MouseHunt

Friend networks are used in the game, as players who are in-network friends (e.g., Facebook friends) can sound the horn for each other if hunting in the same area, but this effect is disabled during a tournament.

Friends can also send in-game gifts to each other. Some items from a hunter's inventory (gold, some cheeses and crafting items, gift baskets, and trap skins) can be given up to 15 friends. Additionally, hunters may send daily free gifts, which vary somewhat from day to day, and during certain events can buy virtual in-game gifts for friends, using either virtual gold or through donations.

Friends can form teams; a new team can have at most five members including the captain, but three additional member slots can be unlocked. To unlock each extra slot, teams must complete a task. Slot 1: Complete 10 tournaments, slot 2: Obtain 10 Participant badges and slot 3: Obtain 10 Competitor badges.[6] Tournaments were initially released on 13 May 2009, but were discontinued on 8 June 2010. After more than a year, this feature was finally re-released on 28 December 2011. Tournaments involve hunting for certain specific mice, each of which has a certain point value within the tournament, for a certain pre-determined time period. In-game prizes are awarded to hunters based on the finishing score of their team.

Hunters start the game with the rank of Novice. Additional ranks are unlocked as the hunter progresses through the game, in the following order: Recruit, Apprentice, Initiate, Journeyman/Journeywoman, Master, Grandmaster, Legendary, Hero, Knight, Lord/Lady, Baron/Baroness, Count/Countess, Duke/Duchess, Grand Duke/Grand Duchess, Archduke/Archduchess, Viceroy, Elder, Sage, and Fabled. Increases in rank are dependent on the quality (number of points a mouse is worth) and quantity of mice caught. As a hunter attains higher ranks, it becomes increasingly difficult to rank up further as each hunt will grant less percentage progress towards the next rank. As of July 2020, it is not yet possible to exceed the Fabled rank.

For each new rank, the shield next to a hunter's name will have its appearance updated. The hunter gains features such as more crafting slots or a greater number of cheese imbued per potion. Most importantly, the hunter will gain access to a greater number of hunting locations throughout the kingdom, which in turn gives the hunter access to more powerful traps, bases, charms, and mice.

When players start out, they can only access the Meadow as their hunting location, but more locations are unlocked as they progress in rank. Certain locations, however, also require map pieces (purchasable from either the Cartographer, or dropped as loot by mice), the crafting of certain items and other forms of loot such as keys to be accessed. There are a total of 53 locations in the game, grouped into twelve regions. In the game, there is 1 area, called the Toxic Spill that can only be accessed when a Toxic Spill has occurred (which is determined by the developers), and 2 sets of 2 areas in which only one of the two is open at any given time. In addition, a place-holder location for banned players (they cannot sound the horn or access the game), who have violated the game's Terms of Service, called the King's Stockade was added in April 2009.

When traveling to other locations, hunters used to be charged a certain amount of gold contingent on the distance of the destination from the hunters' origin. In previous versions of the game, travel to the Town of Gnawnia was free. This has been replaced by a separate travel tab that transports players to the Meadow for free. Travel also used to be free when using the MouseHunt App on Android and iOS for players who had joined the game (not downloaded the app) before 14 April 2014.[7] With the update of the Adventure Book, travel costs were removed for all hunters.[8]

Besides this conventional mode of travel, there are certain locations where timers and counters are implemented, whereby hunters will be automatically transported to another location once the timer runs out or they have maxed their counter. There are also other locations where you have to catch a certain breed of mouse in order to travel there.

A trap setup consists of a weapon, a base, a piece of cheese and, if desired by the Hunter, a Charm. Traps are either bought or crafted. For traps that can be bought, they can be found at certain stores, called Trapsmiths, and they can sometimes be refunded for 18% of the purchase price. Some traps are also bought from Trapsmiths that cost some crafting items, or require the hunter to have certain items or completed certain tasks before purchasing.

Traps that are crafted as well as previous Limited Edition traps (see section on Ronza's Traveling Shoppe) are non-refundable.

Traps also have power types depending on the weapon, and it would influence the effectiveness of the trap against certain types of mice. The current power types for the traps in the game are Physical, Tactical, Shadow, Arcane, Hydro, Forgotten, Draconic, Parental, Law and Rift.

Trap components have a certain point or rank requirement, preventing players with lesser points from being able to buy or craft the trap component even if they have sufficient gold to buy it or crafting items to craft it. For example, if the points requirement of a certain trap is 16 million points, and the player has 2 million points, they would be unable to buy or craft the item, despite having sufficient gold and crafting items. This is to prevent players from "buying their way" through the game.

