Despite appearances, puzzling is not a solitary game: every move the puzzler makes, the puzzle maker has made before; Every piece the puzzler picks up, and picks up again, and studies and strokes, every combination he tries, and tries a second time, every blunder and every insight, each hope and each discouragement have all been designed, calculated, and decided by the other.
With those lines Georges Perec did shift the perspective of playing an indie puzzle game. It just happens that despite the effort it takes to design these games they usually do not get much hype from gamers because most of them tend to be under the impression that they are solitary games of little or no interest.
Mouse Craft, as it seems, was designed and programmed to break this very norm among gamers. It can be best described as a genetic cross between two very famous games – Tetris and Lemmings. In subtle terms it is an indie puzzle game with the objective of getting the three mice from point A to point B. Did I make it sound cliché? Let us take a closer look at the game and see the ingenuity this game hides.
The story is set up on a planet named Cohesia, upon which lived a cat scientist Schrödinger. The story mode gives a background tale of how his experiments have run him dry of his money and as a last resort he has spent all his savings into the last experiment. As a part of this mouse-centric experiment, Schrödinger has built a system of different levels in which you help by guiding his mice through the obstacles to safely reach the cheese. In order to complete a level you have to guide any one of the three mice safely to the block of cheese; though the score increases if all the three mice can successfully make it to the platform with cheese. The complete set of 80 levels houses many interesting and spell binding levels that will nag you, keep you occupied and leave you wanting to play more and more of this crafty puzzle game.
The adventure starts off with pretty basic levels that introduce and make you comfortable with the gameplay and the controls. You start off by placing wooden blocks shaped to look like the Tetriminoes to create the path to glorious cheese that the three mice devour ecstatically. Gradually as the game progresses, jelly blocks that can prevent falling deaths, dynamite blocks that blow up after three seconds and blocks that fall apart after two mice walk over them are just a few of the block types that come into play. As counter-intuitive as they may sound, each one is necessary in order to survive the various hazards that litter through each course forcing you to go into the creative corners of your brain. Not all of the blocks are immediately helpful, such as electric blocks that kill on contact and turn water hazards deadly. However to get that perfect score on each level you must use every tetrominoes that is provided to you in some clever way.
As your mice diligently and instinctively move from their cage, you might have to place a tetromino behind them at times so that they could climb up after hitting a wall and turning. At other times, you might have to drop a tetromino on a mechanical mouse to destroy it, or create a wall to protect your mice from an exploding block.
What makes it all so engaging is that Mouse Craft isn’t just about placing tetrominoes to create a path, but doing so in the right order and with the right timing as the feature of pause comes into action quiet a lot many times. While this pause feature may sound like it would make the game a cake’s walk, it is not going to be that way as you still need to activate the pause with the point blank timing for it to be effective. Thus the challenge still remains intact giving you enough time to place the block at its right place.
Mouse Craft does a wonderful job of keeping you occupied with the game as it introduces a new obstacle for you to conquer. There are robotic mice which move exactly the same way as your mice, pits of acid, pool of water and different sets of blocks all of which are surprisingly hazardous to the health of the mice. These obstacles help each course feel unique and figuring out how the different block types interact with each one provides an additional layer of depth.
Another interesting feature is the introduction of crystal shards that are scattered across the level and shall be collected by mice as they move through them. It just so happens that our cat scientist has an anonymous benefactor who takes crystal shards and provides funding to Schrödinger to continue his cheesy experiment. While collecting each and every shard isn’t necessary to complete a level, you still need to have a certain amount in your possession in order to reach all of the eighty stages. While this may sound like a lot to take in, Mouse Craft generally does a good job of explaining everything and letting you get your feet under you before the truly devious puzzles show up.
With the flawless animation guiding the gameplay, you will never feel that the game is a debutant by the Crunching Koalas. Schrödinger’s wave of emotions in the background together with the music set an almost impeccable platform for a very delightful puzzle game. Even the intricate details have been taken care of in the game and you will never bat an eyelash as you get engrossed into this “Hypnotic” ride. It’s a cartoony and bright experience overall with a lot of bright colours and buttons and props to play around.
Most of you must be wondering about the suffix –craft associated with this game. The game does justify this suffix as it features a robust level editor for you to create and share your own puzzle designs. The level editor gives you access to all of the tools and traps from the main game, along with the ability to make humongous 99 tile long puzzles. Stepping into the shoes of puzzle maker is indeed fun as you can make pretty frustrating levels for the users to be a sadist or just let them pass on through the level like eating a candy – delightful and easy. But the level editor has some major issues which still need attention by the developers. One of them include the process of sharing the levels you developed with other users. Current procedure makes you upload the puzzles to a dropbox and other users can download it and play on those maps. However this process is too cumbersome for most users and needs a way to sort out the things (Although report suggests that Crunching Koalas are working on adding a steam workshop support – “YAAY”).
Mouse Craft does offer a bot many frustrating levels where you will get stuck for long but then with the ability of undo and pause none of the level seems to pose difficulty in conquering as you get all the time in the world to aim for that perfect score. And even to add to the already not-so-difficult puzzle game experience you only need to steer one mouse to conquer a level. Although this might seem like a great news to some, it would be a bit of candy coated harsh truth for others.
However the game itself is a very cheesy and inventive game and in the end the experience of the game will be very delightful as the developers have made possible a game worth remembering for long. It will keep you occupied for hours and is certainly the kind of game where you do want to finish “just one more level before sleeping” because the puzzle is eluding you somewhere and you just need to crack it. Mouse Craft isn’t a game of progression as much as it of utter perfection. IT’S A MOUSTER-PIECE.
