GamesSimMorels: The Hunt 2, an intensely chill game about gathering mushrooms and taking pictures of animals, is my unexpected new obsessionWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesSimMorels: The Hunt 2, an intensely chill game about gathering mushrooms and taking pictures of animals, is my unexpected new obsessionWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
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To put it politely, I was a little dubious when I received an email for the upcoming launch ofMorels: The Hunt 2. A game about hunting… mushrooms? Seriously? And a sequel at that, indicating that somebody had done this once already and then decided for some reason it was worth making another one? Really?
But I was also curious—the whole premise was so bizarre that I couldn’t help myself—and I quickly discovered that not only is Morels: The Hunt 2 not a joke, it’s actually pretty damn good. It is, quite literally, a game about wandering around in the woods in search of mushrooms, but there’s a lot more to it than I expected: Fungus galore, yes, but also dozens of animals to track and photograph (including a few that may not actually exist), seven increasingly exotic locales to explore, at least one of which is underwater, and some unexpected surprises.
Morels: The Hunt 2 is the creation ofAbrams Studios, a team of three brothers—Wes, Derek, and Jason—who have been avid mushroom hunters since they were children. “We still do it every year,” Wes Abrams told me in a recent chat. “We always take photos of the animals and nature while we are hunting. This is basically how the game came about.”
The brothers were also “pretty big gamers” when they were young, playing Mario Kart, Sonic, Madden, and all the usual suspects. Abrams said he fell away from it as he got older, and ironically it was his passion for mushroom hunting that pulled him back in.
“In real life, morel mushrooms only are out for a few weeks of the year,” he said. “After the season was over, we would have to wait a whole year to hunt them again. We started to make the game at first just for ourselves so we could hunt morels all year long.”
“I think that is pretty much everyone’s dream, right? Working on games with your siblings or best friends full-time,” he said. “Last year things slowed down, so we aren’t able to work on games full-time anymore.
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“We don’t make games for the money, we make games because it is something we love. We also make games about things we are passionate about. It has been a blast working on Morels 2. We have had a lot of fun with it and knowing we have a player base looking forward to the release of the game is really motivating.”
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Lesson learned.
What surprises me most is how invested I’ve become in Morels 2. It’s genuinely exciting, in a muted sort of way, when I find a nice patch of mushrooms or take a good photo of a new animal. Running across landmarks and oddities in the wilderness is fun too: There’s a real feeling of discovery to it, thanks largely to a grounding in their design and placement that suggests the Abrams brothers have stumbled over a few real-world relics on their own during their hunts. And the entire thing is so ridiculously wholesome, I can’t even be just a little bit cynical about it. Hell, I don’t even like mushrooms, but I’m eager to get back out into the digital woods and fields and look for more.
[What] touched us the most are the messages we have received from players who have told us they were disabled, not healthy enough, or other reasons like that which prevent them from doing things like this anymore, and they just thanked us for making a game like this.Wes Abrams, Morels: The Hunt 2 lead dev
[What] touched us the most are the messages we have received from players who have told us they were disabled, not healthy enough, or other reasons like that which prevent them from doing things like this anymore, and they just thanked us for making a game like this.
My unexpected enthusiasm aside, there’s no escaping the fact that Morels: The Hunt 2 is a game about picking mushrooms. Abrams acknowledged that some people find the whole thing dreadfully boring, and another “common response” he’s heard is that people should go outside and do it in real life if that’s what they’re into. But, he said, not everyone can do that.
“We of course would always recommend going out and doing this in real life over playing the game, given the choice,” Abrams said. “There are people who live in cities who just don’t have easy access to areas like this. My personal favorite that has touched us the most are the messages we have received from players who have told us they were disabled, not healthy enough, or other reasons like that which prevent them from doing things like this anymore, and they just thanked us for making a game like this.”
For the future, Abrams said he and his brothers would like to make other games besides Morels, although they’d likely still be some kind of nature simulation game. They’re also giving thought to another Morels game, possibly set on extraterrestrial worlds.
“You’d have beautiful alien planets to explore, never-seen-before alien animals to photograph, and a bunch of new alien mushrooms to collect,” Abrams said. The brothers have already added Easter eggs to the first two Morels games hinting that something like that might be in the offing.
First things first, though. Morels: The Hunt 2 is available today onSteam, and it is not a joke. It’s really good! I hope it gets the attention it deserves.
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