Haunted Mouse
- Board's Eye View
- 6 minutes ago
- 3 min read
No, the title isn't a misprint. This is a card game from Bézier themed not around a haunted house but around the nightmare fears suffered by mice. Each of the mice's four ghostly predators is represented as a suit of cards (cats, snakes, owls and hawks: numbered 1–9, with two of each card and also distinguishable by suit colour).
Haunted Mouse is actually a ladder climbing card shedding game and, like Scout (Oink) and the recent DNUP (Asmodee), it's a game where you are playing sequential runs or multiples from your hand but you're not allowed to reorganise the cards in your hand. If you've never before played a game where you're not allowed to re-order the cards in your hand, you'll find resisting that automatic urge is the most difficult aspect of Haunted Mouse but if you're a veteran of Scout or DNUP then you'll be well set for this game.
The key concession to managing your hand is that you get to choose one card, or in some cases two, from anywhere in your hand to play a 'bait'. Cards played in this way are placed face up on the table and can be used by any player as part of the set they play. When a player has led with a run or multiples of a number, you can only beat them by playing a meld of the same size and type with higher value cards or by playing a meld with one more card in it. Cards previously played are always discarded, as is your own meld if it's still on the table when you come round to your next turn. If you don't have a legal play available to you or you choose not to play any cards, you get to draw a card and place it anywhere in your hand, and if your 'bait' card has been played you must replace it, again with any card from your hand.
The 'bait' cards being available to everyone makes it easier to create a meld but, of course, using an opponent's 'bait' card is helping them to go out. The round is won by the first player to shed all their cards, including their 'bait' card(s) and they earn 3 cheese segments (4 in a five-player game). Play continues so that others can win (fewer) cheese segments by going out. The overall winner of the game is the first player to fill their cheese wheel with 7 segments.
There's inevitably a high luck factor, both in the cards you're dealt and the order in which you get them, but there's scope to try to mitigate your luck through canny use of 'bait' cards and pushing your luck further with card draws that can help to create stronger melds. If you can put together a multiple of four cards all of different suits or a run of four cards in the same suit then that's considered a 'trap' that beats anything else on the table, immediately goes to the discard pile and allows you to lead with another meld. It's especially satisfying when you pull off a 'trap'. Designer Jonathan Cox evidently appreciated this because the 'It's a Trap' mini-expansion for Haunted Mouse adds in number and suit wild cards that make it easier to generate 'traps'.
Haunted Mouse plays briskly. Most of our plays have been won in three rounds, so with a playing time of around 20 minutes; ideal for a light filler game.
