I Saw This Cartoon Gumshoe Shooter in Action. It's a Video Game Miracle

CNET

a day ago

Mouse: P.I. for Hire is the kind of fun video game miracle of making wild ideas into reality. What started as a throwaway "what if" post on social media about a first-person shooter styled like a classic Betty Boop-era cartoon has turned into a full video game I saw being played in front of me at Summer Game Fest -- and the gumshoe gunplay game is due out later this year.
In Australian publisher PlaySide's private booth tucked into a corner of the Summer Game Fest grounds in Los Angeles, I sat down with the game's lead producer Maciej Krzemień and game director Mateusz Michalak of the Poland-based Fumi Games while the former played through a level that will be in the final game.
The first-person shooter combat, detective gameplay and story were a delight to behold in the game's signature black-and-white cartoon style -- along with the icing on the cake, hearing famed gaming voice actor Troy Baker speak as protagonist Jack Pepper. It also gave me an idea for the flow of the game, which follows the titular private eye Pepper in his investigation, and is split between replayable levels (more on that later).
Dripping with noir staples of cops, crime, loyalties and betrayal, the writing and story set the stage just as much as the period music and film grain visual filter. For a Polish studio, the game leans into the distinctly American side of noir; Raymond Chandler's works were prime inspirations for the game's story and vibe, and the team's narrative leads consulting historical research to make sure the language fit with gamer expectations.
"Obviously, we are not Americans ourselves. We wanted to get a good grasp on this entire style of detective noir stories, but with some light-hearted elements to it," Krzemień said.
Fumi Games
My preview was an early part of the game and opened up at an opera house, where Pepper was trying to track down his old friend, a magician tied to the case he's investigating. Barred from entry to the opera, Pepper has to sneak in through the kitchen, giving players the option to pay off a line cook or sneak in through the vents.
But we got a moment to peek through the window to engage with a detective mechanic: using a camera to gather clues, which gives you insight into the case and the big players who may have a hand in what seems like a growing plot -- one that Pepper will chart on a conspiracy board at the hub players visit between missions. You can hunt through levels, taking photos that will even open up sidequests, or just keep running and gunning.
Fumi Games
"Without spoiling anything, there is a bigger conspiracy behind it all, and it's all pretty serious in terms of social topics, social themes of the game, and it actually reflects the political climate of the world back in the 1930s -- and not only in America," Krzemień said.
I asked if that meant the rise of fascism. "Exactly," Krzemień said.
To deliver on their blend of heavy conspiracy story and levity in cartoon logic, Fumi Games started shopping around for a voice actor who could deliver both, drawing up a list of well-known names to do the job of Pepper's jaded P.I. -- and they singled out Troy Baker for his wide range (an astonishingly expansive list including Joel in The Last of Us, Talion in Shadow of Mordor and Indy himself in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny).
"It felt so out there that we didn't believe that this would be possible," Krzemień said -- but the game's publisher, PlaySide, played a huge role in reaching out to him. "It turned out that Troy Baker has been following our game for a while now, and he was very excited to take up this role."
Fumi Games
Mouse P.I.'s gunplay gameplay between gumshoeing around
Sneaking through the vents to get into the opera house, we get to the offices upstairs and find one of the game's set of optional collectibles -- a newspaper, with headlines that Pepper talks about to fill players in on the backstory to flesh out the plot. When our gumshoe walks out the door into the backstage hallways, we're met with enemy goons, and the bullets start flying. A BioShock-style weapon wheel let us switch between a pistol, shotgun and Tommy Gun, which all had enjoyable cartoony reload animations.
After cracking a safe with his tail (another fun mouse-themed mechanic), we corner the stage designer, Roland, in the control room overlooking the opera stage to ask about our missing friend, but he's mostly out of answers -- though he says the goons we fought roughed up and replaced the actors. Something is afoot: Roland says the toughs are lining up a prop cannon to fire at mayoral candidate Stilton, who we see in an opera box across the theater -- and Pepper has to race to save his politician friend, who he knows from their time in the Great War. See what I mean about noir staples?
Dashing around the backstage areas filled with goons to shoot and stage props, we catch sight of a hook above us leading to another area we can't get to just yet -- when we get the ability to grapple with our tail (as shown in Mouse: P.I.'s earlier trailers), we'll be able to return to this level and grab some extras. In fact, this level has several secrets tucked away in hard-to-reach areas that require some nimble platforming, another feature from old-school shooters. One of these had another of the game's collectibles: a baseball card (of "Brie Ruth," har har), which can be used in a tabletop baseball minigame playable in the hub area between levels.
In addition to baseball cards, newspapers can be gathered to fill the player in on the game's world.
Fumi Games
As Krzemień played, I asked how they got the animation to work. In the old cartoons, the entire background is slightly blurry, but if something is supposed to move in a second, then it slightly stands out from the background, which Fumi Games replicated.
"This is what we're going for with outlines, certain shaders and also most of the interactive elements like save [spots], barrels and whatnot. They tend to bounce a bit, jump a bit, just to give you a feeling of, OK, I can interact with that," Krzemień said.
Players will be able to toggle on or off the optional effects that make the game feel like it's straight out of the 1930s, like the visual filter of film grain. The audio filters that make it sound like the music is coming from a wax cylinder will still be in the game too, Krzemień assured me. (He first teased these when we chatted at Gamescom 2024 last August.)
Just in time, Pepper makes it to the opera stage and moves the cannon, which goes off and wrecks the house. Despite the theater crumbling around us in a fiery inferno and more goons who don't know when to quit, we make it out, only to find Roland the stage manager, who points us in the right direction to hunt down our magician friend. Climbing in the car, the level ends.
Fumi Games
From exploding barrels to a turpentine gun that melts enemies (turpentine being a solvent used to wipe animation cells in the old hand-drawn days), Mouse P.I. is a flavorful mix of shooter tropes and platforming, punny gags and hardboiled noir. It's obviously impossible to gauge whether the rest of the game will live up to the promise of the art style, but it's clear that the devs have very thoughtfully adapted a classic art style to modern first-person shooters with, I can only imagine, a ton of work to get it right.
Mouse P.I. For Hire is coming later this year for PC, Xbox, PS5, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.