One of the benefits of developing games in the indie space, is that with smaller teams and budgets you don’t need to have smashing mainstream numbers to still be successful. That opens the door to games that are more personal and that simply don’t feel like anything already out there, and it’s what can make many indie titles charming, even if not necessarily great. For me MiceGard falls into that category, with its mix of pretty simple storytelling and some strategy that combines to make something that’s unique, but that’s hardly going to take the world by storm.

You’ll take on the role Micel, a young mouse who may be a bit brash, and somewhat accidentally ends up leading what remains of his people after an early attack levels their village. While there’s little confusion over the fact that the frogs are responsible, Micel is concerned with why the runestone that has protected them for so long failed to save them this time. The story mostly revolves around these aspects as Micel must periodically make decisions at key moments, deciding what his priorities are and whether to adhere to older beliefs or not, with these decisions collectively having an effect on the ultimate outcome.

On the play side, for the most part this has a light mix of action and strategy that I can’t say I’ve ever encountered. You and your squad will move around the map, searching for supplies, dispatching of your foes, and fulfilling quests. In order to be effective in dealing with enemies, and depending on the circumstances, you’ll need to shift between formations that will make you more formidable. On offense you’ll have your shields up front with ranged arrows firing at enemies in one specific direction, but you may find you’ll need to go to a defensive formation that will arrange your units in a circle, and be able to attack in all directions. It’s important that you change things up to keep your squads health losses to a minimum, but overall the degree of challenge tends to be gentle the majority of the time. There are also a few missions where different equipment and challenges pop up, which are a great change of pace, but for the most part it’s all more low-key than most games out there in the space.

Depending on what you’re looking for, this could either seem to look fresh and interesting or a bit limited, and both perspectives are valid. It doesn’t look or play quite the same as anything else out there, so that can be counted as a plus, but you could easily argue that the somewhat limited degree of variety in combat over the course of the game diminishes the value of that novelty factor. Even the base building component, while nice for being able to pick which perks you’d like in what order, doesn’t make for much variety in choice, so it all feels a bit lukewarm in the end when it comes to excitement.