Mice and Mystics

In the first 8 months I owned Mice and Mystics I attempted to start it 3 times to no avail. All 3 attempts were playing Chapter One, and none were successful. Unfortunately, they also weren’t fun. But when you pay this much for a game you give it some rope, so a month ago I sat down with a group of 3 friends and made plans to play this game together once or twice a week until we got through all chapters included in the base game. Having done so, I’ve worked up some level of appreciation for the game and feel comfortable passing on my experiences to you.

Observed Set-Up and Play Time
I have several games that take an eon to set up, and this is right up there with Arkham Horror at the top of the curve. Initially there is much cardboard to punch, so your first game will take a few hours to set up (including a careful read through the rulebook). Repeat set-ups take at least 15 minutes; there’s set tile formations depending on the chapter, special cards to fish out from their respective decks, particular tokens that will or won’t be used in the chapter. And the games are quite long to start – easily 2 hours for your first handful of games, with the rulebook as your constant companion. Even with experience, I don’t think I’ll be able to whittle this down to a one-hour play time.

My Learning Curve and Teach Time
The learning curve on this fella is pretty steep. While several mechanics will feel familiar, the ones that were new to me – such as the initiative track – take getting used to. I got nowhere in my first 3 games, but that certainly has something to do with them being spread over 3 or 4 months. Once we sat down and focused on a bigger campaign we were able to set the rule book down by Chapter Three or so. Overall play time to that point was around 10 hours. The game can be taught reasonably quickly provided someone with experience is overseeing things… 15 to 20 minutes should be sufficient, and a decided improvement over learning from the rulebook.

Group Sizes and Dynamics
As mentioned previously, my substantive experience with this game came with the same group of 4… I would classify two of us as “avid” gamers, one as “casual” and one as “family”. I think we all enjoyed the game equally, but I do feel that this game’s real target audience is the cross-section of board gamers and role-playing gamers. It’s not as complicated as a role-playing game, but possesses many of the qualities fans of the genre appreciate. As none of us are into role-playing games, we all liked Mice and Mystics but didn’t love it.

Objectionable Material
I think the vast love being given to Mice and Mystics comes from its kid-friendliness. It’s like reading your child a bedtime story, but one they play instead of doze off to. There are knives, tense moments, a sorceress… nothing Disney hasn’t prepared a 5-year-old for with their G-rated fare. While the game is highly reading-intensive, an adult can handle all of it and spare their child that limitation. When I play this with my son (when he’s around 5, I would guess) I will probably get much more into it than playing with a group of adults.

Comparable Titles
Games lying in that role-playing/board gaming hybrid zone will be comparable, but most of these are rather adult where Mice and Mystics is designed with youngsters in mind. Within my collection, Mice and Mystics plays like a much denser Zombicide… both have variable board set-ups, roughly 8 included missions in the base game and nice miniatures. But with Zombicide I will constantly make my own boards… throwing together tough tile layouts, setting difficult objectives and sadistic door and spawn-zone placements, completely ignoring any narrative or story… I don’t feel like I can do that with Mice and Mystics. With this game I’m either replaying a chapter I’ve played before or waiting for a new one. That works OK, but it’s nowhere near as re-playable.

I enjoy Mice and Mystics – it’s going into the growing pile of games I’m really excited to pull out when my child is of-age. But it pains me that I’m more likely to play a game like Zombicide – with its ultra-violence, gore and guns – than a comparatively wholesome game like Mice and Mystics. If I was more into role-playing games I’m sure that wouldn’t be the case, but the “sale” of Mice and Mystics to me is the story, and once you know it, you’re left waiting for the next expansion.

Mice and Mystics is a delightful game to play. The game has a wonderful story line about a castle, the evil Vanestra, and how the kings loyal subjects become mice to save the kingdom.

Components:
The games contains a number of markers for when you mouse becomes stunned, webbed, poisoned or wounded. Ability cards for you to choose your mouse abilities. Search cards for when you search an area – some items are good – some are not. Six mice figures with their character cards, as well as plastic miniatures for the roaches, rats, spider and centipede you will be fighting.

The miniatures are not painted but the art on the cards is colorful and very nice.

Tiles are included that you will use as maps for you exploration. They are double sided, and it is very likely that you will flip a tile to continue your exploration. Picture yourself on a grate lifting the grate up and splashing into the tunnel below.

