I Saw Mouse: P.I. for Hire Gameplay: It’s Got Cartoon Gumshoe Gunplay Aplenty

Mouse: PI for rental is the kind of fun miracle of video games to make wild ideas in reality. What started as a disposable “What If” message on social networks about a stylish first person’s shooting game like a classic cartoon from the Betty Boop era has become a complete video game that I saw being played in front of me in the summer game festive that should be released later this year.

In the private stand of the Australian publisher Playside nestled in a corner of the holidays of the summer game in Los Angeles, I sat with the main producer of the game Maciej Krzień and the director of the game Mateusz Michalak of the Fumi Games based in Poland while the first played through a level that will be in the last match.

The first -person shooter’s fight, the gameplay and the story of detective were a pleasure to see in the cartoon style in black and white signature of the game – with the icing on the cake, hearing the famous actor of the Troy Baker gaming voice speaking as protagonist Jack Pepper. This also gave me an idea of ​​the flow of the game, which follows the private private pepper in his investigation, which is divided between the replayable levels (more on this subject later).

Dripping with black staples of the cops, crime, loyalty and betrayal, writing and history have staged as much as vintage music and the visual grain filter. For a Polish studio, the game leans in the clearly American side of black; The works of Raymond Chandler were privileged inspirations for the history and atmosphere of the game, and the team’s story is conducting historical consultation research to ensure that the language corresponds to the expectations of the players.

“Obviously, we are not Americans ourselves. We wanted to have a good understanding of all this style of black detective stories, but with light elements,” said Krzemień.

My overview was a first part of the game and opened in an opera, where Pepper was trying to find his old friend, a magician linked to the case he investigates. Entrance switch to the opera, Pepper must sneak through the kitchen, giving players the opportunity to reimburse a cooking line or sneak through the vents.

But we had a moment to take a look by the window to engage with a detective mechanic: use a camera to collect clues, which gives you an overview of the case and great players who could have a helping hand in what looks like a growing plot – the one that Pepper will draw on a conspiracy board during the visit of the hub players between the missions. You can hunt through levels, take photos that will even open the side quests or continue to run and shoot.

“Without spoiling anything, there is a greater conspiracy behind all this, and everything is quite serious in terms of social subjects, social themes of the game, and this in fact reflects the political climate of the world in the 1930s – and not only in America,” said Krzień.

I asked if it meant the rise of fascism. “Exactly,” said Krzemień.

To deliver their mixture of history and lightness of heavy conspiracy in the logic of cartoons, Fumi Games began to buy a vocal actor who could deliver both, developing a list of well -known names to do the work of the Pepper Jade list – and they distinguished Troy Baker for his wide range (an astonishing list of Pepper, including Joel in the last of us.

“It was so much there that we did not believe that it would be possible,” said Krzemień – but the game editor, Playside, played a huge role by holding out. “It turned out that Troy Baker has been following our game for some time now, and it was very excited to play this role.”

Gameplay of mouse pistol between the Gumshoeing

To sneak into the vents to enter the opera, we arrive at the upstairs offices and find one of the sets of optional group collector – a newspaper, with titles that Pepper speaks of filling the players on the background to expand the plot. When our Gumshoe comes out through the door in the corridors behind the scenes, we are met with enemy henchmen and the bullets are starting to fly. A bioshock -style weapon wheel allowed us to switch between a pistol, a hunting rifle and a Tommy pistol, which all had pleasant cartoons recharge.

After having cracked a safe with his tail (another fun mechanic on the theme of the mouse), we wedge the stage designer, Roland, in the control room overlooking the opera scene to ask questions about our missing friend, but he is mainly out of answers – although he says that we have faced and replaced the actors. Something is underway: Roland says that the hardworking aligns a propeller cannon to shoot the candidate for the town hall Stilton, whom we see in an opera box through the theater – and Pepper must run to save his politician friend, whom he knows of their time in the Great War. Do you see what I mean at Noir Staples?

By rushing into the behind-the-scenes areas filled with hands-on men to shoot and stage accessories, we see a hook above ourselves leading to another area that we cannot yet arrive-when we will have the opportunity to attack with our tail (as shown in the mouse: the anterior Pi trailers), we will be able to return to this level and grasp. In fact, this level has several secrets nestled in difficult to access areas that require an agile platform, another functionality of old-fashioned shooters. One of them had another collection object of the game: a baseball card (from “Brie Ruth”, Har Har), which can be used in a playable table-base ball in the hub area between the levels.

While Krzień played, I asked how they made the animation work. In the old cartoons, the whole bottom is slightly blurred, but if something is supposed to move in a second, it stands out slightly from the background, which the Fumi games have reproduced.

“This is what we are looking for with the contours, some shaders and also most of the interactive elements like Save [spots]barrels and so on. They tend to bounce a little, to jump a little, just to give you a feeling, OK, I can interact with that, “said Krzemień.

Players will be able to switch to or out of the optional effects that give the impression that the game is straight out of the 1930s, like the visual filter of the film grain. The audio filters that give the impression that the music comes from a wax cylinder will always be in the game, assured me Krzemień. (He first tackled them when we discussed Gamescom 2024 last August.)

Just in time, Pepper goes to the opera stadium and moves the cannon, which triggers and destroys the house. Despite the theater that collapses around us in fiery hell and more henchmen who do not know when to stop, we get out of it, only to find Roland the stage director, who points to us in the right direction to track down our magician friend. Cut into the car, the level ends.

From explosive barrels to a turpentine pistol that melts enemies (turpentine being a solvent used to erase the animation cells in the old days drawn by hand), the Pi mouse is a tasty mixture of shooting and platform trophies, punny and hard black gags. It is obviously impossible to measure if the rest of the game will be up to the promise of the artistic style, but it is clear that the developers have very much reflected a classic artistic style with modern first -person shooters with, I can only imagine, a ton of work to do things well.

Mouse Pi For Hire is coming later this year for PC, Xbox, PS5, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.