A base adds a little bit of power to your trap. It also might increase additional things like power, luck, attraction bonus, but it will not change the weapon's power type. Bases can be bought from Trapsmiths but the most powerful bases are crafted and won from tournaments.

Charms were introduced to the game on 12 January 2011. Available to hunters with rank Journeyman and above, hunters buy a charm conduit in the Mountain Charm Shoppe to be able to arm charms. Charms are consumable items that modify certain trap attributes. Apart from boosts to the trap statistics (e.g., increase in power, luck, cheese effect and attraction), many charms also have special effects when used in certain locations, when paired with specific weapons and/or bases, or against specific mice or mouse groups. They can also alter the power type of traps. Charms are consumable, like bait, however, each charm has a different consumption property (e.g., after every hunt, or every mouse encounter, or after catching a specific mouse), but the majority of charms are consumed upon encountering a mouse. Charms are purchased from a charm shoppe or are crafted. Most crafted charms can be bought on the Marketplace.[9] Charms that are bought from a shoppe can be refunded for 30% of the purchase price. Some charms bought from shoppes require specific items to be traded in along with gold as well.

Some specific charms could be armed along with a specific trap or used in a specific location in order to grant more bonus to your trap setup.

There is a very large cheese variety on offer, which can be bought or crafted. At present there are 5 (not including SUPER|brie+) standard cheeses that can be bought with gold at the various Cheese Shoppes in the game, namely Cheddar, Marble, Swiss, Brie, and Gouda. In the rift areas, there are 3 standard cheeses, Marble String, Swiss String and Brie String. The vast majority of cheeses are crafted. Many crafted cheese have specific effects on mice population.

Certain cheese can be made by imbuing potions into a certain type of cheese. Some cheeses can also be made by crafting through the use of crafting ingredients found in General Stores and/or from loot dropped by mice.

Certain cheese also provide bonuses to the trap setup, like a power bonus to the trap. This was announced during a Feedback Friday Session which provided teasers to a revamp of an existing area, set to be released sometime in November.[10]

There are also event cheeses that are used during events run in the game (See Events section).

Crafting is an important element into the game, especially when people ascend ranks. A wide variety of things can be crafted, such as traps, bases and cheese. Crafting is only available to players who are Apprentice (the third rank) and above. As a person goes up in rank, they will get more "crafting slots", meaning that they can combine more items at a time. Players initially have 2 slots, increasing to a (current) maximum of 12 slots for Duke/Duchess. Within the crafting section, there is also the Hunter's Hammer, which is essentially a tool to "smash" certain items, such as cheese or trap components, which usually are used to craft another items, generally other kinds of cheese or upgraded traps. In the present version of MouseHunt, a "Recipe Book" was added that allows player to craft multiple quantities of a weapon, base, cheese or any crafting item at once. Recipes are unlocked upon a successful crafting of the item, or upon completing a set task.

The last slot in crafting used to be a red slot in Version 2.0. Using the red slot meant that there was a risk of the crafting failing and resulting in a loss of the components being used to craft the item. This was removed in Version 3.0.

Some mice may drop loot, which includes map pieces, potions and crafting items, cheese, collectibles etc. The percentage of loot drops varies depending on the breed of mice as well as other factors such as trap luck. These can usually be used in the game to accelerate in forms of progress, and is sometimes even necessary for it. Some loots may only be dropped if a certain type of cheese, charm or trap is used.

Potions are used to imbue a certain type of cheese into another type of cheese. For example, imbuing brie cheese with a Radioactive Blue Cheese potion would convert the brie cheese into Radioactive Blue cheese. The number of cheese that can be imbued per potion increases based on the rank of the player. During the Lunar New Year events, potions can be used to imbue a certain type of charm into another type of charm. The Developers have mentioned that in the future, potions may be used to upgrade other trap components.

Mice are divided into different "Groups" - there are 31 as of the MouseHunt v3.0 update: Indigenous Mice, Gauntlet Gladiators, Forest Guild, The Shadow Clan, Digby Dirt Dwellers, Followers of Furoma, The Forgotten Mice, Aquatic Order, The Elub Tribe, The Nerg Tribe, The Derr Tribe, The Dreaded Horde, Draconic Brood, Balack's Banished, Seasonal Soldiers, Wizard's Pieces, Zurreal's Breed, The Marching Flame, Muridae Market Mice, Icewing's Invasion, Living Garden Mice, Lost City Mice, Sand Dunes Mice, Wild Bunch, Train Robbers, The Polluted, Rift Walkers, Deep Sea Dwellers, Fungal Fiends, Citizens of Zokor or Event Mice. Members of the group share common weaknesses with the exception of the "Gauntlet Gladiators" group. There are ten power types in the game: Physical, Shadow, Tactical, Forgotten, Arcane, Hydro, Draconic, Law, Rift and Parental. Using the right kind of cheese gives the hunter a higher chance of attracting the mice they want and using the right power type of trap would increase the chances of catching the mice.

