Mouse Trap

Video review here!

Okay, this week we’re going to look at an absolute classic of a board game, one I’m sure all of you have owned or played at some point. It’s the grandaddy of 3D board games, Mouse Trap! 

Would you believe that this game is over fifty years old? It’s true, Mouse Trap was first introduced by Ideal Games in 1963, yes this game is fifty four years old!

 I think of this as a vintage board game because it’s from my childhood, my copy here is from 1993, but knowing that my mum used to play this as a kid, this is a true enduring classic. 

You can see from this 1963 copy, to my 1993 copy, to a modern day copy the elements have barely changed at all. The board graphics have been updated and changed over the years and there’s a number of different iterations, but the actual pieces have remained the same over the decades. This is undoubtedly due to incredible and enduring design. Pieces are interchangeable from generation to generation and the fact this game has continued to entertain children for decades means that mums and dads will instantly remember how to play. 


The game is very simple in how it plays and ultimately is a roll and move game. Players pick a coloured mouse and everyone starts at Home. You roll the dice to move, and progress along the outside of the board. As you move around the board, certain spaces will have “Add a piece” written on them, and you sequentially add the components to the trap.

The box lid contains the intricate and detailed instructions to build the game up, look at this thing! “Slide axel of gear through hole in gear support 2” “slot base B into game board and insert plug of base B into hole on board” This is like putting up an Ikea wardrobe! It astounds me that kids are able to construct this, much more to a point where it actually works. 



Looking at the pieces, it really tells a story. The components are all for the most part household items and you get the feeling the poor person who devised this mad cap contraption was so completely sick of his vermin problem that he tore his house apart to create this mad, Rube Goldberg-esque trap. Plumbing, bathtubs, guttering, his own boot, even the lamp post from outside, this speaks of a last ditch effort to snag those mice.

The owner has a dog and a cat, what are they doing to stop these mice! The one game piece I’ve always wondered about is the diver…is it a statue of a diver or is it an actual human stood waiting for this bowling ball to fling him in the air? Where would someone get a statue like that and why would you want it in the first place? If it’s a human then why not just jump in the tub when you see the mouse under the trap?

 One other thing I want to say about the game pieces seemingly vary in colour from set to set. Even on the box here certain pieces are different to what you get inside but I’ve seen blue plumbing, green divers, blue seesaws, it’s a bit of a lucky dip.


As you progress around the board the the trap will begin to take shape. It’s exciting to see it come together bit by bit, replaying the game now I was surprised how quickly it came together, i seem to remember as a kid it being an agonising wait to see the thing completed.
 
The board has a number of spaces that serve to prank the player. “If 2 mice here go back 6 spaces”, c’mon!

 “Do NOT add a piece” All the Add A Piece spaces are white so rolling and landing on this space you think for a split second you’re adding to the building of the trap….right up until you read it.

 By far the worst is “Go to cheese” oh great, thanks game! Put me right under the trap! Jerk… Being moved back along the board isn’t such a bad thing, it takes you further from the trap space and when trying not to get caught, you’re relieved to be moved further away from danger.

Most games, the trap will be built up by time you reach the end of the path, the death loop, the hoop of doom, the circle of entrapment, six spaces that loop infinitely round and round. The game changes quickly into a last man standing, sorry, last MOUSE standing scenario. It’s ultimately luck that decides the winner, you can only crank the machine if you land on the crank space AND if another mouse is on cheese. Unfortunately, this takes FOREVER. 

Replaying this game, it took half the entire play time just for the two mice to line up on those squares. This seems like such a cruel tease, you have this amazing looking contraption you’re dying to see going, you land on crank but no-one is on the cheese, nope, can’t turn that crank, can't see the trap in action. The more players playing, the quicker this seems to be other but when it gets down to the final two, it becomes a game of cat and mouse….mouse and mouse. 

So, here it is, the time has come, I’m on the crank, you’re on the cheese, you cheddar brie-lieve you’re getting trapped…that was edam awful pun. You turn the crank and….it doesn't work...



Yes… the machine doesn’t always work perfectly every time. In fact, the game fully holds its hands up and admits this. I can’t decided whether this was intentional or not, to have it work some of the time. In either case, it adds a tense element to the game, you’re hoping that the trap messes up for you if you’re under it. Fate always seems to have a laugh at your expense with it seemingly failing every time you turn it and it being flawless when your opponents do. 



When it does work however, this thing is spectacular. What a joy it is to see this thing all working. It’s over in around twenty seconds but you’ll want to set it up and see it going all over again. 



Mouse Trap is still being made today, updated box and board graphics, I doubt there’s any drunk or dead mice on the modern variant but the same game components, same trap, same game play. There is however, a new rule included. Around the board are “cheese” squares, where you collect a piece of cheese. These pieces can be used in the loop of doom segment to really be vindictive to your foes. You can use a cheese piece to roll the dice to move an opponents mouse, hopefully under the trap! I like the sound of this, you know by now that I love games with a bit of back stabbing to them.



As enduring as this game is, MB tried to reinvent the wheel. They created a new Mouse Trap in 2004 that, again, is still being sold. The core difference with this version is that the game has multiple traps. It’s random how these traps are activated, you flush the toilet (yes) and a ball bearing is sent spinning which will pop out into one of the three different traps. If I’m being honest, i’m not so keen on this variant, the construction of the traps is too engineered and loses that Heath Robinson look to the game, it bodged together with random junk. The traps themselves are much shorter to activate and the the chain reaction/rube goldberg element to it is missing. It plays a lot like Ghost Castle or Incy Wincy Spider, where random traps that briefly inconvenience the player.

It’s not difficult to see why this game has continued to sell for over half a century. It’s fun, visually it looks spectacular and interesting, there’s really no other game that you can compare it too. What other game do you assemble a bunch of random household objects to capture a creature the size of your thumb? It’s one game that people of all ages can enjoy and watching the trap in motion never gets tiresome.