Mouse: Renting PI is a fun video game miracle that turns wild ideas into reality. Originally a one-time “if” post on social media, introducing a first-person shooter in style like the classic Betty Boop-ersa comics, has become a complete video game I played in front of me at the Summer Game Festival, which will be held later this year.
In a private booth of Australian publisher Playside, I sat in the corner of the summer game festival in Los Angeles, where I sat down with the competition’s lead producer Maciej Krzemień and the game director Mateusz Michalak’s Mateusz Michalak, who will play a level in the final match.
First-person shooter, detective gameplay and story are delightful to see the game’s iconic black and white cartoon style – and the icing on the cake on the cake, and hear the famous game voice actor Troy Baker as the lead character Jack Pepper. This also gave me an idea of the flow of the game, which followed a nominal private eyebrow in his investigation, which was divided between replayable levels (more on that later).
Writing and story are just as much as the black staples of police, crime, loyalty and betrayal, as many as the period’s music and movies’ visual filters. For Polish studios, the game tends toward the obvious American black side. Raymond Chandler’s work is the primary inspiration for the game’s story and atmosphere, while the team’s narrative leads consulting historical research to ensure that the language matches the expectations of gamers.
“Obviously, we’re not Americans. We want to have a good understanding of the entire Black Detective story, but have some relaxing elements,” Kelzemiy said.
My preview was early in the game and was open in an opera house where Pepper tried to track down his old friend, a magician who was involved in the case he was investigating. From entering the opera, Pepper has to sneak into the kitchen from the kitchen, giving players the option of paying off the chef through the vent or sneaking in.
But we have a moment to peek through the windows at the Detective Mechanic: Use the camera to collect clues, which gives you an idea of the case and that the big players may be in a plot that looks like a growing plot – Pepper will be at the hub between missions players visit Hub players’ conspiracy committees on charts. You can search through levels, take photos or even open a side code photo, or just keep running and shooting.
“There is no destruction of anything, there is a bigger conspiracy behind it, and it is very serious about social topics, the social themes of the game, and it actually reflects the world political atmosphere of the 1930s, not only in the United States, but in the United States,” Kelzemian said.
I asked if that means the rise of fascism. “Yes,” Kerzemion said.
To deliver on their blend of heavy conspiracy story and level in cartoon logic, Fumi Games started shopping around for a voice actor who could deliver both, drawing up a list of well-known names to do the job of Pepper’s jaded PI — and they singled out Troy Baker for his wide range (an astonishingly expanding list including Joel in The Last of Us, Talion in Shadow of Mordor and Indy himself in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny).
“It feels so unbelievable that this is possible,” Kelzemiy said. But Playside, the publisher of the game, played a huge role in contacting him. “It turns out that Troy Baker has been following our game for a while and he’s happy to be in this role.”
Mouse Pi gun play game
We sneaked into the Opera House, we arrived at the office upstairs and found an optional collection of the game – a newspaper, headlines for headlines, Pepper talks about filling players in the backstory to cover up the plot with flesh. As our gumshoe walked out the door and into the backstage corridor, we met the enemy’s fool and the bullets began to fly. The creature’s parity weapon wheel lets us switch between the pistol, shotgun and Tommy gun, all with a pleasant cartoon reload animation.
After cracking the safe with his tail (another fun mouse-themed mechanic), we turned around the corner of the stage designer Roland in the control room, overlooking the opera stage, asking our missing friends, but he mostly had no answers – although he said we fought the fight and replaced the actors. Something is going on: Roland says the tough guy is opening fire for mayoral candidate Stilton, we see him in an opera box in the theater, while Pepper must compete to save his politician friend, who knows his politicians from the war. See what I mean for black staple food?
In the backstage surrounding the backstage area filled with fool shots and stage props, we see the hook above, leading to another area we can’t reach at the moment – when we have the ability to grab the tail (as shown in the early trailer for Mouse:PI), we’ll be able to return to this level and grab some extra stuff. In fact, there are several secrets at this level that are hidden in hard to reach areas that require some flexible platforming, another feature of the old-fashioned shooter. One of them has a collection of games: a baseball card (“Brie Ruth, Har Har”) that can be used in a desktop baseball mini-game between desktops.
In addition to baseball cards, you can also collect newspapers to fill the game world players.
While playing in Krzemień, I asked them how to make the animation work. In the old comics, the whole background is a little blurry, but if it should move in a second, it will stand out slightly from the background, and Fumi Games will copy.
“That’s the outline we’re going to use, some shaders, and most interactive elements (such as save) [spots]barrel, etc. They tend to bounce back, jump a little, just to give you a feeling that I can interact with. ”
Players will be able to turn optional effects on or off, making the game feel like it appeared directly in the 1930s, such as the visual filter for film. Krzemień assured me that it sounds like the music sounds like an audio filter from a wax tank will also appear in the game. (He made fun of these first when we chatted at Gamescom in 2024 last August.)
As time goes by, Pepper enters the opera stage and then moves the cannon, which extinguishes and destroys the house. Even though the theater collapses around us in the violent hell and more stupidity of not knowing when to quit, we are going to find Roland of the stage manager who points us in the right direction to hunt down our magician friends. Climbing in the car, the level is over.
From the blasting barrel to the turpentine gun that melts enemies (solvent ammunition used to erase animation cells in old hand-painted days), the mouse PI is a delicious mixture of shooter’s thropes and platforms, punny’s jack, hardny hardboiled noir. Obviously, it is impossible to measure whether the rest of the game will fit the promise of art style, but it is clear that the developers have adapted very thoughtfully to the classic art style to fit modern first-person shooters with modern first-person shooters, and I just want to imagine, to work right.
The Rental Mouse PI will be launched later this year for PC, Xbox, PS5, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.
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