The Might Of Mushrooms

In this short bitsy game, a small worm travels around and learns about the benefits and capabilities of psilocybin having mushrooms. Though there are some creative liberties taken for the sake of storytelling, any facts in this short game are all from researched sources.

For this Bitsy game, I want to inform players of the benefit that mushrooms have on our world at large. While many people are aware of mushrooms and might even enjoy eating them, I feel that not enough people know the true depth of their capabilities and how they quite literally shape the world around us. While this game doesn't get too heady or academic, I do want to at least give people an insight into the power that they hold in hopes they'll go do the research themselves after playing my game.

 In this game there are three main areas the player traverses; a forest seeing as its a place where many mushrooms are found, the brain and how certain mushroom species aid our own mental strength, and the consciousness and how psychoactive mushrooms are being researched and used to expand the mind and aid those with things such as treatment resistant depression.

At large, this piece is meant to be informative to the benefits of psychedelic mushrooms. While they're not for everybody, the stigma around them (and psychedelics in general) is something that should be dissolved - psychedelics have been found to have little to no harm on the human body, quite the opposite in fact.

This project was initially inspired by this article from Vice News; while I shifted away from the specific mushroom talked about in the article, there are countless inedible species of mushrooms that can be utilized by humans for our benefit.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7gm3a/tinder-fungus-body-armor-material

Sources:

"How to Change Your Mind" - By Michael Pollan

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.724606/full

https://paulstamets.com/news/neurogenesis-confirmed-study

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/25/health/psilocybin-mushrooms-alcohol-addiction...

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/newsroom/news-releases/psilocybin-treatment...

https://news.yale.edu/2021/07/05/psychedelic-spurs-growth-neural-connections-los...