If you were about to go on a huge exploration of a vast, wild desert, especially one known for housing terrifying sand monsters that can eat you whole, it would be understandable if you considered mice to be an unwise choice for your crew. As it turns out, though, these mice are wonderfully hard workers and your only job is to sit back and order them around. You see, Of Mice and Sand -Revised- acts as a strategy simulation type game, essentially testing your resource management skills to the max.
The game begins with a tutorial of sorts, providing you with a tiny team of two mice and just enough materials to build the essentials for your desert craft. You’ll build a bed, a workshop, a ladder, and an engine, all of which turn out to be things that you’ll be using throughout the game to varying degrees. You’ll also soon learn that you will need to keep an eye on your ship’s fuel and your mice’s hunger levels – running out of either will leave you stranded and you’ll be thrown back to the starting point in the game.
Building new rooms in the ship is pretty fun; while you’ll be starting out with just the basics, you’ll soon be building more useful things and also upgrading the ones that already exist. Materials are most easily gathered by simply traveling from one destination to another as your mice will pick things up automatically from the road and, from there, you’ll be able to use them to build new equipment. The entire game becomes a game of working out the perfect balance between crafting items to sell for money, keeping things that may be useful in the future, and somehow managing to keep enough food for your extremely hungry mice.
There are quests available at each destination along your route, usually requiring you to have a specific set of items that you’ll need to hand over for a cash reward. These pit-stops are also where you’ll be topping up your fuel, selling your goods, and paying locals to hear about rumours of new areas (which will then unlock them). To keep on top of all this, you really have to keep on top of your entire workflow; certain mice will have specialist skills (such as using the workbench) and you’ll definitely want to have everyone working on the right tasks at the right time. If you waste any precious time or stamina, you could very quickly run out of resources and be thrown back to the start.
There is a point to this exploration as the mice are supposedly in search of ‘El Dorado’, a ‘legendary land of gold’, although this plot point very quickly fades away into the back of your mind. Rather than having the great adventure the game sets you up for, things very quickly start to feel like an endless back and forth between point ‘A’ and point ‘B’, eventually on to point ‘C’, and then back to ‘A’ again; you’ll be returning to places you’ve already been quite frequently and that initial urge to explore starts to die away a little.
Your ship will go from being a small, two tier contraption to an absolutely monstrous, multi-level beast with mice running around everywhere. If you manage to get the hang of things, this can become a very well-oiled machine and is satisfying to run, although the speed in which you must work and the lack of resources at times can make things rather daunting. You may find yourself needing to give this one more time than you might expect, making sure to remain patient when you fail.
Of course, after putting in this hard work and effort, you’ll eventually start to see the rewards. As time progresses you’ll be making a lot more money at a much faster rate, although your stocks will deplete equally quickly, and your ship will evolve into something that is really satisfying to watch. This does give more weight to the issue that the game’s plot feels a little pointless, though, as you’ll be more focused on upgrading your workforce to the biggest it can be and getting to that point is incredibly tricky. It’s all to easy to find yourself being killed off from a lack of funds.
Essentially, how much you enjoy this game will depend on two things: firstly, how much you enjoy this genre; and secondly, how much time and dedication you can allow yourself to throw into it. The game is very repetitive in nature, and with several new events and places added to the experience since the game’s release on 3DS last year, this version is even more of a time-sink than ever before. The cute, pixelated, western-inspired art and soundtrack will be enough to initially invite you in, but you may well need a lot of focus and determination to stick around.
Conclusion
Of Mice and Sand -Revised- does a lot of things right; a mixture of quests, resource management, and a necessity for clever thinking result in a decent experience for the most dedicated fans of the genre. Unfortunately, though, a lack of clear direction and a tricky-to-master workflow mean that it likely won’t quite click with everyone else; these games work best when you find yourself addicted to their menial tasks and, this time around, that sadly wasn’t always the case. Not a bad option to consider for fans of tactical management, then, but be wary of our warnings if you do choose to give it a go.
Comments 17
Never heard of it. I'll probably pass, plenty of other games to mess around in. Like lost Sphere! Just came out today.
Looks interesting. I'll now check out some let's plays.
Good review. I've been curious about this one ever since I saw it appear on the Japanese Eshop a month or 2 ago but this review has now put me off it which I'm actually grateful for. Saved me some money. This one isn't for me.
Gives you a good first impression when the first screenshot you see has huge rainbow colored poop.
oh hey, it's that one game that i had on my Japanese 3ds.
I dunno why Lost Sphere gets lot of attentions when it is a copy-and-paste of I am Setsuna. IGN's review confirmed my expectations: 6.7/10. Ewwww,
Oh man. Didn't realize this was one of those types of games!!! Crap!!! Goodbye (even more) money and (and even more of my little) free time. I'm a sucker for these almost as bad as roguelikes. Think I'll play some QoD while it downloads. Heh.
@kokjopan topical.
So, how did this review not mention Star Wars?
I mean, seriously, it's pretty clear that this is basically about the Jawas that pick up R2D2 and C3PO at the beginning of SW A New Hope to sell them.
I haven't have much experience in this resource management business, (does diner dash count as resource management if it is it's a bit tame from my 20 hours i've plugged in) and from my 20 hours in I've been sucked into the spell of this game on my 3ds. Just hearing the music is lulling me back in. Feel free to ask me questions.
@EmirParkreiner
Yeah, can you honestly look at that and not think Sandcrawler? Not to mention how much the mice look like Jawas. Untinni!
@FinalFrog Oh you're welcome.
Sounds kind of neat. However, and I know graphics are not everything, I wish this didn't look like a port of a game meant for Windows 95.
Looks really charming but even after reading the review I don't have much of an idea what the game play is actually like... Still, it's on my Switch wish list.
@Winklebottom Me too!
@Sforzando Think oregon trail with sim city or Oxygen not included.
This game really needs to be Jawas on Tattooine!
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