From its birth in March 2008 until now, MouseHunt has 726 breeds (as of 20 July 2017) of mice excluding the Event Mice. Some of them, when caught will drop loot, which depending on the type of loot may be essential to players' progress through the game. Along with this, there are 127 special Event Mice, some of which are released for a short period during occasional events. These mice might drop cheese, crafting items, collectibles and cash prizes (one hunter won $1000 CAD for being the first to catch a mouse known as the Master Burglar mouse, which is no longer a rare mouse). You are also able to catch the Leprechaun mouse, worth $25–500 (which currently has over 1000 catches). Prize mice, when caught, (other than Mobster and Leprechaun) typically drop King's Credits, which can be traded at the King's Arms for many in-game hunting items. King's Credits are also given in Loyalty Chests (something like Daily Bonuses), and sometimes dropped by mice as well. The mice in this game are loosely based on real life. For example, the White, Grey and Brown mouse can be found in the Meadow and other places suitable for starters, its normal habitat. And as a further example, some of the mice which belong to the group "Followers of Furoma" practice martial arts. Different groups have distinct differences as well as trap requirements to trap them. There are also rift mice, which are essentially 'rift', enlarged and more powerful versions of their predecessors.

The Marketplace is meant to be an auction house for hunters to buy items that other hunters are selling. The Marketplace began with only being able to buy or sell the Key to the Town of Digby, Burroughs Laboratory Map Piece, and SUPER|brie+. In V2.0 the Marketplace was moved to its own discussion board. The only thing to purchase was SUPER|brie+. Hunters would negotiate and then trade, but the system was not very popular with players. 21 June 2010, v3.0, it reopened under the shops tab. Hunters could anonymously sell SUPER|brie+, Moon, and Maki cheeses. In an update hunters were allowed to sell Zugzwang's Left Sock. Another update and hunters were allowed to sell Ninja Ambush skin, Grungy Deathbot skin, Fluffy Deathbot Skin, and Wishing Well Basket. In the latest update hunters can sell any crafted charm and the orbs used to make them, also included is the Tiki Base Blueprints that Ronza sold during January 2011. On 23 July 2014, the Marketplace underwent a revamp, allowing hunters to sell trap parts and loot obtained from areas restricted to Baron/Baroness and higher ranked players. The new area also gave players an option to put up an offer to buy, which essentially meant sellers could choose to fulfil buy offers by buyers straight away, instead of having to put up a sell offer for buyers to pick. There is a 10% tariff paid by the buyer on the total sale value, possibly to prevent people from buying low and selling high straightaway (flipping).

Released on 29 July 2015, the Adventure Book was released. It contains various objectives/quests, called "Adventures", a hunter can embark on that focus on catching a powerful mouse, unlocking a new area, or unlocking new traps in specific areas. Completion of adventures give rewards of gold, points and rank progression. Some offer King's Credits. These adventures are optional, but typically to progress in the game, these adventures would be completed anyway. The Devs said it was meant to guide hunters along and let them know what they have yet to complete for that rank. However, the developers stressed that it was not the be-all and end-all of the game, and there were many other things that hunters could aim to achieve, like gaining crowns (crowns are awarded to hunters for catching a breed of mice 10, 100 and 500 times) for all mice, or getting the most powerful trap.[11]

Players are able to join teams with other hunters. Teams can allow for open registration, meaning that anyone can join, or they can be closed which means that in order to join a player needs to receive an invite from the team captain. Teams allow for socialization, but the main benefit is the ability to compete in tournaments.

In a tournament, teammates aim to catch mice on the tournament catch list. Each mouse is worth a certain number of tournament points. At the end of the tournament, teams are awarded prizes based on how well they competed. There are First, Second, and Third place which have a higher reward and respective trophies. There are also prizes for top 10%, top 25%, and top 50%.

Placing in a tournament will earn the players "Tournament Tokens". Tournament tokens can be exchanged at the Tournament Hall in the Valour region for various prizes, including powerful bases and charms.