There is an rule book and an adventure book. The adventure book has the various scenarios that you will be playing. You don’t have to play the adventures in order, but its more fun if you do.

Adventure reading note: Currently on the Mice and Mystics website you can purchase Rich Sommer performing a reading of the story moments from the Mice and Mystics storybook. He does a wonderful job with all of the voices.

Gameplay:

Typically you play with 4 mice going on an adventure. The first scenario is the mice trying to escape the dungeon of the castle to the large tree in the courtyard. This is a cooperative adventure game that can be played by 1-4 people. Playing with one person means that person is playing the roles of all four mice.

There is a time element involved in play. As you role dice for fighting or blocking you may role a cheese. If you role a cheese, YEA, you can save them to level up your character, or maybe heal another mouse. If the slimy cockroach you are fighting rolls a cheese that cheese may be placed on the cheese wheel. Once the cheese wheel is full a surge happens. That can be very bad news for the adventures as new enemies are added to the board. Sometimes the surge brings that dreaded cat!

Needless to say there is attacking, defending, scurrying, and healing that is going to go on in the little group.

Summary
I loved the game. It was fun to play and the rules are not difficult to understand. Most scenarios take between 1 1/2 – 2 hours. There are side adventures that your team can decided to take or not that affect the play time. You can play the game as an adventure keeping your level advancements and some items as you move from scenario to scenario.

There is a new scenario that you can purchase online at the Plaid Hat games website.

So grab some friends and go save the kingdom or at least Lilly. She has her tail caught in a mousetrap. RUN she is under attack.

I have to start this by telling a brief story. It seems appropriate.

About 7 years ago I picked up Heroscape after seeing commercials for it on Saturday morning cartoons. I remember reading through the rules and thinking that it was a special game. I saw it for almost unlimited possibilities that it presented. It could be played as a simple kill em all skirmish, or if could be a RPG-lite game. Put some thought and creativity into map and scenario design and it was a great toolbox for a lot of gaming fun and memories.

Fast forward to today (well a few days ago), and I find myself reading the Mice and Mystics rule book. I had some of the same feelings about this one that I did about Heroscape. Sure it is a little more limited in its wide open potential, but it presents an excellent toolbox for fun.

The game pits the forces loyal to the king, magically changed to mice, against the minions of Vanestra. You work together to thwart her evil designs as you negotiate the familiar, and suddenly much bigger, castle environment. You can explore the places familiar, and unfamiliar when you go through the holes and tunnels in floors and walls.

Each game tells a chapter of the story book. There is a reading section that sets the stage for what you will try to accomplish. You explore the castle trying to accomplish your mission, and fight Vanestra’s minions all along the way.

Cheese is kind of the currency and time keeping resource of the game. As you roll dice in combat you can collect cheese (one face of the dice awards cheese in combat). Cheese powers special abilities, it allows you to “level up” and gain new powers, and as minions collect cheese, it advances the story one page closer to the end of the chapter. You cheer when the cheese side of the dice comes up on your rolls, and you groan when the minions get cheese and you get that much closer to a surge of baddies.

The components are excellent. The minis are very cool and detailed even without compensating for their stature. The multipurpose dice are likewise very cool. The double sided (human areas and mouse tunnels) board pieces set the stage perfectly for the tales of adventure you will play out. A really nice touch is an index at the end of the rule book.

There is a finite number of chapters in the story book, and I’m sure there will be some who complain about there only being that many plays in the game. Plaid Hat Games already has a pdf download of a chapter for a buck. More of those in the future along with using your own creativity to write your own chapters lend a feeling of almost unlimited replayability.

While circumstances seem to be dictating that the Heroscape chapter of my life may be coming to a close, Mice and Mystics is stepping up to the plate and aiming its bat at the center field wall like Babe Ruth. I have that same feeling that it is a special game like Heroscape was and still is, and it has that extra bonus that my daughters are a lot more interested this time around.

I knew I’d play this game with my kids as soon as I saw photos of it on the web. We pre-ordered and we’re so glad we did! The components are wonderfully made and the look of the boards, cards, and books are really top notch. A LOT of care went into making this title.

The game itself is sort of pitched as a dungeon crawler / story game that’s approachable enough for kids and broken up into chapters. I’ve gotta tell you, it’s really tough to get a chapter finished before the hourglass gets to the chapter end marker for even veteran gamers. I’ve played a few times with the kids, once with friends, and probably 5 times attempting to solo a chapter… those dice, while attractive, are mean, vengeful cubes of despair. (Hoping the extra sets I just bought from PHG will be easier on us).

