Shroom and Gloom walkthrough
Early Access has two paths to The Gloom. This walkthrough lays out how a run on each is put together, where the bosses fall and what finishing opens up. It is not a room-by-room route: players report that the card offers and camp events change from run to run.
The paths at a glance
| Path | How you get in | How it ends | What to expect |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Forgotten Path | Your starting path | The Gloom Worm | The accessible introduction, in the developers’ plan |
| The Facility | Unlocked through quests | Not named by the developers; a player calls the second dungeon’s final boss the Gunk Worm | New card pools, enemies and rewards; built for players who have mastered the first path |
| Third path (no name yet) | Not in Early Access at launch | Not announced | Planned as the final path to The Gloom |
The first path’s name comes from Steam, not an announcement: the Spelunker achievement reads “Map every tunnel of The Forgotten Path” (see Shroom and Gloom global achievements on Steam, 13 September 2026). The Facility is described in the launch announcement as “an entirely new path towards The Gloom, complete with entirely new card pools, enemies and rewards”, and the same post says a third and final path will open later (both in Steam announcement: Shroom and Gloom explodes into Early Access!, 10 September 2026). Map details for each path are on map and pathways.
Inside a tunnel
A reviewer who played the first map with every character describes the rhythm that repeats through a run (in a Steam user review, 13 September 2026):
Hallway
You move along a fixed track by holding W. There is no free roaming.
Exploration room
Your explore deck comes out. This is where you look for upgrades to your health and your cards.
Fork
Many sections offer a branch, and the branch you take decides which reward follows the next fight.
Battle room
Walk on into the fight and switch to your combat deck.
Reward, then onward
A won fight pays out a reward and the game auto-saves; then you walk on to the next exploration room.
Each won fight also triggers an autosave, as the launch announcement promises (in Steam announcement: Shroom and Gloom explodes into Early Access!, 10 September 2026). Two details make the order matter. During the demo a patch let you always walk back to the start of the current tunnel (in Steam announcement: Shroom and Gloom bursts into Turn Based Fest with monsterous update!, 6 June 2025), but in Early Access a reviewer found they could not go back into a room they had already left, and doors at a crossroads can demand a Break or Unlock card before they open (in a Steam user review, 13 September 2026). Leave a room without the right card and you can end up stuck; the way out is in tips.
Where the bosses fall
Bosses sit along a path, not only at its end. Asking a player how the Janitor was going on the second path, the developers wrote: “Have you been able to make it past the first or second boss fight?” (Team Lazerbeam, in Steam discussion: Love the game, hate the janitor, 11 September 2026) The structure goes back to the prototype, where the developers polished “the first 2 acts” before rebuilding the Gloom Worm as the finale (in Team Lazerbeam devlog on itch.io: Shroom and Gloom Mega Updates, 28 January 2025), and a demo patch fixed the map in the “joining tunnels between acts (After bosses)” (in Steam announcement: 80K Wishlists, Demo update and NorthernLion! Shroom and Gloom Aug 2025 Dev Log!, 19 August 2025).
One Early Access reviewer passed what they call the huge boss towards the end, the one that keeps mutating, and found camp almost unusable afterwards because they would take more damage than it was worth (in a Steam user review, 13 September 2026). One run is not a rule, but it is worth planning around. Who each boss is, how they change form and what players have learned fighting them is on bosses.
What finishing opens up
The Facility
The launch announcement says you’ll “have to do some mushroom-hunting to earn these advanced characters and access to The Facility” (in Steam announcement: Shroom and Gloom explodes into Early Access!, 10 September 2026), without naming the quest. A player who beat what they believed was the Gloom Worm reports that the win unlocked new cards, characters and maps (in Steam discussion: No Achievement For Beating game?!?!, 10 September 2026).
A mapped path
Mapping every tunnel of The Forgotten Path earns Spelunker, held by 9.1% of players on Steam. Players tie it to unlocking the Concerned Parent, but a bug report thread opens with a player who had the achievement and still found the character locked (in Steam discussion: Concerned Parent not unlocking, 11 September 2026).
The map you reveal is kept between runs: a reviewer listing what carries over after a death puts that first (in a Steam user review, 13 September 2026). Steam also tracks Spelunker as a progress achievement, under the internal name PROG_SPELUNKER (in Steam Web API: global achievement percentages for Shroom and Gloom, 13 September 2026), which fits a map you fill in over several runs. The unlock conditions players have pinned down are collected on characters and unlocks.
The Facility is a different climb
The developers set the second path up to be harder on purpose: “Our goal with Janitor (and the second path overall) is to deliver a more complex, challenging experience for players who have mastered the first pathway.” (in Steam discussion: Love the game, hate the janitor, 11 September 2026) Players back that up from the other side. One says the first map is more forgiving and the second much harder, with three characters on the first map and two on the second (in Steam discussion: Is there a good amount of variety yet?, 11 September 2026). Another noticed a work-in-progress sign next to the Facility’s final boss, a fight they describe as stealing nearly your whole deck (in Steam discussion: Is the final boss of the Facility still being balanced?, 10 September 2026). Its armoured robots are covered on enemies.
Watch a full run of the first path
The same reviewer linked a recording with their review: a full playthrough of the first map with all of its characters, posted on the Playthroughs Of Roguelites YouTube channel. Use it to see the tunnel rhythm above in motion before you commit a run to it.
Next steps
- The ending: what players report once the Gloom Worm is dead.
- Resting and camp: how long to stay in each camp.
- Beginner guide: the basics, if this is your first run.