Maze Mice

February 25, 2025

I was late to the party, but I played Luck Be a Landlord last year and really enjoyed it. It’s a deckbuilder where you build combos by manipulating the icons in your custom slot machine. I linked above to the Steam page, but it’s on just about every platform — I played through it on iOS.

TrampolineTales, the indie developer behind Luck Be a Landlord, released a demo for Maze Mice as part of Steam Next Fest. I got around to giving the demo a shot today and I loved it!

The game is a slightly weird mix of Pac-Man and Vampire Survivors where time only progresses when you move. You pilot a mouse around a cardboard maze and collect XP gems to earn new weapons and passive effects. You’re being chased by cats and ghosts — the cats follow your path exactly around the maze, and the ghosts ignore walls as they move directly toward you. The time progression system is fun, and I found myself just squeezing through some tight spots by tapping the arrow keys. There’s some light strategy required to herd your foes away from the gems you want to collect.

You can check out the Steam page for Maze Mice and give the demo a go on macOS or Windows. If you liked Vampire Survivors, I think you’ll have a good time with this as well.