There's a new trend in gaming that is great news for busy gamers: Games you don't have to actively play to play. There are variants for wannabe mafiasos, vampires but the one I'm hooked on puts you in the boots of a fantasy mousehunter. Yeah, I know how this sounds. Honestly, I'm just as surprised as you are.
Mouse Hunt on Facebook starts out slow, so much so that they recently added this note when you begin so that you're sure to realize the hidden depths: "I will need my senses to be sharp, for I have heard tales of all sorts of villainous mice plaguing the Kingdom. Horrible abominations like pirates, ninjas, zombies and poisonous black widows lurk in all corners."
Which is good to know going in. Because at first, all you can afford is a basic, ineffective trap with something blah like tacky glue and some cheddar to entice a handful of basic mice. You will notice a few things right away: The mice you catch give you points and gold and, sometimes when you're lucky, other things like free cheese, items for crafting and maps that unlock new places. In very rare cases, they may offer real world cash or merchandise (particularly during special holiday hunting periods).
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| Mouse Hunt game screen - click to enlarge |
After a few week's, you'll have collected enough gold and points to upgrade your trap parts and move to slightly more advanced (and treacherous) terrain where the mice may steal from you. It's OK, because the increased payouts more than balance your losses in most cases.
It's not until you're about a month in that the game really takes off. You gain access to a new locale that includes a haunted laboratory and "mousoleum." You start to pick up potions that convert your cheese into a radioactive offering that gets the spooky mice such as ghost, bat, zombie, mummy, vampire and lycan crazy. And, with the right trap, the gold payouts become pretty amazing, speeding your ascent into the ranks of the top mice hunters.
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| Mouse Hunt - Master of the Dojo |
All of this would actually be a bit overwhelming for the casual player if it weren't for the unofficial Mouse Hunt Guide , which documents all of the crafting recipes and other tricks of the trade as they are discovered. Unless you prefer to discover these the hard way through good old-fashioned trial and error.
I just ended a two-week campaign to collect the Onyx Stone and am now preparing to head into a newly opened area, the Catacombs at Bristle Woods, once I save up enough gold to get a new trap and collect enough potions to make the radioactive cheese I need to make it worth my while.
It's the ultimate casual game and, for some inexplicable reason, I love it. But you do need to be patient. If that's not you, stay away from Gnawnia.
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damn im hooked on it now. Hopefully some of the invites i sent out will get others hookd and speed up my game more. Empty hunting groups are lame
Were you already playing, or did you just start?
I like playing with hunting groups, definitely, but I'm fine alone too. I tend to obsessively check the game everytime I pull up Facebook, which is about 20-30 times a day. So it still doesn't take too long to progress, well, in the overall scheme of things. Since it's such a plodding game anyway.
i just started after reading this. I wish i had known more about it before i got a ways in. I would have made a second FB just for the game so i could add more random MH friends and not feel stupid. Im getting close to apprentice in the 3 or 4 days ive been playing but yeah i find myself on the MH app page more than any other site now.
I've been playing this game since it's inception and I empress on how the developers keep the game exciting and fresh with their new updates unlike other games on Facebook which is repetitively boring.