The story that’s woven into each chapter is engaging and got my kids excited. The idea of rescuing one of the characters in chapter 2 before getting to use her was an incredible hook for my daughter! The basic mechanics of moving, battle, searching, etc. are straight forward enough. What really sets this game apart is not just how diverse each chapter is… but how gameplay varies incredibly from tile to tile within each chapter.

Just the other night I was able to use a fork to launch a grape at a couple of Elite Rat Warriors on a table. After successfully killing one, I then used the fork to launch one of my mice onto the table top to finish off the other. How epic is that? And that’s just in chapter 3! I can’t wait to see what’s do-able in our adventures in the later chapters… and future expansions that PHG is already dropping hints about.

While the rulebook looks great, the organization seems a little off to me. The first few games took a lot of flipping back and forth to see how certain situations would affect our next actions. It’s the one thing ‘lacking’ in my mind. Overall, this game is really worth the price of admission. There’s so much fun stashed in this box – you can’t lose! Well, you will lose, to be sure… but you’ll enjoy yourself while you do.

Daz Bellows gave his son a stern wag of the finger. “Into the bed with you boy!” he said gruffly. Little Tip gave a hefty yawn and a stretch, and then climbed into his straw nest, his tail curling around him. Outside the tree, the wind was howling, and the snow was forming mounds. But inside it was warm and dry, and Daz tucked Tip in with a thick blanket. “That’s my lad,” he said softly, and fluffed the scruffy fur between Tip’s mouse ears. “Dream of spring and pretty things that bloom.” He turned to blow out the enormous candle that stood in the corner of the bedroom, but Tip sat up.
“Don’t leave yet, Papa,” he said. “The wind is fearsome tonight. Stay with me and tell me a story.” Daz arched an eyebrow.
“A story, eh? And which one do you have in mind?” Tip’s tail twitched with excitement.
“Tell me the story of brave Prince Collin and the Kingdom of Men!” Daz chuckled and settled into the walnut shell rocker that sat near the nest. Candlelight danced over the face of his excited son. (From the storybook included with the game)

Premise

Mice and Mystics is meant to be played as a multi-part campaign. As such, there is, in addition to the rule book which governs overall gameplay, a storybook that both provides flavor for each scenario and special rules that apply to the scenario. The crux of the premise here is that the widowed king meets a beautiful evil woman who ruins the kingdom, and those loyal to the king are arrested and magically transform themselves into mice to escape the dungeon. The evil queen figures it out and transforms her minions into rats to catch them. The mice will also have to overcome insects, cats and the kindly old cook in their adventures to save the kingdom.

Components

The box contains the aforementioned rule and story book, a story control board. 8 double-sided map tiles, 5 proprietary dice, 22 miniatures and necessary cards and counters. The miniatures are made of a good-quality brown plastic and have nice detail to them. They are certainly candidates for painting. Everything else included seems to be of decent quality. No qualms here.

Gameplay

The first step in playing Mice and Mystics is to choose a scenario to play. You can choose whatever one you want, but the design of the game is to have them be played in order. Not only is a linear story being told, but our heroes gain skills and equipment along the way that can carry over from scenario to scenario, and the game design and scenario difficulty takes this into account.

Each scenario accommodates as certain number of mice. This is generally 4, although a couple push it to 6. This means a group moving through the campaign would generally number maximum 4 players, as one person could easily play two mice, but two players sharing one would just be silly.

Each hero starts with unique stats and equipment. As the campaign progresses, 6 different mice will be available, allowing players to sometimes change who they play to accommodate the scenario at hand. Some are melee specialists and others have a ranged focus. Each of four stats on the hero costs, battle, defense, lore and movement have a number on them. With the exception of lore, this value determines how many dice the mouse rolls when performing a function based on that statistic.

The dice themselves are rather brilliant in my opinion. Many games would use multiple kinds of proprietary dice to accomplish the various rolls required by this type of game, or, instead, use standard dice with various rules governing how they apply to each roll. Mice and Mystics uses five colorful dice with various markings on them to move the game along, and after a short time using them, the rules are simple to remember.

