We will be seeking to reinterpret the Royal Mouse as a game. For the purpose of this interpretation I will be summarizing the main plot, character and stylistic elements below.
The Royal Mice is a book about mice who inhabit a queen’s castle. The queen seeks to have the mice removed via any means necessary, and takes in a cat to do the job. After the cat has killed many mice, the remaining mice learn of a legend of a sword and a horn. A mouse armed with these objects could summon an army of ghost mice to do their bidding. This horn and sword are found and used to summon the army. The cat is confused, chasing the undead army of mice, and the queen, seeing this cat’s failure, casts it out. Then the mice and the queen must learn to coexist.
The essential characters include the queen, the cat: Max the Magnificent, and some particular named mice. Gilbert the elder was the one to tell the legend of the horn and sword. Cadbury was the hero who used the horn and sword. Little Francis was the younger mouse who found them hidden. Guinevere was the female mouse who Cadbury sought to protect.
Stylistically, The Royal Mouse could be characterized by its framing composition. Each page is framed, and some pages have multiple framed sections. The main color scheme is built of yellow-orange hues and blue as a contrasting color used in shadows, especially during rat scenes, but there is a wealth of other accent colors. Yellow and blue just seem to be the most used. The art is somewhat realistic, with real looking mice, cats, and humans, but the concepts are fanciful by showing mice in armor and other clothing. Those fanciful details break the style from appearing too realistic, but proportions stay relatively true to reality.
There are countless directions that a game developer could carry this story in, but I have chosen one relatively true to story, except with a few darker twists. I imagine a game where the meeting where the mice learned of the horn and the sword is cut short by the appearance of Max. One mouse, probably an unnamed one, has gotten away. There may be other survivors but this mouse didn’t see them. Its task is to sneak around the castle to find this horn and sword, but max the magnificent is hot on their trail, so this mouse must act stealthily and intelligently to avoid being eaten.
This idea clearly takes most of its foundation from the original IP by having the same lead up to the game events. It also shares the main concept of discovering the horn and sword and using that to drive away the cat. It is its own unique work by taking a darker approach and making the search for the horn and the sword more dangerous and stressful. It puts to rest that nagging part of me that had thought that finding the horn and sword seemed to come way too easily to the mice. This also narrows the known searching mice down to one, which puts more pressure on the need for the player character to discover the horn and sword.
This game is from that mouse’s perspective. The main objectives of the game would be to sneak properly to avoid being caught by the cat, and to find the mythical horn and sword. I am somewhat unsure on how background will be give, as I would like the game to begin shortly after the cat’s rampage through the meeting, but I would also like the player to understand that the meeting has happened, the horn and sword were discussed, and that the meeting was raided by the cat.
It might work to have the character look over some of the wreckage of the meeting and narrate some of that out, piece by piece. Or it could be done in a series of stills, not unlike book pages, that could give that context. For now, I am considering these main two ideas and am also open to other ideas. I will probably do a mixture of concept designs for this and peer questioning to decide.
The main mechanics would be moving around throughout the space (walking), climbing, and I’m toying with the idea of a sniffing mechanic that gives the player information on whether or not the cat is near, and if so, it might hint at the direction. I hope to also work out some more puzzle-ish mechanics, as I intend for compelling gameplay to come from the player having to intelligently plan routes, and possibly plan distractions in order to clear their path to the horn and sword.
The represented characters would be Max and the player rat. While there will be evidence of the queen and her staff, currently I plan for no humans to be seen. The key objects of this game will be the horn and the sword, and then the puzzle items used to get past the cat.
The world will be a setting within the palace where the mouse must get through. I am unsure of where I will set it, and even though the meeting and the horn and sword both have set locations in the book, I am open to the idea of changing these locations for game purposes.
The gameplay highlights will be finding smart ways to get past the cat. These ways will hopefully highlight both the size difference between the animals, and also I plan to have there be interactive diversion elements, such as the mouse rolling in food to mask their scent, setting up toys or items to precariously crash or make sounds to lure max away from a location for just enough time, and possibly others. This could even take a darker turn with using the corpses of dead mice to perpetuate these diversions.
These mechanics however will probably not fit into the scope of my one level. Whats more likely is that I will pick one puzzle element to make this ‘level’ and I will use only that one for the level that I design.
My intended audience is probably people who have read the first book as children but are a bit older now. I know that I read children’s books when I was younger that I would so enjoy games based off of them now. Specifically, I would suggest at least an age of 13 or so, due to the mouse murder elements, and the possible presence of rat corpses. So all in all my main demographic would probably be 13-20. After that I imagine the nostalgia of the book might wear off a bit. My demographic also includes people who enjoy stealth based games with dark elements. I plan to appeal to these groups by making a game that is both intriguingly themed, and also true to the source material.
The art style will probably be somewhat realistic while still being fanciful. I don’t plan to make cartoonish characters, but they also definitely won’t be photorealistic. I’m planning on shading my color scheme with a good amount of dark blue colors, while also having various under shades. Generally, I’m going for a similar art style to the main book. I might interpret the frames shown on the book pages into menus as well, in order to be more reminiscent of the book.