A Strange Little Mouse In A Very Weird World
Morsels is not your average roguelike. On paper it sounds familiar enough. You play as a tiny mouse living in the sewers, fighting your way up through a corrupt city above. The action is top down, the rooms are dungeon style, and anyone who has played The Binding of Isaac will instantly recognize the basic loop of shooting, dodging, and room clearing.
The art style also taps into that same cute but disgusting energy. Enemies look like warped puppets and gross little monsters. The world feels like a grimy cartoon, full of oozing pipes, strange critters, and NPCs who look like they crawled out of a fever dream.
So far so good. But then you meet the real heart of the game. The morsels themselves. And things get very strange very quickly.
How The Morsels System Works
Each run starts with a choice. You pick a card that lets you transform into a specific morsel. These are ugly but oddly charming monsters that each have their own attack style and special ability. Throughout your run you can find and unlock new cards, up to a limit of three at a time, and swap forms on the fly.
On the surface this sounds like classic roguelike variety. Different forms. Different builds. Different playstyles. But Morsels does not play by the usual rules.
First, nothing is clearly explained. You might pick up an item that promises more tofu. What does that actually do? You grab a new morsel and it shows up holding a daisy. Is that good? You meet a monster perched on a washing machine who casually asks if you want to shuffle your morbs or your fuzzies. The game does not tell you what that means. You are just expected to roll with it.
Experimentation is part of the experience. Over time you realize that daisies act like a one hit shield. Some tunnels in the walls lead to strange minigames that sometimes give rewards and sometimes seem to do nothing at all. You might rescue a monkey from a trap and haul it across the entire level, only to finish the stage and not understand if it mattered.
The problem is that the chaos never really settles into something you can read or plan around. Some enemies are invincible while others are not and the game does not clearly show which is which. Some card effects feel like buffs, others like curses, but the feedback is so muddy that even after seeing the result you might still be unsure what changed.
- Cards let you transform into different morsel forms
- You can carry up to three forms and swap between them
- Many effects and rewards feel mysterious or ambiguous
No Builds, Just Chaos
Most modern roguelikes live or die on the feeling of building power. You start weak, you grab upgrades, you chase synergies, and by the end of a run you either feel like a god or like you made one bad decision too many.
Morsels is built almost in the opposite direction. Your forms are temporary. When you pick up a new morsel card and your three slots are already full, you must replace one of your existing forms. Certain events require you to sacrifice a morsel entirely just to move forward.
Each morsel gains experience over time. Leveling up evolves it into a stronger version, which sounds promising. But there is a catch. If that morsel fills its experience bar a second time, it retires and disappears from your roster permanently. That means every form has a built in lifespan. Use it long enough and it simply vanishes from the run.
The result is that your loadout is always shifting. You are constantly thrown into new attack styles, new ranges, new patterns. That keeps things fresh and forces you to adapt. It also means you can never really commit to one favourite creature and grow it over the course of a run.
Even worse for fans of min maxing, most morsels seem to sit around the same overall power level. Aside from a handful of lasting buffs, your runs do not really feel like they are ramping up. You do not get that classic roguelike sensation of snowballing into a broken build. Instead, every attempt feels more or less like the last, only with slightly different flavors of weirdness.
- Morsels evolve with experience but eventually retire
- You are forced to sacrifice or swap forms throughout a run
- Power levels stay fairly flat with limited permanent upgrades
- Runs lack distinct builds or clear strategies
This all feels very intentional. Morsels clearly wants you to be scrambling in chaos rather than calmly crafting the perfect loadout. It is a game about surviving the mess with whatever bizarre tools you are given, not about curating a dream build.
The tone of the action supports that. The shooting is fast and loose, sometimes to the point of frustration. The world is loud, gross, and noisy with information. The underdog mouse hero fighting through a corrupt world fits nicely with that design idea. You are always on the back foot, just barely making it.
But there is a cost. Without a strong sense of progression or build identity, the classic one more run pull is weaker. You unlock new things but rarely understand what you got. You change forms constantly but do not feel like you are assembling a clever strategy. Curiosity might pull you through a few hours as you try to decode the systems, but if you crave clear feedback and satisfying growth, you may bounce off quickly.
Morsels ends up as a fascinating and baffling little roguelike. If you love digging into mysterious systems, poking at secrets, and embracing pure chaos, it might be exactly your sort of strange. If you prefer roguelikes that reward long term planning, careful build crafting, and transparent upgrades, this sewer adventure might just leave you confused and ready to move on.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/roguelike/ive-been-a-roguelike-fan-for-15-years-and-this-is-probably-the-most-confusing-one-ive-ever-played/
