looming you will lose life. There is a warmth mechanic to keep the danger at bay” (in a Steam user review, 13 September 2026) | Lose life if threatened |
| Steam reviewer, 15 hours in | Early Access | Camp is a push-your-luck puzzle: cards used on the room can recover health and improve combat cards, while the damage grows with every turn you stay. The choice is between healing fully and taking damage to build the deck (in a Steam user review, 13 September 2026) | Full health is possible |
| Steam reviewer, negative | Early Access | The expanded camping system makes it easy to heal to full after every combat, which hurts the balance (in a Steam user review, 13 September 2026) | Too easy to heal |
| Steam reviewers, later in a run | Early Access | Past the huge boss near the end, one found “the camp is almost unusable because I’ll take more damage than it’s worth” (in the same Steam user review, 13 September 2026); another says camping matters less the deeper you go because the damage from the shadows is too much (in a Steam user review, 13 September 2026) | Damage outgrows camp |
The rest key
Pressing rest by accident is a real way to lose a run. During the demo, rest sat on E next to W, and a player wrote: “If you accidentally press E (which is right next to W), you rest instead of walk.” The developers replied that “the Early Access version won’t have rest mapped to E.” (Team Lazerbeam, replying in Steam discussion: Please change the rest shortcut, 7 July 2026
They did not say which key replaced it. On the same thread another player wrote “I just hit space and rested by accident 1 fight before the final boss” (in Steam discussion: Please change the rest shortcut, 7 July 2026), and an Early Access reviewer says nothing warned them that the spacebar would put them to sleep at camp (in a Steam user review, 13 September 2026). Team Lazerbeam has not mentioned a rebinding option; see controller support for what the developers have said about inputs.
Before you press rest
These come from players, not from the developers, and most were written about the demo:
- Open the exit first. “Unlock the door at the campsite to the next tunnel as early as you can.” You do not have to leave, but being stuck without the right card later can kill you (in Steam discussion: Dear Devs, 1 September 2026).
- Rest to power stations. One player says camp stations need repairs, reveals or food, and “To fully use them you usually need at least one rest to get enough cards to activate them” (in Steam discussion: So what's the idea with Rest?, 22 August 2026).
- Watch the damage later on. The late-run reports in the table say camp gets less useful as the damage climbs. If a boss is next, the bosses page says what you are walking into.
Which cards you have in hand at camp comes down to your explore deck; how that deck is built is on the cards page.