Mewseum is a casual puzzle series that is similar to picross and mathematical drawing puzzle games, which, over time, will colour in the outline of an artwork. For the second entry in the series, Mewseum: Film Festival will task the player to fill in six movie posters of famous movies redesigned around cats. Six puzzles may not sound like much, but each puzzle has around 6-8,000 squares to fill in. Suddenly, the task is a bit meatier!
Shading in those square grids sounds like a massive task, but Mewseum’s stealth gameplay tactic is to break each movie poster down into 70-150 smaller puzzles to complete. This stepped process is incredibly helpful, as it makes the game very bite-sized and far more approachable. Each one of these mini-puzzles will have a selection of gridded squares with numbers dotted around them. The numbers tell you how many squares are contained in this colour block, and you can only draw rectangles or squares. This means a 4 could be a long row or column 4 squares long, or it could be a 2×2 square. Your task is to work that out by drawing in all the squares to fill each mini-puzzle. Once completed, it’ll colour in, and you’ll be taken to the next segment, gradually painting your movie poster as you complete each puzzle.
The key to success in Mewseum is using the process of elimination. Start off by spotting numbers tightly compacted together, as they’ll be numbers that can only be drawn in certain lines or squares. That usually narrows down your next options, and you’ll be able to use logic to work your way around the full puzzle. Undo functions are fast, and you can redraw over something you’ve already completed, and it’ll erase any conflicts automatically. Infinite hints will highlight in green a correct move until you actively complete it, and there are no cooldowns on hints either. From the quality of life features to the simple mouse or controller controls, Mewseum is very approachable and easy to pick up and play.
The rules are simple, the moves available to the player are minimal, and if you use logic wisely, you’ll not run into much trouble. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of game here. Each movie poster takes about two hours to complete, but if you hint spam, you’ll be faster. My advice is to pace yourself and do a few small segments each day. My main critique of Mewseum is that the gameplay mechanics never change. What you start doing with your first puzzle will be what you are still doing at your 700th. This is one game where I urge you to check out the demo, as after five minutes, you’ll know if this is your casual puzzle jam or not. It really does not change aside from occasionally throwing in some larger numbers for some bigger blocks. Sometimes, that actually makes that puzzle easier. Spotting a 9 means you’ll have to make room for a 3×3 square, and the space will leap out visually on the screen to you.
I was pleasantly surprised at how subtly addictive Mewseum: Film Festival was to play. I put it down to that bite-sized breakdown of each puzzle. If you get into the flow of it, you’ll be cranking them out every two minutes, and that makes it easy to say “just one more, then I’ll stop”. Suddenly, 20 minutes have passed by, and you have partially drawn the movie artwork for Ticatnic.
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