Mouse Trap vs. Mouse Trap
A Game Design Analysis
Have you ever played Mouse Trap?
Have you played Mouse Trap recently!?
Would you be surprised to hear that the game has changed drastically from your memories as a kid?
I normally use this newsletter to provide updates for my upcoming game, Fantasy Football Tactics, but today we are doing a deep dive into the game design of not one, but two different versions of the classic board game Mouse Trap!
Background
Last year, my wife bought Mouse Trap and stashed it away for a “rainy day” - we patiently waited for a snow or sick day to surprise our daughter with a fun activity. That day finally came and, after decades of not playing it, and memories of the game taking forever to set up and never working, I was surprised to see how fun it was!
But then tragedy struck when we were disassembling and the lamp post snapped in two! We duct taped it back in place and contacted Hasbro to see about a replacement part. As often happens these days, instead of sending us just the piece we needed, the fine folks at Hasbro sent us an entirely new Mouse Trap game! Not just new, but the box art and pieces inside were updated as well! We dug in immediately and realized the rules and objective of the game had changed too…
Mouse Trap “Classic”
There is technically an even older version of Mouse Trap, but the overall game is fairly consistent with what people of my age (millennials) remember growing up. Established in 1975, the objective of the game is to first cooperatively build the trap, then competitively trap all the other mice.
This two-phased approach is definitely something I did not remember, but it’s integral to the experience. The mechanics of play are similar between the two phases, but it’s useful to analyze them separately.
Cooperative - Build The Trap
In this phase players take turns rolling a six-sided die and move their mouse along the board. Depending on where the player lands, there are several possible outcomes:
Add the next piece to the trap
Collect a piece of cheese
Lose a piece of cheese
Move forward or backward some additional amount of spaces
Or… nothing happens, and it’s the next player’s turn
You might wonder what the pieces of cheese are for but they don’t matter until the second phase of the game. The actual rolling of the die and moving around the board is not terribly exciting, but the real fun is found in building the trap.
The trap must be built in a specific order that is listed in the instructions. It creates a slow build of anticipation as you see your shared progress reflected in an increasingly complex and interconnected series of brightly colored plastic pieces. Behold, The Mouse Trap!
The game progresses like this until one or more players reach the end of the board, except, the “end” is actually a small, never-ending loop of spaces. As they say, shit just got real!
Competitive - Trap Your Opponents
“Once you arrive at The Loop, you and your opponents will take turns circling it as many times as necessary until the Mouse Trap is completely built and only one mouse remains uncaptured on the game board.” Brutal! This is taken verbatim from the instructions as a clear and concise description of this phase of the game.
While in the loop, players continue to take turns rolling the six-sided die, but the spaces are more cutthroat than before:
Cheese Wheel - Take two pieces of cheese. However, this is also the danger zone where you can get trapped!
Safe Space - Relax for a turn, you’re safe from being moved and getting trapped by an opponent.
Build 2 - If the Mouse Trap isn’t complete, you get to add not one, but two pieces to the construction.
Turn Crank - The most exciting space of all! If a competitor mouse is on the cheese wheel, you may turn the crank and set off the Rube Goldberg machine to capture them. If for some reason the trap doesn’t work (as we all know happens!), then your opponent automatically moves to the Safe Space. If no mouse is on the cheese wheel, you may turn in a piece of cheese to roll the die, and then move your opponent that many spaces to attempt to get them stuck on the cheese wheel before you set off the trap (that’s where those pieces of cheese come in!).
A few things stand out to me from a game design perspective here. The loop solves multiple problems: It allows the trap to rapidly be completed, supports catching up players that are lagging on the board, provides a reliable source of cheese, and, most importantly, provides a wealth of emotions for the players. More simply, it’s FUN!
(Read more about how good game design ideas solve multiple problems here!)
Additionally, there’s the major sense of satisfaction that comes from successfully triggering the trap. After all, the only way to win or lose comes via the trap, so it’s an exhilarating prospect regardless of which side you fall on!
Mouse Trap “Modern”
This version of the game makes multiple foundational changes. Gone are the two phases as constructing the entire trap has been brought into the setup phase. The sole objective of this game is to be the first to collect six pieces of cheese. In fact, it’s possible (though unlikely) to win this version of the game without ever trapping a single mouse.
What has not changed is that each player takes turns rolling a six-sided die and moves their mouse along the board. In this game there is just one big loop around the entire board. Depending on where the player lands, here are the possible outcomes:
Collect a piece of cheese (or two when making it back to the start)
Lose a piece of cheese
Steal a piece of cheese
Set off the trap! You get to move an opponent under the trap before hand, and if successful the trapped mouse must give you a piece of cheese.
There are also tunnel spaces that let you warp across the board.
That’s about it! As you can see the rules are considerably simpler, and there is still fun to be had. It’s possible to run the mouse trap within your first roll or two of the game which is very exciting as the updated design for the trap itself is more impressive. Where the original design relies on two separate marbles, this newer design has a mechanism to support just a single marble that goes down a ramp and flies back up high before dropping down and launching the swimmer into the tub.
While there’s more to prepare to play, one benefit of this design is that you build the trap once and can play several games in a row without disassembling the entire contraption.
One major difference here though is the consequence for being trapped. You simply lose a piece of cheese and keep carrying on. It’s exciting to run the trap so quickly, but it has been nerfed to a degree that saps a lot of joy from the game.
The Player Experience
There are many aspects to game design, and there are loads of great books out there on the topic. Something I’ve learned is that it’s easy to get caught up in a game’s design by thinking about its ruleset or the theme… but it’s far more helpful to evaluate a game based on the experience it creates for players.
In this spirit, we can see that while Mouse Trap Classic and Modern share a nearly identical theme, the difference in rulesets creates wildly different player experiences. While experience is personal, and therefore subjective, I feel it boils down to this:
Classic - Starts slow, but gets more and more interesting as the trap is built and the game progresses, culminating with a fast paced and exciting finale enjoyed by all!
Modern - Pure fun immediately, with a minimal boost of excitement as players near their final piece of cheese to collect.
One of our daughter’s friends lamented that Mouse Trap (classic) required “too much setup” - and it’s easy to see why. Really not much happens for the first half of the game, you have to keep stopping to assemble one piece at a time, and you don’t get to run the trap for a long time. After all, that’s the whole fun of the game!
So it’s easy to see why these changes were made. This is Mouse Trap for the TikTok generation. But something is clearly lost in translation as the rules, by design, prevent the long buildup and high peak of excitement found in the original.
Now It’s Your Turn!
It was a happy accident that led to us owning both versions of the game and I find it so interesting how a few simple rule changes can create a vastly different player experience.
Do you have any house/family rules you’ve changed in your favorite games?
How do these rule changes impact the player experience?
This is a different sort of post than my usual updates, so I’d love to hear if you would like to see more like this in the future. Happy pre-season, and I’ll be back with Fantasy Football Tactics news soon!