For example, there are 4 pictures on the six sides on the dice, a bow and arrow, sword, sword and shield and cheese wedge. The bow and arrow results determine damage done when attempting a ranged attack, sword and sword and shield melee damage and sword and shield defense. In addition to these, there are stars on some sides and numbers from 1-3 on each side. The stars determine success when searching and certain skills and the numbers are used with movement. Cheese, well, we will get into that.

The stats determine the versatility of the character chosen. For example, to move, a player rolls dice equal to the number assigned to the movement statistic. The mouse than moves the total of the number indicated on the die. Filch, for example, rolls three dice for movement and rolls two dice to attack. Nez, on the other hand, rolls one for movement but up to four to attack with his starting equipment. A good balance of abilities is important when you have options of what mice to take.

The storyboard is used to keep track of hero and enemy turn order by placing cards representing the heroes and baddies along a track after shuffling them upon an encounter. Rather than having a player act as a dungeon master, the baddies are controlled by the players themselves adhering to specific rules about their movement and attack based upon hero location and initiative. This is very similar to how combat works in one of my all-time favorite games, Warhammer Quest. Once a new tile is entered by the players, and encounter card is drawn. This encounter card determines what enemies or hazards the players will face in this room. Certain rooms, however, have rules outlined in the storybook for the scenario being played.

The storyboard also has a timer presented as pages in a book. When certain things happen throughout the course of the game, a counter with an hourglass depicted on it. This counter is moving toward a “chapter end” counter, whose placement is determined by rules for the specific scenario being played. Some events move this counter forward, and other will move the chapter end marker further along the track. When the hourglass gets to the chapter end marker, the scenario ends in failure for the heroes. I always look at this as something of a fatigue tracker.

The cheese side of the dice do different things depending if the baddies roll them or the player. When attacking or defending, any cheese rolled by the players’ results in a cheese wedge token being given to the player. These tokens power the hero’s special skills and, when six are collected, can be used to level up the hero, giving said hero another skill that is retained through the campaign.

Every cheese rolled by the baddies is put on the cheese wheel located on the storyboard. Once six pieces of cheese are on the wheel, they are removed and the page marker is moved one page closer to chapter end. In addition, the first time this happens on a tile, a special surge occurs. This generally means more baddies for the mice to fight, and what happens is determined by the encounter card drawn upon entry to the room, or detailed in the storybook for special scenario rooms.
Each turn, a mouse may use its action to search the room for items. The mouse rolls a die, and if a star is present, the mouse found something! A card is drawn from the search deck. This could result in new equipment, one-time special attacks, party items to more easily navigate the dungeon, or, possibly, a trap. After clearing a tile, of course, mice can search without worrying about getting stabbed by a rat, but each turn spent on a tile without baddies on it results in another cheese wedge added to the cheese wheel.

There is of course more, but if you interest is piqued, you can always take a look at the rulebook rather than watch me drone on here. There are a good amount of rules, and some items will likely result a look in the rulebook from time to time. I don’t find this unpleasant or disruptive, but some might. I have experienced a couple of defeats and some really close calls, so pacing and play-testing seem to be pretty spot on.

Summary and thoughts

What we have here is a story-driven campaign-type roleplaying game. It works best with groups willing to come back to the game again and again, rather than a game that gets pulled out every now and then with new players. There are a good amount of rules involved, and you will be consulting the rulebook frequently the first few scenarios. The storybook is a must every game, as there are scenario-specific rules. Playtime for a scenario is an hour to two hours, and players who have trouble planning their actions before their turn comes up can really drag out a scenario. I have seen some people complain that there are unclear rules. I have not experienced that often enough to bother me, however, and a quick Google search has taken care of clarifications the couple of times it came up in our group. This is not a game you pull out just to pass the time or as a one-off. There is a level of commitment required.

My Verdict

I like this game. The story is somewhat silly, but I kind of get a kick out of playing what sort of amounts to a story being told to a kid by his grandpa, Princess Bride style. My favorite kind of video game is an RPG, where you invest time and energy into creating and growing your characters, and that element is well done in this board game version of an RPG. I would recommend this game for a tight group of 3-4 gamers looking for more than just a board game to play, but a story and world to immerse themselves in for a time. The downside, of course, to this type of game is that once you play through the campaign a good deal of the magic wears off. There is an expansion, however, to help mitigate that eventuality. Even then, starting another play through with a new group would be just fine for many people after the first group is done. This game could certainly be played solo, but I would miss the group interaction in doing so and end up a little flat, so I wouldn’t recommend solo gameplay.

