I am currently trying to gently nudge my family into hobby gaming and away from the classic family games that tend to bore me. After a bit of research, I decided to start my campaign with Mice and Mystics created by Jerry Hawthorne and produced by Z-Man games. It’s a classic, co-operative ‘Dungeon Crawler’ in which the player are all mice (or humans turned into mice) and must battle through various missions, taking on rats, roaches and spiders.
Players can choose from six different mice, which basically represent a classic Dungeons & Dragons party. There are 2 warriors, a cleric, a thief, a ranger, and a magic-user. You only use four at one time, but as we are a family of four, that’s perfect.
We’ve only played a couple of sessions so far, but they have gone well. I’ve had to simplify the rules just a tad, and make the missions a bit easier, but that doesn’t seem to have impacted the fun. My six-year-old son is especially taken with the game, even though he least understands the rules. He just loves the idea of his mouse bashing roaches with a big hammer.
Hopefully, as we go along, I can slip in some of the more complicated rules. Maybe one day, I can even use it as a springboard to do some full-on role-playing! But I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, it is fun to just sit with the family, roll some dice, and get a little taste of dungeon delving.
It’s also given me a bunch of new miniatures to paint. Now, these are ‘board game’ pieces, so the detail is not as sharp as I’m used to, but it’s pretty good. I’ve already painted up the first two heroes: Collin the Warrior and Tilda the Healer. I really enjoyed Collin and think he looks pretty good. Tilda I’m less pleased with. I regret painting her in white – although I was trying paint them to match their cards in the game. Oh well, it’s still a lot better than an unpainted figure.
We will see how it all gets on!
Very nice family fane indeed, the look, the adventure, rules not so complicated but... missions aren't easy and not necessarily fast played.
ReplyDeleteStill a good way to start playing with minis.
You could also check stuffed fables;)
I borrowed this from a friend to entertain my nephews and niece when they came to visit years back. I essentially ran it like D&D, describing each room and action, giving all the roaches and rats voices and personalities, and adding (and encouraging) sound effects for combat effects. They loved it.
ReplyDeleteAll the best. The minis look neat, and the cardboard components are very nicely illustrated.
ReplyDeleteMy hard core gamers really enjoy these adventures. Great stories and they can be a real challenge. What other game allows your magician to morph into a flying Cheese golem?
ReplyDeleteHow about the Mausritter RPG? There you play mice as well - and the rules are a close to D&D and can be use as an hexcrawl (open world) ?
ReplyDeleteVery nice minis! I like them a lot!