OUR REVIEW

Pretty Little Angel Mouse!

Maus und Mystik

Sorrow and Remembrance

“‘Ah! the mice – the mice are coming again!’ exclaimed Maria, in affright;
and she was about to wake her mother, but her voice failed her,
and she could stir neither hand nor foot, for she saw the Mouse-King work his way
out of a hole in the wall, then run, with sparkling eyes and crowns,
around and around the chamber, when, at last, with a desperate leap,
he sprang upon the little table, that stood close by her bed.
‘Hi – hi – hi – must give me thy sugar-plums – thy ginger-bread – little thing
 – or I will bite thy Nutcracker – thy Nutcracker!’ – So squeaked the Mouse-King,
and snapped and grated hideously with his teeth, then sprang down again
and away through the hole in the wall."

Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, "Nutcracker and Mouse-King"

(Translated from the German by Mrs. St. Simon)

The cooperative adventure role-playing game "Mice and Mystics" takes us into the fairy-tale realm of King Andon. The witch queen Vanestra causes the widowed monarch to fall for her, body and soul. Even before the wedding, she has the old king already under her spell. So he, becoming mysteriously weaker and sicker every day, transfers all his powers to her. His son, Prince Collin, and a faithful few of the king’s entourage are planning a conspiracy against Vanestra, but are tracked down by her minions. Collin and his followers barely escape in the form of little mice, into which the old court magician Maginos transformed them, including himself. The sorceress, though, sets her hunters – transformed into vermin as well – on their tracks.

In addition, the mice heroines and heroes have to face more dangers still in the castle and its underground caves and cellars: traps (mouse traps, that is!), poison, evil cats and hungry birds are only the most obvious of these evils. But they also make allies. For some of these, probably future adventures will tell, whether they were humans once or belong to the fairy tale personnel of the kingdom.

The game begins – according to the recommended order of the adventure booklet "Sorrow and Remembrance" – right after the transformation of the five characters (number six , the mouse heroine named "Lily", has her appearance in the second scenario and will join the group after that), including Prince Collin, into more or less courageous mice.

The focus in "Mice and Mystics" is on taking on the role of a magical rodent (or more than one) to live through their story. The mice characters have to fulfil various tasks on the variable game board tiles, e. g. detect clues, find new allies or collect items. Each adventure stands for a chapter of the fairy tale story that will lead the mice to success and to the downfall of evil Vanestra.

The mechanisms of "Mice and Mystics" are not new, but combined interestingly. Every adventure begins with a lengthy introduction, describing the mission for the heroines and heroes. Then the players set up the game board as specified in the relevant chapter. Usually this playing area consists of at least three square room tiles. There are different rooms printed on both sides of the cardboard tiles; often on one side they depict a room of the castle and on the other side the tunnels or vaults beneath that room. In the instruction booklet you can read about special rules or about special conditions (e. g. which cards to choose or whom the mice will have to encounter) for this quest and, not least, target and duration of this adventure. (Re. duration: place the Chapter End Marker on the appropriate square of the Story Control Board; unless the mice manage to fulfil their targets before the round marker – an hour-glass shaped token – reaches the End Marker, the mice lose out on that adventure.) There may also be instructions how many and which characters should go on that quest: sometimes Prince Collin absolutely has to take part, sometimes only three or four mice are permitted, but at other times all six available characters are required to go.

