TIMEsink REVIEW: Transformice

Mice are well known for being lovers of cheese - much like the French. Appropriate, then, that this next offering comes from France, and is about mice scrambling after cheese against the clock.

Transformice is a (mostly) co-operative platformer which pits as many as 30 players, maybe even more, against the landscape, racing to get the cheese and return to a mousehole. Parts of the levels can be pushed around, which can make useful platforms for the canny player or ruin the chances of the inattentive.

Aiding in this venture is the Shaman, a mouse chosen from the top of the high score list - you'll score higher the better you do in each level, and as it accumulates, you'll get closer to that top spot, before seeing your score reset in the round following your Shaman antics. The Shaman gets access to magical summoning powers, which let players conjure things like wooden planks, boxes, anvils and even cannonballs to aid their flock of mice towards their lofty, cheesy goal. Combining these objects with the various hinges you can make - that are frictionless or have their own rotation - lets you create truly impressive creations, which again could help your compatriots (such as simple floating platforms, supported by balloons) or doom them (such as THE ANVIL GOD).

Transformice features neat little wearables which can be unlocked with cheese (you get one at the end of every level... if you actually make it back to the mousehole with some, of course) or strawberries, which can be purchased with real-world money to support the developers. It's one of the few games with such a model into which I've put a little money, because I've been playing it on and off for a few years and felt that I rather owed it something.

The game's a riot with people, and you can create your own rooms or join randoms in the public areas. It's definitely worth playing in numbers for the sheer, beautiful chaos of things.

Alun's Timesink Rating: 4. I got quite a lot of mileage out of it - maybe you will too.

Click here to play Transformice.