I wanted this game ever since I first laid eyes on it at our local game store. It’s a pricey game and so we didn’t buy it that day. Later, when we were able to purchase it, they didn’t have it. That game store told us that it was hard to get in stock. Then we discovered another game store and lo-and-behold they had a copy on the shelves! We snatched it up! However, I think that game store A was mistaken in their claims of how hard it is to get this game because the very next week game store B had a new copy on the shelves. But I digress…
THEME: Adventure, Animals, Fantasy
PUBLISHER: Plaid Hat Games
DESIGNER(S): Jerry Hawthorne
COST: $74.95
Mr. LL is still in the process of painting all our miniatures for this game, but he's been doing a great job!
“Adventure Awaites! In Mice & Mystics players take on the roles of those still loyal to the king - but to escape the clutches of Vanestra, they have been turned into mice! Play as cunning field mice who must race through a castle now twenty times larger than before.”
This is a cooperative game in which all the players work together through chapters of a wonderful narrative to save their kingdom. You’ll fight rats, cockroaches (a grape is your greatest weapon against these guys!), spiders and the biggest threat (literally), the house cat Brodie. You use square board segments that are interactive (in the sense that there are markers on them that mean you can find treasure or jump through a hole to the flip side), ever changing and have great artwork.
Along the way, you’ll hoard cheese that you can use to activate abilities or purchase new gear. But the cheese isn’t always a good thing. If your foes roll cheese on the dice, then it goes into the cheese wheel that will advance the game. If you don’t beat the chapter before the game advances to the last page, you lose that round.
This game reminds me A LOT of Descent. It has very similar mechanics, but it is by no means exactly the same. Both games have wonderful boards and miniatures (that are just begging to be painted); both have a plot line to follow and instructions for each campaign/chapter that detail set up and foes; they use cards (that have amazing artwork as well) for players to keep track of their heroes’ abilities and equipment as well as cards for your foes.
After you get past those similarities, you will find a completely different game. The story control board keeps track of the minion cheese wheel, the initiative track and the chapter track as well as holds the encounter cards and search deck (filled with equipment and goodies to help you along the way). I really like this game mechanic, even if watching the marker on the chapter tracker move ever closer to our demise gives mild panic sometimes.
I love this game. It’s been a minute since we played because we are stuck on Chapter 3 and have tried to beat 4 times now. However, I have faith that we can pull through. Another thing I really like about this game is its flexibility. We started playing this game with just two players, Mr. LL and myself, but then added a third player for next chapter. We’ve played again with just the two of us after that and it all works out. In Descent, once you start a campaign with however many players it’s very hard to keep playing it if someone can’t be there to play with you. That has given this game a great play value to me and I think anyone else who wants something with this kind of flexibility will enjoy it, too.
Have a suggestion for a board game you’d like to see on this Once A Month Gamer post? Have any questions about this month’s game? Leave a comment down below.