Here’s Spirit and the Mouse, a narrative-focused jaunt of an adventure game from two-person Canadian indie team Alblune. Luka Lescuyer and Alexandre Stroukoff are behind this one and it’s charming time of it.
It launched in September 2022 and is available on PC, PS4/5 and Nintendo Switch. And you get to take control of a ruddy mouse! Always a cool thing indeed, so let’s explore this one. Squeak.
Exploration Mode Enables in The Spirit & the Mouse
Okay, the plot of this one kicks off with a big thunderstorm that brings together Lila the mouse and Lumion the spirit. Their goal? They must WORK TOGETHER to restore order to the quaint French village of Sainte-et-Claire.
Lila is a mouse packed with many powers, though, including an electric ability and general mouse-like skills (such as being small). Along the way you make friends with these things called Kibblins and it’s all a jolly old time of it.
It’s a light-hearted adventure game with exploration at the core of its gameplay loop. The idea is to get out there and explore everywhere and be inquisitive.
Here’s the opening 40 minutes in action! Note how lovely it all looks.
Yeah, so this is a great little game (you get around three hours of action in The Spirit & the Mouse) that channels the spirit of 1990s 3D platformers. Particularly with Rare’s iconic N64 romp Banjo-Kazooie (1998).
It’s not as challenging as that type of platformer, this one does slot more neatly into the wholesome genre category. It’s a COSY time of it, you might well say.
However, that’s not to put down its many excellences! Cuteness overload with a solid story, but the gameplay does offer many new challenges and a surprising amount of depth. Its mission-based format ensures this is all whilst balanced out for an accessible time of it.
An impressive feat then and one that suits a quite limited game length. In the game world, it basically plays out in real-time as a night time adventure.
A great little treat if you need a lift one evening this cold, dank winter. And if you have kids to entertain, well then this title goes a step further with its squeaky clean romp.
The Classical Inspirations Behind The Spirit & the Mouse’s Score
There’s a great score to go with this one. It’s heavily inspired by Chopin and Debussy.
The work is all by Taiwanese-American composer and music producer Gisula. She’s also busy working on films and various other media forms, which is no surprise given the quality of her work here.
Along with well-timed use of the French accordion, she also gets playfully by chucking fun sound effects (notably for spooky sections of the game).
As is so often the case with indie games these days, this is a fine work and an ideal complement to a rather uplifting and fun video game. We’ll squeak to that.
