Game review: Mousetrap

Hi, just need you to sign this for me and we’ll get you outfitted for the day.

Albie

Summary: The story is rich in neatly written paragraphs, and even well-timed funny sarcastic/cynical jokes from time to time. Replayability and lore are both beyond normal interactive fiction levels. The music truly adds to the experience. Sadly the game is still in development, so hopefully, it will one day be finished.


Introduction to the game

You’re one of the many overworked interns working at Whimsey World. When it was announced that Imogen, a category three hurricane, would soon hit Orlando, Florida, your employers asked for volunteers to remain in the parks during the storm, promising triple pay for at least 24 hours. You and your friend seized the opportunity. After all, Whimsey wouldn’t ask its cast members to stay behind if it was potentially dangerous.

Mousetrap sucks you into a rabbit hole of Whimsey World, the happiest place on earth. This hole consists of events based on true memories and experiences from the writer, making this story even scarier. The game presents you with an insane amount of options, ranging from font size to 20+ phobia you can include or exclude. The game is built upon the template made by A.W. Morgan, resulting in high-quality and streamlined UI elements. The game also makes use of audio elements, so for full immersion, please put on a headset!

This game was created as part of the 2022 Interact-IF ranked game jam. Just like the blog post before was, Chloe is home.


My opinion

So many options. Like for real, we are bombarded with an extreme amount of possible fine-tuning. Skyrim’s character design system took me long enough, but this also will take a good amount of time. I do like the number of options, even though I prefer less, but that’s a personal preference. We are allowed to customize the game according to our own phobia, and we are allowed to pick tons of more options from presented passages. Moving on to the actual story.

The story starts in the middle of a storm of short sentenced action. Creating a fast-paced and rather a scary intro. Until we are suddenly woken through bumping our heads. We continue our journey through the storm to find ourselves being judged and somewhat belittled by our superiors. It’s only after we sign a paper, that the story truly unfolds. Kids, don’t sign things you haven’t read, like Apple’s user agreement.

This game is far too big to summarize, I can’t even comprehend the time that went into this. Besides your healthy dose of options, this story also gives a healthy dose of lore, like a lot. Gradually we unlock profiles of other employees and superiors, besides unlocking facts and knowledge about ourselves. These profiles consist of many small details including emotions, relationships, and statuses.

After playing a few branches and restarting the game multiple times, it can be safely concluded that this game has a high replayability rate. Whether we want to change our gender, names, or other questlines, we won’t get bored easily.

The story is rich in neatly written paragraphs, and even well-timed funny sarcastic/cynical jokes from time to time. Combined with the numerous options and depth of the lore, it creates a thriving game in which you can explore a deep rabbit hole of DisnWhimsey World. Replayability and lore are both beyond normal interactive fiction levels resulting in a connection to the protagonists and antagonists on a deep level. I highly recommend playing this game with the volume turned on, for the music truly adds to the experience. Sadly the game is still in development, so hopefully, it will one day be finished.


An excerpt from the story UI.