There have been quite a lot of large video games this 12 months which have felt all-consuming, like Monster Hunter Wilds or Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Maze Mice gives one thing completely different: a small, pick-up-and-play expertise that takes a bunch of concepts from some classics and provides a intelligent twist.
The sport, from Luck Be a Landlord developer TrampolineTales, mixes components of Pac-Man, Vampire Survivors, and even the traditional Snake. As an lovely, pixelated mouse, you zip round a maze to get blue expertise gems which are guarded by cats. While you go by the cats, they’ll get up and begin chasing you, typically making a hilariously lengthy line of felines. (Cute ghost cats may even seem and inconveniently float proper into your path.) All of the motion takes place on one display, so it’s simple to see the place the whole lot is at any given time.
While you get sufficient gems, you may decide from a choice of three power-ups. The upgrades are sometimes slightly foolish, like knitting needles that fly by the air to assault the cats pursuing you, however as with Vampire Survivors, it’s enjoyable to experiment with completely different skills to create attention-grabbing builds.
Maze Mice’s most attention-grabbing function is that point solely strikes while you transfer, like in Superhot. While you inch ahead, the enemy cats inch ahead proper behind you, however while you’re not transferring, they’re frozen, too. Your skills are all on cooldowns, and the time on these cooldowns additionally solely advances while you transfer ahead. All of it implies that as a substitute of the rising sense of being overwhelmed that you simply may get whereas dodging ghosts in Pac-Man or preventing hordes of monsters in Vampire Survivors, Maze Mice offers you time to sit down and take into consideration the place you wish to go subsequent — even you probably have 10 cats in your tail.
I actually like the way it all works. You’re nonetheless coping with plenty of enemies, however as a substitute of the nervousness of getting to fend them off in actual time like in different video games, it’s all a lot rather more laid-back. The charming environment and catchy music assist make the expertise really feel extra welcoming than anxious, too.
After runs, you’ll unlock new upgrades and characters for future runs primarily based in your rating. I’m an enormous fan of a mine weapon that blows up after I get the cats following me to stroll over it. And my favourite character thus far is a mouse named Jazz with sun shades and a saxophone — who begins with a saxophone weapon. Such a cool little man!
Maze Mice is in early entry, so it ought to get extra content material down the road. It looks like there’s a beneficiant quantity to play with already; TrampolineTales launched the sport this month with 30 characters and 63 upgrades, which means there’s quite a bit to dig into. However the factor I like most about it’s that I can play for a couple of minutes after an hourlong Doom: The Darkish Ages stage and really feel like I really completed one thing – even when these pesky cats ultimately catch as much as me.
Maze Mice is out there now in early entry on PC.