I’ve played this game a number of times, mostly with a random group of players at the game store. The game is fun, and plays very well. The mechanics are very slick, and are quite easy to explain and pick up. It’s very challenging to play. I’ve won as many times as I’ve lost, and I think that is a good quality for a co-op game. The boards and tokens are of an excellent quality. The miniatures are nicely detailed and well made, but they don’t paint very well, if that is something that interests you.

Downsides:

1) Some players don’t want to deal with the story, so usually that gets discarded and we just play the game. It’s a shame, because it takes away one of the stronger aspects of the game.

2) The later levels in the book are very difficult. You need to run the game from start to finish with the same characters, and level them up to really be able to win the game. This is not a game you can just pick up and play with random people. You need a dedicated group of players.

If you have a group of players whom you regularly play games with, I highly recommend this game. If you tend to play with random people at a game store, you will find this one difficult to bring out.

The components are beautiful. The story is deep, enjoyable and well-fitting. The quantity and quality of the contents for the main game and expansions are very fair for the price.

Unfortunately, my gaming group could not get over the mechanics that rapidly descend into an over-simple, repetitious random dice-fest. It’s just so much rolling for combat, over and over again. Combats that you can easily win or lose purely by luck, and drastically change the outcome of the game. Yes, you can strategically place your models, and smartly use your resources. But you still come back to more rolling, comparing, rolling, comparing, keeping all your cool gear, or being captured in one of a hundred very similar rolls…ugh.

Then if you manage to perfectly run the game–or even utterly waste your time–the cheese count is going to determine your destiny. Certainly, there are ways to slightly manage the number of cheeses rolled or not rolled, but not enough. The ending felt quite like the end of a game of Killer Bunnies. No matter how much you stack the odds in your favor–or don’t–if the cheese rolled one way you win, the other way you lose.

Now, I think there is certainly a good audience for games like this, and they can be great amounts of fun for more “along for the ride” folks. This game certainly brings a heretofore unseen level of beauty and depth to the dice-fest, random win/loss game. We just did not see it coming, and did not enjoy the ride at all after trying a few times.

This is a great game for all ages. It was simple and best of all intuitive. My fiance occasionally has difficulty playing games with me because she can’t always grasp all the small rules or see the connections. With Mice and Mystics she had no such problem. A sword on the dice met damage, a bow ranged damage, a piece of cheese garnered you cheese. Everything pretty much did what you expect and she loved it along with the rest of the play group.
We have played once and plan to play again with the campaign rules. Keeping our characters abilities and the like and going to bigger and better things with eleven different chapters. The theme of the game is great and ever present in the beautifully designed components.
You flip board tiles going from one level to another. Ex: traveling from the sewers to the kitchen. Combat is simple and yet challenging. Exploration and searching for items simple. The game is constantly moving forward because of the cheese well used as a timer so that you either push on or wind up running out of time. (which my group nearly did)
In short a lot of simple to learn fun and good couple hours of play.

The replay value is limited to its story arc. However, if you have kids you would get a lot of fun play out of this. The current story arc replay limitations may improve in the future as I know Plaid Hat Games has been developing new adventure stories to go along with M&M. Currently they have a new adventure chapter for download on their website, and its only 99¢ to do so. I also know they are working on an expansion for the game coming to a shelf near you soon.

The game itself is very thematic; you have cheese slices to measure time, you use devices like forks, spoons, acorn shields, and toothpicks to assist adventuring through the game. The components are well done, and if you are minis painter, the minis in this game are a blast to paint.

The game is easy to learn, but the rule book seems a bit disheveled. At times you may want to find a specific rule and it doesn’t come easy to find. This is the only strike I have against this game.

Overall, a marvelous game to play, and a must own for a collector!

A great example of a dungeon crawler but with a family theme. The storyline here is excellent and helps to encourage a campaign approach. The game had depth, is family friendly with mice as heros and insects or animals as the monsters. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the rats are the main enemy this time around. As with many dungeon crawlers there is a bit of repetition to the game in terms of the fighting and searching, but the fighting dice are great and the level up skills add interest. Components, theme and general wow factor is top notch. Just the game length, as with many of this genre, can prevent it being played as often as you want.