Mice and Mystics

Mice and Mystics is a fantasy themed cooperative board game designed by Jerry Hawthorne and published by Plaid Hat Games in 2012, in which one to four players take the roles of anthropomorphic mice questing to defeat an evil witch. The game replaces the traditional dungeon crawl equipment of shields and swords with sewing buttons and needles scaled to a mouse sized world, and uses an illustrated storybook in place of a conventional rulebook and map, with each chapter both narrating the story and laying out that session's board. Players cooperate against monsters and traps controlled by the game system rather than by a single opposing player, moving through a branching narrative campaign rather than a single fixed scenario. The game won the 2013 Golden Geek Award for Best Board Game Artwork and Presentation and the 2013 UK Games Expo Best Boardgame award, and has consistently ranked among the most popular titles on BoardGameGeek. DreamWorks Animation acquired film adaptation rights to the property in 2018.