MouseCraft Review – Those Pesky Mice

MouseCraft is said to be a mixture of Tetris and Lemmings. This A-to-B puzzle game is simple, but is it fun to play? Read on, and I’ll let you know.

Puzzle games aren’t exactly known for their brilliant stories and thus MouseCraft offers a fairly basic one. Players will be assisting Schrödinger, a crazy cat scientist, in completing a mysterious, cheesy experiment.

Schrödinger failed and failed and eventually ended up spending his life savings to buy a lot of cheese to continue with his wacky experiments. What is the experiment? I don’t think even Schrödinger knows! But hey, I said it was simple.

We’ve already established that MouseCraft is an A-to-B puzzle game, but how does it actually work? You are tasked with getting a group of mice to a plate of cheese. It’s that simple. Players will use a variety of Tetris-like shaped blocks to make a clear path for the mice. Obviously, it’s not as easy at it sounds, as there are various obstacles in the way and the difficulty heightens after each level.

Acid pools, dynamite blocks, jelly blocks, and even mechanical rats are among the obstacles that will stand between you and the finish line. Be careful where you place those blocks, though, as you can actually kill your furry friends if you’re not careful. Luckily, there is an active pause feature allowing you to pause the game at any point while placing your blocks – super helpful. You can also speed up the gameplay if you wish, but levels aren’t exactly long anyway.

Each level sees you tasked with getting 3 mice to the cheese for a perfect score. There are also collectables to pick up throughout the level in the form of shards. Shards act as another form of money to pay an anonymous figure to keep funding Schrödinger’s crazy experiments.

MouseCraft’s gameplay is pretty satisfying and features over 80 different levels across 4 locations that will keep you busy for a fair few hours (6-8 to be exact).

I only have to say the name Mikolai Stroinski to say how great the game’s soundtrack is. If the name sounds familiar, it should. Mikolai is the composer for games such as Dark Souls 2, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and The Witcher 3, so it’s no surprise that MouseCraft features a fantastic, funky soundtrack. It was perhaps my favorite part of the game. A great soundtrack can make a game, right?

My only complaint would be that there is no voice-acting during cut-scenes which meant that the story lacked that little bit more personality.

MouseCraft has a sort of cartoony-feel to it reminiscent to the likes of Tom and Jerry (the original, of course), and I love it. Each level is set from a side view, almost as if you’re looking through a window. Each level is very similar, in terms of look and style, all the way to that last level, so it can get a little repetitive but it’s still pleasing to look at, which is the main thing.

I encountered no glitches while playing MouseCraft in either docked or handheld mode. There didn’t seem to be any touch screen support, which is sad, as it would’ve suited the game pretty well, in my opinion.

MouseCraft is priced at $9.99 in the US and £8.99 in the UK making this a pretty cheap puzzle game for you to enjoy. It’s a pretty easy game, and there isn’t much in the way of replayability, but I did find it to be a fun game that is good to share with children.

MouseCraft Review provided by Nintendo Link
Developer: Crunching Koalas
Release Date: February 27th, 2020
Price: $9.99, £8.99
Game Size: 1027 MB