On their way through corridors and halls almost completely devoid of human beings (except for old cook Bertha, who plays a significant role, and for King Andon, who waits to be saved) the mice constantly encounter unpleasant adversaries. Sometimes these are just annoying roaches, but often enough rat warriors (before their transformation into rodents they were Vanestra’s thugs), poisonous creepy crawlies, giant spiders, hungry crows or Brodie, the Castle Cat, are molesting our mice. Therefore, they have to fight off the enemies most of the time before they can enter a new room. Moreover, those pesky attackers considerably hinder the searching and finding actions the characters have to undertake to reach their mission objectives. And the mice always have to hurry, since whenever they are caught just hanging around without an opponent at the end of a round, you have to put another piece-of-Cheese-token onto the clock face of the Story Control Board. Whenever there are six Cheese Tokens on the clock face, a page is turned, that is, the hour-glass marker moves one box closer to the Chapter End Marker. Combat is resolved by rolling the Action Dice. Both mice and the respective opponent throw as many dice as indicated on their character sheets (special rules or equipment cards may modify the amount) and add the appropriate symbols for attack or defense. If you score more attack than defense symbols, you cause corresponding damage. By the way, since there is no Games Master at "Mice and Mystics", fellow players roll for the rats, spiders, cockroaches, etcetera. Whether and how a single-person game would work (“Mice and Mystics” is recommended for one to four “mice” players after all) we do not know.

The game is not very complicated, the set-up is easy and relatively quick, the playing pieces (mice, rats, roaches, centipede, spider) are exquisitely done and even though there is quite a number of cards (character sheets, initiative cards for ranking on the initiative bar, encounter cards, equipment cards, spell cards, etc.) and tokens (mousetraps, items, boss monster markers, wound counters, etc.) they do not slow down the flow of the game unnecessarily. The rulebook is relatively well structured, has a useful, if still expandable index. Some inconsistencies (and annoying, but at least only a few misprints) remain, though. While the special and additional rules in the respective scenarios are nicely listed and explained, it is rather difficult to always keep in mind the numerous subtleties in the basic rules. In order not to unduly lengthen the duration of the chapters of “Sorrow and Remembrance“, it is advisable to time and again turn a blind eye to some of these inconsistencies – at least in the first few gaming sessions. Once you gained more experience you can try any previous adventure again. Already Plaid Hat Games released some expansions (one even with additional playing pawns / models). The German-language edition with Heidelberger Spieleverlag is about to follow suit in the first quarter of 2014, as announced in the mid of January.

The randomness factor is surprisingly high in "Mice and Mystics". Since there is a significant amount of fighting and even encountering opponents is usually depending on the random Encounter Card in play at any given point in the game, for our liking it is far too often that we have to roll the dice. It would be desirable in such a complex and cooperative adventure game to have more emphasis on planning, scheming and strategy than on the outcome of a dice roll.

Although "Mice and Mystics" is set in a fairy tale world (the mice are really cute, by the way) and Jerry Hawthorne, the author, is apparently firmly convinced that his game is suitable for players as young as seven years of age, we deem this recommendation a bit risky. First of all, there are undoubtedly some drastic horror elements in the story – Vanestra turns into a Shelob-like spider creature; several episodes have the mice characters, already in safety themselves, overhear rather cruel deaths of their opponents; many rats die in an explosion and the following inferno. Moreover, some of the game’s rules are not at all easy to remember, so one might have to browse the rules manual constantly for clarifications on details – not much fun for anybody, least of all for young players. Our recommendation – and in spite of all these objections mentioned above, we feel "Mice and Mystics" is largely a well-made game – would be to start playing only when older than primary school age and, if at all possible, a majority of participants should have some playing history with "Mice and Mystics".

Martina & Martin Lhotzky, Marcus Steinwender

Players: 1-4

Age: 7+

Time: 120+

Designer: Jerry Hawthorne

Artist: John Ariosa

Price: ca. 43 Euro

Publisher: Heidelberger Spieleverlag 2013

Web: www.heidelbaer.de

Genre: Fantasy, cooperative

Users: For families

Special: 1 player

Version: de

Rules: de en es fr it

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Player age notation seems low, 10+ would be more appropriate

Hard to categorize, intended for children, but experience in playing is of advantage

Comes with 11 different scenarios

Compares to:

Die Legenden von Andor

Other editions:

Ediciones MasQueOca, Filosofia Édition, Plaid Hat Games, Raven Distribution

My rating: 5

Martina, Martin und Marcus:

Charming, albeit quite dark role playing board game that intends to win younger players for fantasy games by its topic, but due to the length of the game and the complex rules we rather recommend it for more experienced players.

Chance (pink): 3

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 2

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0