Review - MouseCraftReview by Jon Evans
Formats reviewed: PS3,PS4, PS Vita. |
Developers; Crunching Koalas
Publisher; Curve Studios Formats; PC, PS3, PS4, PS Vita US Release date; Out now EU Release Date;9th July |
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MouseCraft is the latest game from PC-Porting geniuses, Curve. Based around the premise of experimenting on mice by building 'mazes' with an ultimate goal of cheese at the end, the player must use the tools available to build and complete the levels to help the mice to get to their food. The maze in this case is 2D platform-based and the tools are a combination of bombs and tetris shaped blocks of varying materials, 'Tetrominos', to slot together the gaps in the platforms.
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There is a, sort of, narrative element to the game; the experimenter in question is a cat called, ahem, Schrödinger who is running out of the required cheese to continue his work. He needs his mice to collect precious Anima Shards to allow him to buy more cheese. It's a thinly veiled excuse for a narrative, however it does have some charm, and allows for a variety of environments to be shown off behind the main game area. MouseCraft is very pretty, and the palette of colours used is bold and exciting, in a similar art style to Ratchet and Clank. It looks great on all the systems and due to its playful simplistic style bears little difference in graphical fidelity on the PS3 or PS4. The colours look even more striking on the Vita screen, and is smooth and responsive on all devices.
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MouseCraft is a puzzle game at heart rather than a platformer, despite its layout. The initial stages take you through the basic mechanics, without being onerous or dull. The pace is maintained expertly and the challenge is well balanced to keep the player interested. Initial stages take you through the techniques of dropping the testris-shaped blocks into the gaps in the walkways and levels that your mice have to scale. Rotation of the blocks affect the path the mice can take, and it builds up the spine of the rule-set that will apply to the rest of the game.
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The mice can only drop one block unit at a time, so this places limitations on the path they can follow. Place a block with a side two units high, and the mice will change direction and walk back the way they came, in a style reminiscent of Lemmings. Create a drop more than three units high and the mice will fall to their death. On their way they can collect Anima Shards, the 'gems' of MouseCraft. You don't have to collect these nor, just like
Lemmings, do you have to get all three of your mice back to the cheese, but completionists will want to get the 'Perfect' score for each level. Besides achievement hunting, the thrill of completing the level perfectly is what MouseCraft is all about. using the limited blocks, which hang on a rack at the top of the screen, in the right ways to direct your mice, and to get all the collectibles is lots of fun. A handy, unlimited, 'undo' button lets you fix mistakes, backtrack and experiment by taking you back in time for every step you have taken setting up your solution. |
Just as you get used to this, the game throws a curveball at you and introduces a new challenge. Robot mice are brought in to roam the levels and kill your mice should they get near. New materials are brought in, such as crumbly blocks that have a limited lifetime once they are stepped on, and blocks made of TNT which explode with a timer after being touched by the mice. The environments also alter, adding water and other deadly substances in your path. These challenges change the way you plan your levels, but also the timing of when you place your blocks and where you direct your mice. You can drop blocks in, once you have set your mice going and, in some cases, it essential to hold some back until they have reached a particular area on the map. These challenges are drip-fed to you as you progress through all eighty levels in the game, changing the way you play and increasing the difficulty. It ensures you never get bored.
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Some levels are very challenging. In one case I spent an hour trying to get perfect on a particularly difficult level, but as is always the case, I put it down and returned to it later and solved it quickly. You also start to appreciate quite how well designed the levels are (especially when designing your own - see the level design inset below), once you find the solution to a particularly tortuous level and realise how simple the solution was. You also start to notice the imporvements you are making in your own learning, the more you play, having understood how the blocks fit together, and, much like my days of playing Tetris on my game boy, I began to dream about the blocks too.
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Cloud sync works brilliantly - allowing you to continue your progress from your Vita, to your PS3 or PS4 and back again. Curve are leading the way when it comes to flexibility between the consoles and demonstrating how cross-save should now be a must-have feature for all cross-buy games and it also setting the standard in terms of adding value to its catalogue of games that you can buy once and play on all devices.
The Level Editor
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Bundled within the game is a level editor. This allows you to create your own levels with as much complexity and challenge as the ones packaged with the game. This works best on the Vita allowing you to 'draw' the levels with your finger across the screen. Within seconds you can create a fully functioning level which you can test play and tweak to make it more fun. I found that I dropped in more Tetromino blocks than I needed and played the game, noting which were left on the rack at the top once I'd got all my mice to the cheese. I could then remove these left-overs to provide just the right amount of blocks to the game. The levels also felt more achievable to build than, say, the levels in Little Big Planet. You don't feel like it is an insurmountable task, mainly due to the simplicity of the game itself and the tools presented to you. At time of writing, there didn't seem to be a community space where you can upload your levels. This does limit the reasoning behind content creation,
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Wrap up
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Good - Colourful, charming and buttery smooth. Great variety of gameplay, challenge and good pace. Will appeal to cheese lovers and puzzle fans.
Bad - being able to upload the user made levels to a community area makes the level editor somewhat redundant. It would be great to download and play other players' levels adding replayability to the game - perhaps an update to come? |
4.5/5 |
Game provided by Curve Studios
Footage captured from PS4.
Screenshots provided courtesy of Curve Studios and screen grabbed from in-game footage.
Footage captured from PS4.
Screenshots provided courtesy of Curve Studios and screen grabbed from in-game footage.
