Inspired by the responses to the Mafia Wars thread…
Is there anyone here who is playing MouseHunt on Facebook? It’s an addictive little game - a bit slow to get started, and a little slow now that I’m at the cutting edge of the story (i.e. am marking time while waiting for newly developed areas/features to be released so that I can continue with the game), but in between, it has dominated my life over the last year or so… Basically you are the recruited mousehunters of the King of Gnawia - tasked with ridding the Kingdom of the plague of mice. You buy a trap, bait it with cheese and then sit back and wait… What makes it interesting is the variety of different traps, different mice and different cheeses, all of which make your tactics crucial. There are people heavily into the statistical side of the game, which might appeal to the more mathematical amongst us, and there is a lively communi-tay and bulletin board attached to the game.
If you are playing, PM me and we can cooperate, if you want to sign up, give me a shout and I will guide you through the start-up tactics.
I started playing it based on this thread, and I’ve got to say it seems even more pointless than Mafia Wars, and that’s really saying something. If I understand it right, you get a trap, catch mice, which are worth points and gold, and you buy better traps to catch better mice to get more gold? And eventually you get to travel to other places, which differ only in which mice are around? There also seems to be something about potions and crafting stuff, but I haven’t gotten that far yet. Am I missing anything?
I think the real problem for me is that there’s so little to do. Once every 15 minutes, you get to click a button. And then after a few days, you’ll have enough money to buy something new. At least with Mafia Wars, if I feel in the mood, I can sit and do stuff for a half hour or so before moving on. Don’t get me wrong - I’m still openminded about it. Consider this an invitation to convince me.
I thought this thread had died - hence the lack of response…
Brown Eyed Girl - It is slow at the beginning - for a while the best you can do is stock up in Gnawia with as much Cheddar as you can afford and stake out in the Meadow until you can afford to upgrade your traps (around 5000 gold).
Smeghead - it is a passive game, which has its own attractions (as Engywook mentioned) as well as its down side. For some, the attraction lies in the collecting aspect - mice, traps, crafting ingredients, etc - they won’t rest until they have tracked down and captured some rare item. For others, it is the progress of the story that appeals - new areas are being developed and released all the time, and fans are beginning to write their own back story and fan-fic. Others revel in the statistics that it makes available and collect and process data in an effort to predict advantageous trap/cheese combinations. Others participate in tournaments, where there are specific goals to be achieved in a limited time frame. Others enjoy the community aspect of the game, with a well-developed board and chat-room.
If anyone would like to link up on the Mousehunt side, let me know and I will PM you my profile URL.
I wonder if there’s a Hawthorne effect built into this. Every time I change something (new trap parts, switch cheeses, travel) I do much better hunting at first, but then back to crummy catches (or no catches). Suppose that could also be statistics at work…
Other players have noticed & commented on that - saying that an effective strategy is to regularly swap between two cheeses (for example) to improve your hunting stats, but I shouldn’t think it’s a real effect…
I’m leaning toward thinking that there is something to this. A change seems to yield improved results for the first 15 or so hunts; I think this is happening consistently enough that it’s unlikely to be a fluke.
So now I’ve got an excuse to wipe the dust off my stats skills and report back on how likely it is that “the mice get wise to your trap.”
If you’re into stats, take a look at Pooflinger’s tools - these guys have been collecting stats for over a year, and have put together some awesome prediction tools as a result…