In a year full of giant games, some little mice stand out
There have been a lot of big games this year that have felt all-consuming, like Monster Hunter Wilds or Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Maze Mice offers something different: a small, pick-up-and-play experience that takes a bunch of ideas from some classics and adds a clever twist.
The game, from Luck Be a Landlord developer TrampolineTales, mixes elements of Pac-Man, Vampire Survivors, and even the classic Snake. As an adorable, pixelated mouse, you zip around a maze to get blue experience gems that are guarded by cats. When you pass by the cats, they'll wake up and start chasing you, sometimes creating a hilariously long line of felines. (Cute ghost cats will also appear and inconveniently float right into your path.) All the action takes place on one screen, so it's easy to see where everything is at any given time.
When you get enough gems, you can pick from a selection of three power-ups. The upgrades are often a little silly, like knitting needles that fly through the air to attack the cats pursuing you, but as with Vampire Survivors, it's fun to experiment with different abilities to create interesting builds.
Maze Mice's most interesting feature is that time only moves whe …