Mieyen

Break Space

Dave Sloane

Mpk

MIEYEN Inufuto Free Mpk's Review Every so often, when you're thinking about a video game, you're faced with a particular problem. The problem I'm referring to is this one: The game has a mechanic which you've not seen before. But you don't know whether it's original. If you get all excited, and it turns out that it's ripped off from some 80s classic that you never got around to, then all the cool kids will laugh at you. But if you play it down, the cool kids all think you're a fool who doesn't recognise genius. Thus, I am taking on a gamble here. Mieyen has a fantastic mechanic that I've never seen before in a similar game, and I think it's genius. Yes, it looks like a dodgy Pacman, and yes, it has those same Ghost-Cats that inufuto puts in all their games. But hear me out... in Mieyen, you're in a Pacman-style maze, with scary ghosts that will kill you, and eat your precious burgers. But! You can blast out a fiery ball that will incinerate them. You just need to get rid of all the ghosts to clear the level. This sounds easy, and it is, except for that mechanic I was talking about. Which is this: The ghosts are invisible. You can track them roughly by the dots that are extinguished as the ghosts move across them. This generally means that they are easy to intercept at the start of a level, when their progress is obvious, but after you focus on one and the others have cleared out the dots from an area, their presence is undetectable. You can reignite the dots by walking over an empty space, but moving into empty areas is risky. Genius, like I said. Genius that is let down a little by the implementation, unfortunately. The engine is a little bit clunky, with blocky movement and the sound could certainly use some attention. There aren't enough levels, with play looping rather too quickly to keep your interest in the long-term. But while it's fresh, there's a real sense of tension as you tiptoe through the darkened maze, blasting off speculative fireballs. Paws off my burgers, ghost-cats!

Yes, I do need all 9 of those burgers.

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