Review: Mouse Bounce

I discovered the Unity-made Mouse Bounce a few short weeks ago while roaming Twitter. It hadn't made its way onto the Vita yet, but had coincidentally just passed its Quality Assurance testing so it was almost ready to be released onto the store.


I didn't think much of the game at first, but I grew more interested as I started to ask the developer, CatTrapStudios, questions about the game and began crafting a little article to let people about the game's planned release.

Fastforward to today and the combination of an intriguing concept and a low, attractive pricing point meant I was diving in head first!

Put as simply as possible, in Mouse Bounce you are a cheese thieving mouse with three lives that uses its tail to bounce onto platforms collecting different cheeses while always being on the lookout for the Cheese Police, animals such as cats and birds, who'll try to get you in your way. The goal of the game is to get as high as possible while gathering as much cheese as you can.

Interested?

Then read on!

Mouse Bounce is a challenging game that you'll need patience and quick reflexes to master. 

I was frustrated for my first few playthroughs as the control scheme seemed unwieldy, but I soon got the hang of it and found it to be quite simple. The game certainly doesn't have a steep learning curve.

Part of the reason why I found the control scheme a bit overwhelming at first is that its simply something done in no other game that I know of. 

First of all, out of the expansive Vita library I own, I only know of one other game that requires you to hold your Vita sideways - Sunflowers. 

The Vita is held sideways as you're scaling the side of a tall building, so you need to see a large area of space simply unavailable to you if you're using the Vita normally without greatly diminishing the size of the environments.

Secondly, the gyroscope is used to control your characters side to side movement. While in the air you'll twist your Vita left or right slightly to guide your little Mouseketeer onto a new platform.

Thirdly, to wrap up the control scheme of the game, you double tab on the screen to bring forward the second level of platforms from the background. This is occasionally mandatory to proceed to higher levels and sometimes you'll want to switch to gain access to some cheese.

Why is cheese something you'll want to grab?

Well, you're a Mouse, so you obviously love cheese, but cheese will also help you along in various ways through the game...or serve to hinder you. 

The main function of cheese is to serve as your in-game currency. You'll gain this currency anytime you pick up a standard, yellow cheese on a platform. This cheese can be redeemed for new mice of all different colors, in all kinds of different ensembles, three such mice I've unlocked so far which you can see below. 

The secondary function of cheese is to serve as power ups or inhibitors.

Grabbing a piece of blue cheese will send you flying straight up into the air for quit a distance, thus giving you a much appreciated boost, potentially one past various nefarious enemies.

Taking green cheese will cause you to lose much of your bounce, meaning you can't move. This could put you in danger of being attacked or simply ruin your rhythm. 

Finding a piece of red cheese on your journey means you will be invincible against the obstacles in your way for 15 seconds. 

A nice feature, contributing to the replayability of Mouse Bounce, is its Scoroid leaderboard. It features the top 100 scores regardless of who has made them, so if you are dominant enough to have the top 10 spots, you'll be the only one up there.

As you can see, I'm currently sitting in first place..above the developer!

I'm the King of Mouse Bounce, for now at least.

Also available to you in the game are a total of twelve achievements to strive for. One such achievement is garnering a score of 15,000...using only one life. This particular achievement I have a feeling I'll never quite manage to beat, but maybe you can!

It's my opinion everyone should give this game a fair shot. Barring someone absolutely falling head over heels for this game, it's simply not going to be a game that provides you 400 hours of gameplay to go along with a gripping story that'll leave you shaking, but it'll certainly be a fun and enjoyable experience for however long the novelty lasts for you.

I honestly may not play this game for a long time once next week arrives considering all the PS+ games which are coming, that'll likely push this game onto the back burner, but even if that happens I am absolutely positive I've already gotten more than my money's worth out of the game having done nearly 50 runs through the game at the time of typing this.

If you wish to play Mouse Bounce it'll run you a whopping $0.99 through the PlayStation Mobile store or you can pick it up free on iOS and Android if you'd like to use the money to buy some sticks of bubble gum instead. 

The difference in pricing is based, at least in part, on the Vita version having no IAP or ads unlike the smartphone versions.

Note: The game actually doesn't have the leaderboards mentioned in the review anymore as Scoroid coincidentally went out of business right after the game released. The developer is looking into alternate ways to host a leaderboard on the game, but there may never be another leaderboard available to be used. Such a pity. 

Note:
There is a third type of a cheese, a red cheese, but as many times as I've picked it up and seen it while playing, I don't have the fuzziest idea what it does. I've reached out to the developer for some insight and I'll update this review accordingly.