Bouncy Mouse Free

Summary

It’s all about the cheese. Bouncy Mouse must chase Captain Cat in order to get back the stolen cheese, and there’s no valley to steep, no mountain too high, no bit of jungle, desert or island that can stop him. So, is the love of cheese great enough to warrant devoting your spare time to chasing it around the globe? Find out in today’s review.

Test device:
Samsung Nexus S
Android version: 2.3.4
Root: No
Modifications: None

App details:
Runs as of: Android 2.1
Apps2SD: Yes
Total size after installation: 13.5 MB
Permissions: Network communications, storage

It blows my mind that with the mass of apps available on the Market today developers are still coming up with new games and new gameplays. I’m all for it – long live gaming fun. Bouncy Mouse feels like a new kind of game on the whole, even if some gameplay elements may be familiar to enthusiastic gamers.

It’s a classic kind of narrative: the evil Captain Cat has stolen the mice’s cheese (and yes, having grown up with cats I can tell you that most felines seem to love cheese). It’s up to Bouncy Mouse to retrieve the missing cheese.
The gameplay is equally simple: all levels are adorned with little pegs to which the mouse can latch on to. It then uses its elastic tail to catapult itself onwards and upwards; the image of a sling and a ball spring to mind (no pun intended), one part of the rubbery sling is stretched backwards so that the ball can then be propelled forwards.
The goal is to sling and catapult the mouse from peg to peg, collecting cheese along the way. Once you’ve retrieved all of the bits of cheese you are rewarded with items such as colourful hats.

If this sounds cute but perhaps a tad too simplistic you can breathe a sigh of relief, for there are a lot of things that make the mouse’s mission a difficult one. The cheese bits are scattered in all four corners of the display, sometimes even hidden, only appearing when Bouncy Mouse flies right into them. This means that you have to keep checking the level to make sure you haven’t missed anything. If that isn’t enough, the pegs are treacherous: they’re difficult to reach, the move around or simply vanish if you cling on to them for too long! You will also have to contend with nasty bees, cactuses, spiders, pits and water. Mind you don’t get too close to any of the above, otherwise you’ll lose one of your five lives. Other occurrences can either harm or aid Bouncy Mouse, such as strong winds, force fields that will either lift the mouse up or pull it down and ‘Bouncing Birds’ that can be used as spring boards.

Because of the varying levels of difficulty (depending on the level itself as well as your own dedication to collecting all of the cheese bits) and thanks to the game’s diversity, the 30 levels will keep a lot of players occupied for a while. We were told that more levels will be launched this autumn.

Bottom line:
Great gameplay, great design, great fun. I like everything about this game, and while there’s no accounting for taste no one can deny that the game is very well made

The Bouncy Mouse design is lovely: colourful and made with a lot of thought and love.

There are three worlds, each of which consist of ten levels. They can be scrolled through horizontally and vertically and the activated items can be found by scrolling all the way up. I was confused by this at first.

It’s possible to get an overview of each level before starting a round by moving the display around, and zooming via multitouch is also available.

I was somewhat bothered by a small glitch that kept occurring when I was trying to pull the mouse taught – the game misinterpreted this and changed the display instead.

Bouncy Mouse didn’t crash on me once and the overall performance was solid.

Bouncy Mouse is available for free from the Android Market but there are ad banners to contend with. You can buy an ad-free version for EU0,99 // US$1,33.