The mouse couldn't eat the cheese!
GET MOUSE
is a short, freeware puzzle game made in Wolf RPG Editor. It's a simple game with 8 stages (and an Ending) where you have to get the mouse his cheese. The game was made available on May 23, 2021. Notably, the game was made by Sen (MouSe), one of the developers behind Misao and Mad Father.
Before continuing, please be advised that, due to the game's short length, knowledge of the tropes involved may diminish the experience.
Tropes:
- Camera Abuse: The result of a few bad choices, like picking the Cartoon Bomb in Stage 1.
- Cartoon Bomb: One of the options in multiple stages is to summon one of these. Most of the time, the mouse kicks it at you. But not always.
- Cartoon Cheese: Obtaining some for a mouse is the goal of every stage.
- Cruelty Is the Only Option: The only way to win Stage 3 is to tell Mouse his dancing sucks, as otherwise, he's too distracted to notice the Cheese.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Losing a Stage just takes the player back to the start of it, with no other penalty.
- A Dog Named "Dog": The intro to the game states that the mouse protagonist is named Mouse, and that he's a kind-hearted crybaby that would never cause harm to others (a debatable statement).
- Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: In stage 5, if you free Mouse’s arms before his legs, he falls onto his face.
- Non-Standard Game Over: While most failures are a quick gag and a cut to black, in Stage 8, there's a whole event for slaying the mouse instead of feeding it.
- Outside-the-Box Tactic: Stage 7 has the player move a cursor to find and click on a piece of cheese. The answer is to move the cursor outside of the main image and on the cheese in the question itself. Stage 8 is also somewhat unintuitive, in that you have to Discard Cheese, rather than use it or slay the mouse.
- Running Gag Stumbles: In the first couple of levels, selecting the Cartoon Bomb has the mouse kick it at the screen, failing the stage. However, it's actually the correct option in Stage 4.
- Schmuck Bait: The first stage gives you three items to choose from: Trash, Cheese, and Bomb. As the stated goal is to get the mouse his cheese, the other two options lead to immediate failure.
- Shout-Out: Stage 6 references Misao and Mad Father, as well as Dudley and the Mysterious Tower, in that the player must answer which of the developer's previous games included a mouse to win some cheese.
- Squashed Flat: The item shoot in Stage 4 is above Mouse instead of next to him, leading to this outcome if a heavy Log is dropped.
- Stealth Sequel: In the Ending, the sound of a chainsaw is heard before Mouse and a female mouse escape, and the final shot is them at a grave, indicating that the game is (somehow) set in the same world as Mad Father.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: In the Ending, a pink mouse with a bow in her hair saves Mouse from falling into a trap baited with cheese.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: Most of the Stages involve selecting the right command from a list, but Stage 7 has the player move a cursor onto the correct location. And then Stage 8 is an RPG.
