Every few weeks, I load up the climactic orchestral montage from The Game Awards 2024 and get a little misty-eyed as the Balatro theme kicks in. The deckbuilding sensation is a rousing success story, even claiming our own end-of-year top spot, and its creator ‘Localthunk’ has been keen to share the love around. Their latest target is developer Dan Dilorio of Trampoline Tales, who Localthunk cites as the leading inspiration for Balatro’s creation, and whose new action roguelike Maze Mice has just launched on Steam, with a big 30% discount if you jump on it quickly.
“If you don’t know Dan, he’s the dev behind Luck Be a Landlord, the game that inspired me to make Balatro and influenced tons of other devs to expand on this genre he shaped,” Localthunk writes via Bluesky. “His newest game Maze Mice just left early access! You should check it out! I’m going to be playing it all weekend.” I may well have to follow suit; it’s slick, filled with funky beats, and immediately easy to understand, making it a worthy contender to join our best roguelikes.
The fastest way to describe Maze Mice is as a fusion of Pac-Man, Vampire Survivors, Superhot, and classic PC game Rodent’s Revenge. Choosing one of the 30 playable mice, each of whom boasts a unique aesthetic and specific piece of starting equipment, you must navigate shifting mazes and gather experience points to earn all manner of additional weapons and upgrades. Time moves only when you do, meaning you’re free to pause at any point and consider your next move.
Among the various items you’ll find are the Ball of Yarn, which can be placed to distract your furry pursuers, or the Head Tilt, which causes you to deal bonus damage when you’re on the left half of the map. Many are simple and straightforward, others are higher-risk; the Comfy Pillow, for example, forces you to rest in the middle of the maze as time automatically rolls forward, but grabs all pickups for you. I rather like the Dictionary, which boosts your current level significantly but changes all text into another language at random.
Following a brief stint in early access, Dilorio has now fired Maze Mice into its full release, noting, “I can now say I’m satisfied with the game and feel it’s ready to be called v1.0. I’ll never say never to adding more content, but that’s relatively unlikely given [that] the game hasn’t made back its development costs.” They add that the relatively short early-access period was because “my talented collaborators on this project got work done much faster than I thought they would.”
I’m certainly sold. On top of that, as if the $10 asking price wasn’t already very reasonable, there’s a huge Steam sale discount knocking nearly a third off the top to celebrate Maze Mice’s full release. It’s also fully Steam Deck verified, and seems like it’d be an ideal fit if you’ve grabbed something from our guide to the best gaming handheld.
Maze Mice is out now on Steam, with a 30% launch discount available through Monday July 21 meaning you’ll pay just $6.99 / £5.95. Get it here and prepare to take on the feline hordes; you can even try a free demo first.
We’ve rounded up the best indie games in 2025 to make sure you aren’t missing any more hidden gems. For a roundup of raucous rodent roguery, take a look through the best rat games on PC.
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