Tunnel Tail Review: Fight, Play, Win?

One of the nicest side effects of me writing this blog is that I sometimes get e-mails quite out of the blue telling me about new games, sometimes even asking me to try them for free. One of these emails came through a couple of days ago from the guys and gals behind a new mouse fighting RPG game called Tunnel Tail.

According to the email, I received…

“Tunnel Tail takes the player underground where mouse tribes struggle with the dark forces of the Lumini who seek to destroy both the mouse and human worlds. The player is the last hope the mice have to finally win their freedom.”

So all of that plus the added incentive of being able to download the entire game for free, without having to put up with ads. So ‘Sure, why not’ I thought as I popped over to the App store and downloaded it.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMyiSLxdmh8

Tunnel Tail is an action RPG. You train your own fighting mice, to go out and fight other mice in the human world and try to bring them back to your burrow. To make the burrow strong or something, I’m not sure to be honest. I think in a game like this the story isn’t the most important thing so I’ll move on to the gameplay.

The gameplay of Tunnel Tail is divided up into a number of missions. Your mice can complete a few of those missions on their own without any help from you. You send them off into the various parts of the human world and wait the right amount of time. The majority of missions though are different and need you to command your mice in combat.

The combat in Tunnel Tail is action based, click the skill you want to use and your mouse will attack the other mouse with it. The main aspect of combat you have to take in to account is the tension of the fight. Tension can either be low (green), medium (yellow), or tense (red), and some of your mice fight better in certain tensions. Your rogue like mice work better in low, magic users fight better in medium, and your fighters really excel when they’re pissed off… I mean in the red, sorry. Some skills do direct damage and others do less damage but can alter the tension of the fight, allowing you to improve your own fighting strength or reduce someone elses.

Of course, there would be little point in fighting at all, if you’re mice didn’t level up. Every mission your mouse completes rewards him with some experience, and maybe even a new item or piece of equipment. Fight more and level up. Don’t worry if you need to train a little before your mouse conducts a mission, you can skulk around the mouse tunnels and practice fighting before you head up to the human world.

From what I can tell that’s pretty much it, but don’t underestimate its addictive powers. My one hour go stretched out to over three hours, because I found myself just doing one more mission. The simple combat is easy to pick up, and it would be in danger of being too easy and boring if it wasn’t for the added ‘tension level’ element.

Oh, and at the moment Tunnel Tail isn’t available in iPad format. You can of course, still download the iPhone/iTouch app and use it on the iPad but the size is wrong, or the graphics are blown up and a little blocky.

(edit. Ignore that, it is available on the iPad, I must just have not been looking properly. Totally my fault that one.)

Final remarks. Might as well pick it up, quite frankly. It’s not going to blow your face off with anything new and awesomely original but for a free game it’s a lot more addictive than you might initially give it credit for. The graphics are bright and colourful, but I’m not sure whether the simple animation works or not with me.

Tunnel Tail is a mixed bag, but it’s a free mixed bag after all. If you want to give it a go you can download it from the App Store or from Google Play, or you can mosey on to Tunneltail.com.