Developer: Crunching Koalas
Publisher: Crunching Koalas
Rrp: £9.99
Released: 8th July 2014
Available on Steam, Gog.com, Desura
Played Using: Keyboard and Mouse
Mousecraft is similar to the Lemmings series of games in many respects. The basic principle is the same, get as many of your creatures from the start point (in this case the wheel) to the end point (the cheese). However unlike Lemmings the mice in Mousecraft aren’t the resource you use, instead you get to use the blocks and equipment that are provided at the start of each testing area.
You can set up the run for your mice at the beginning of each level before sending them on their merry way. Of course in some cases (especially in the later levels) its better to use the ‘active pause’ to halt the action mid flow and place your pieces. There’s also a button to speed things up so you can see what happens more quickly.
As enjoyable as the system Mousecraft uses is, it does have one very large drawback. Being that because you are given a set number of blocks, bombs etc there is normally only one correct way to solve the puzzle, whereas in Lemmings and its ilk there were normally a great number of ways to develop a solution.
As I mentioned earlier the basic principle of Mousecraft is the same as Lemmings but, in what I call a clever move, the developers have done something to make things a little more challenging. In each level there are shards of crystal that your mice will collect as they pass them, trying to get all of these shards makes the game much more difficult. If you do manage to collect all the shards on a level and keep all your mice alive you receive a perfect score for that level.
One of this games strengths is in its fast reiteration, any mistakes made on a level can be quickly undone using this ‘undo’ button with very little time lost allowing you to attempt new strategies quickly. When you do this any mice or enemies that were killed are immediately brought back. That being said the game does keep track of how many times you retry and how many mice get killed in the stats menu (found in the rewards screen) even if you undid your actions.
The story part of the game is split up into four areas, each of those areas has twenty levels. You remember those shards I mentioned the mice can collect in the levels? Well when you complete an area the next area will become available to play… if you have the requisite number of shards. Thankfully you can go back and repeat a level to attempt to collect those errant shards should you desire.
On the whole the game is highly enjoyable to those of us who enjoy a challenging puzzle. I’ll admit was annoyed that the story in the story mode was so… weak, I won’t spoil it but its attempt at humour just fell flat for me. The thing is this game doesn’t really have a lot of replay value, since the puzzles can usually only be completed one way. It does come with a level editor so you can create maps to either play yourself or share with others through the Mousecraft forums.
If this interests you perhaps try;
Lemmings
Flockers
So Many Me
