As an enormous fan of Luck be a Landlordthe quirky slot-machine-based roguelike deckbuilder the place you attempt to pay hire on time or die making an attempt, I used to be thrilled on the announcement of Maze Mice, Trampoline Tales’ new sport, releasing this yr… or reasonably… now. I genuinely cherished the demo that a lot.
Irrespective of how a lot time you’ve spent of their prior sport, you’ll know the way nice the dev’s means to mix humour, absurdity and a stunning quantity of technique into this wacky mishmash of a reasonably compelling expertise is.
Maze Micetheir new launch, isn’t simply following in these steps however really units a brand new precedent. It’s humorous and really weird, but in addition makes lots of sense, and it’s stunning that it hasn’t been finished earlier than. It’s fairly darn nice, and in the present day I wanna share my ideas on why that’s.
Developer: TrampolineTales
Writer: TrampolineTales
Style: Indie, Roguelike, Bullet Heaven, PacMan-like?
Launch Date: Could 2nd, 2025
Reviewed on: PC
Obtainable on: PC
Copy was offered by PR.
Maze Mice might most likely be greatest described because the lovechild of Pac-Man and any Bullet Heaven sport.
You run round as a mouse whereas being chased by cats and ghosts, gathering orbs to then stage up, choosing certainly one of many alternative talents. You’re restricted to solely 4 passive and 4 lively talents, which can be levelled up and which can allow you to survive within the maze. To this point, very enjoyable. The twist, nonetheless, right here is that point solely strikes whenever you transfer, very akin to SUPERHOT, which I discover fairly darn superb.
Because it stands, the time-only-moves-when-you-move mechanic permits gamers to not simply take a breather, step away for some time, perhaps name their family members or seize a drink, but it surely additionally introduces a great quantity of technique and planning to the sport.
Everytime you choose up an enormous expertise orb, a brand new large orb (and a few further expertise factors) spawns elsewhere within the maze, therefore incentivising you to go to these locations, too, so as to get stronger and survive.
The problem is that the cats that observe you’ll go wherever you go, and typically they may even take a shortcut, which makes it tougher. Moreover, the ghosts will simply ignore partitions altogether, which is why expert use of pathing and the screen-wrap is extremely essential… which is why it’s simply nice that you would be able to simply suppose typically. It doesn’t make the sport simpler or tougher essentially. It simply seems like an excellent high quality of life mechanic – and fewer so just like the puzzly and difficult mechanic from SUPERHOT, clearly.
Maze Mice is its very personal factor that doesn’t really feel like a replica or something, and that interprets all the way down to its many alternative lively talents (or weapons, I assume?) and the way in which they create cool builds.
As beforehand talked about, you’ll be able to have 4 passive talents (issues like further expertise, extra pick-up vary, cooldown discount, max well being, and extra) lively at a time and 4 lively talents/weapons that may allow you to cut back enemy numbers. With a restricted well being pool and 25 injury taken per hit, it’s fairly essential to skinny out the variety of cats and ghosts, which is why your arsenal must be perfected.
Sadly, nonetheless, you don’t essentially have rerolls or skips or banishes fairly but (the sport is in EA, so which may grow to be a factor in some unspecified time in the future), so that you’ll must improvise, strategise, and actually simply take your time with selections.
Taking a level-up for an current means signifies that you don’t should accept a brand new means fairly but. Equally, there are selections in what passive results to go for and what will be improvised and made to work.
You don’t at all times discover the “popcorn”, which provides you a dodge each x seconds, so perhaps you’ll spend money on well being regeneration or most well being as a substitute. Generally you don’t discover cooldown discount, so that you keep away from the weapons which have a excessive cooldown. Generally, you simply make do with what you’re given, and it really works fairly effectively.
Weapons-wise, we’ve received flaming trails, beams, mud, fleas, and extra… It’s wacky as heck and I like that for it. On prime of that, the sport simply launched into Early Entry and can obtain extra updates, however has already been launched with 30 playable characters and an entire lot of things that you will discover and experiment with. Additionally, all through all of it, you’re accompanied by music that simply goes manner too laborious and which jogs my memory of Jetset Radio… so it’s nice.
The sport has lots of merchandise selection by way of builds and objects but it surely typically can really feel such as you see the identical objects again and again… And that’s largely as a result of objects get unlocked by way of expertise, which can clearly restrict the merchandise pool early on, however has the advantage of not overwhelming gamers on prime of giving gamers one thing to look ahead to.
That stated, I do hope that the sport will get tweaked a bit in order that it feels much less reliant on objects like Love and Popcorn. With the ability to take a success is fairly essential, and it typically seems like two of your merchandise slots are simply occupied by these, creating a way of urgency whenever you don’t run into them… and typically it simply feels such as you may need as effectively finish it early if you happen to don’t get these.
There are, clearly, different choices, however they’re simply not so good as therapeutic a bit each second or dodging as soon as, if that is sensible.
This, nonetheless, is clearly very nitpicky of me, and once more, the sport simply launched, so, understandably, a number of the objects may be roughly balanced than others. For what it’s price, the sport has lots of content material already, regardless of being very early in its EA part, and many of the objects do really feel viable to make use of.
If you happen to’re on the lookout for a extra informal roguelike with technique elements, a terrific soundtrack, and fairly cute artwork, Maze Mice is unquestionably a sport price trying out!
This submit was initially written by And duck from Indiecator.
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