I love this game! – MouseHunt: Massive-Passive RPG Review

I have played this game for eight years, and even in times of grinding (more a problem of the past, as the devs work hard with the community to keep the game interesting), you can always divert to a different part of the game for a time. There’s a strong event season that’s different every year (ranging from ~October to ~May) but always offering fun and exciting mechanics and loot. The rest of the year is devoted to game updates: introducing new content or fixing up old areas to be as interesting as the later additions (of course, mini-events can happen, too). When it comes down to it, this is a timer based game with no pay-to-play mechanic. (I played the game for five years without paying the devs, and now I do primarily because I have gotten YEARS of entertainment out of their game!) At the start, it will be very simple— deceptively so. The game does a good job of easing new hunters into the core concepts: different cheeses attracting different mice, different trap types to catch different breeds, charms which can provide a stat buff to your trap, and different locations having their own unique mechanics. There isn’t much strategy when you start off, but as you expand your trap collection and explore more, this game becomes almost entirely strategy, with a healthy dose of luck. The community is active and helpful, which is good, because this game is STRONGLY recommended to be played with friends (or random people you add from the forums). This means that you’re best off linking the game to Facebook. If you don’t want to, then at least join an open team on the game so that you can do treasure maps with your teammates. Anyway, that’s the game in general (which I would probably give 4.5/5 stars simply because 5/5 means there is literally no room for improvement, and there are very few things in the world that match that description.). About the app: the app gets a little unstable at the beginning and end of events (usually less than a day of instability), though that seems to be becoming less of an issue (a year ago, it was a couple of days of instability at a time). You can not access the forums from the app, or the quick link to the wiki page. The Exchange is the app version of the Marketplace that is on the browser version, and they are their own separate markets. Any item you can sell on one, you can sell on the other, instead, but there are essentially two different economies that everyone has access to. This is newly implemented (~6 months ago?), so eventually, it should balance out. But the Exchange has better mechanics, anyway. The story behind the game is a little harder to parse in the app, due to sometimes hidden or missing descriptions, in favor of a more streamlined interface. The last event (Mousehunt’s Birthday) had plenty of fun story bits that were only viewable in the browser (and simply ignored by the app). Mechanically, the game is the same, with the Trap Effectiveness display actually being MORE accurate than the browser version. You can also save a few favorite trap setups on the app version (which is very handy later in the game). It’s more difficult to do tournaments, though by no means impossible, on the app. It’s harder to monitor what your friends are doing, as well. Weirdly, the daily raffle is simply missing from the app. But these are little gripes. The main point is that there is definitely room for improvement for the app, but it works well and the game can be played entirely from it! The devs aren’t as responsive about the app as they are the overall game, but they’ve clearly been making progress fine tuning the app and are still listening to the community’s input about it (the widget being a great example). And hey, having my phone actually beep at me when I need to hunt is incredibly useful! So 4/5 stars because this app just makes playing the game even more convenient!
Review by ThinePwnage on MouseHunt: Massive-Passive RPG.