Mole Mania (1996)

Mole Mania takes the Sokoban style and spins it in a unique and addicting way, creating 7 (+ 1) massive levels chock filled with rewarding brain teasers.

The player gets to be Muddy Mole, a middle-aged looking male mole out to rescue his wife and kids from a pesky gardener Jinbe and a variety of enemies and bosses.

With that story in place, the player's objective is to take a large black ball and toss it into an exit in order to advance each stage. Players may dig holes underground and move strategically to avoid enemies, but careful digging, pushing, and throwing over holes is key in order to reach the goal. The game is gracious about letting the player reset if need be, but a health system and enemies keep some dungeon crawling action amidst the puzzles. The ball is thankfully a weapon as well as a goal, and careful use of that ball can destroy Muddy's foes.

There are a variety of obstacles all used in ingenious ways, such as pipes to guide the ball around corners, arrow panels that force the ball in a specific area, barrels that fill holes but clog the underground, spikes that can't be traversed, and other challenges. Often the solution is less complicated than it looks, and the player is encouraged to try all sorts of solutions to get to the goal. Luckily, the solution space is only one screen wide so figuring out puzzles isn't nearly as frustrating as other games.

Along with puzzles and enemies, the game has an exploration and completion aspect where getting a few items, pushing 20 special cabbages in holes, the map fully explored and a quick and tense bonus stage where you have to avoid Jinbe can all add up to unlock the final area and get a high score + best time if the player likes to practice speedruns.

As a Gameboy game the sprites are simple and adorable, with plenty of charming animations and cutscenes in a few areas (snow, gardens, etc). Music is often easy going to complement the pondering that players will often need to do in order to reach the goal.

Mole Mania can get pretty difficult in some areas, as levels can be surprisingly long and managing health can take some trial and error much like figuring out puzzles. That said, the puzzle difficulty is just right and is a blast to figure out, making the journey totally worth it.

History:

Never heard of this one before, and never played.

Expectations:

None! I have no idea what I'm getting myself into with this one!

Day 1:

Like ZOMG this game is totes adorbz! I find this game's visual appealing, and its humor charming...

*cough*

So I didn't expect to be getting into a full on, story mode kind of game here, and right off the bat I find it heavily channeling Kickle Cubicle, one of my favorite NES games. I am pleased.

Mole Mania demands thinking about its puzzle from moletiple angles. The stage design rocks. Levels are grounded in logic. I can't find many holes in the premise.

...I'm digging this game...

...I'm done.

I played through the entire first stage and am having a pretty good time of it. The puzzles are really enjoyable though I find the "combat" challenges a bit less so. The first bonus stage has you trying to throw cabbages into holes while a farmer beats on you, and it felt more frustrating than fun. The first boss has you dodging projectiles and sliding pins underneath him when he jumps into the air. That felt a little better, and was funny.

All in all I like Mole Mania, a lot in fact. My concern is that the game wont keep me interested enough to play through all seven of its relatively long stages. Guess we'll see!

Day 2:

Spent part of my lunch hour finishing out Level 2. New elements make puzzle solving more engaging, such as ground spikes, and all in all I'm still enjoying the game. The next boss was a floating sun that I had to push balls into to try to knock him into water, all while jumping underground to avoid a screenwide attack. I thought this encounter actually lent itself to the game's controls and mechanics really well, and liked it a lot better than the last one.

I started on Level 3 but only got a few sections in before having to pack up.

I'm still enjoying the game, a lot, but as feared I'm already getting a little tired of it. To me this feels more like a pick up every once in a while kind of game, as opposed to a play from start to finish kind of game.

Day 3:

I spent today's lunch hour making my way through most of Level 3, but at that point I felt I had reached the end of my run with Mole Mania. It's a personal preference issue, but when it comes to formulaic puzzle games like this one I can only take so much.

Conclusion:

So I liked Mole Mania. It was too cute for it's own good, had solid gameplay and catchy music. The problem I have with the genre is simply that I can't stand doing slight variations on the same things over and over and over again in this kind of environment. Every stage is just reverse engineering increasingly complex levels, occasionally throwing in new mechanics. That's the genre, I understand that, and it's fine. It's just not something I look forward to doing, especially in the "play only this game" context of this project.

Liked:

- Nice graphics and a good music track.
- I appreciate the story mode to add some flavor to the game. The writing is fun.
- The puzzles are just difficult enough to be very rewarding when you solve them.
- I freaking love those moles!

Disliked:

- Every level is essentially the same formula over and over again.

Personal Score:

Day 2:

Spent part of my lunch hour finishing out Level 2. New elements make puzzle solving more engaging, such as ground spikes, and all in all I'm still enjoying the game. The next boss was a floating sun that I had to push balls into to try to knock him into water, all while jumping underground to avoid a screenwide attack. I thought this encounter actually lent itself to the game's controls and mechanics really well, and liked it a lot better than the last one.

I started on Level 3 but only got a few sections in before having to pack up.

I'm still enjoying the game, a lot, but as feared I'm already getting a little tired of it. To me this feels more like a pick up every once in a while kind of game, as opposed to a play from start to finish kind of game.

Day 1:

Like ZOMG this game is totes adorbz! I find this game's visual style appealing, and its humor charming...

*cough*

So I didn't expect to be getting into a full on, story mode kind of game here, and right off the bat I find it heavily channeling Kickle Cubicle, one of my favorite NES games. I am pleased.

Mole Mania demands thinking about its puzzle from moletiple angles. The stage design rocks. Levels are grounded in logic. I can't find many holes in the premise.

...I'm digging this game...

...I done.

I played through the entire first stage and am having a pretty good time of it. The puzzles are really enjoyable though I find the "combat" challenges a bit less so. The first bonus stage has you trying to throw cabbages into holes while a farmer beats on you, and it felt more frustrating than fun. The first boss has you dodging projectiles and sliding pins underneath him when he jumps into the air. That felt a little better, and was funny.

All in all I like Mole Mania, a lot in fact. My concern is that the game wont keep me interested enough to play through all seven of its relatively long stages. Guess we'll see!