i don’t really know how to explain this game to someone who didn’t grow up with it. honestly i don’t really know how to explain it to myself! the physics are jank but very intentionally so leading to excellent emergent game design. the community is also very funny and the chat is always entertaining to this day. it’s a miracle this game is still alive and i’m glad i came back to it.

(side note: is this a furry thing? i feel like it might be but it’s unclear. i like the funny mice regardless i’m just not sure)

this game has a fascinating gameplay loop, either you can't lead the flock and cry as they fail to maneuver anything short of an automated mario maker stage or you're the dipshit in turn who can't construct anything

being of the latter variety this is what the sequence of events in an average playthrough looks like every once in a blue moon

1. involuntarily made shaman

2. proceed to try to link two planks together (they will not link)

3. switch to balloons (they flew away)

4. blast everyone out of the map with cannonballs

5. receive eight unanimous death threats in chat

6. uninstall game

the french still got it

At first, I sincerely thought that this was some kind of children's game like Roblox, where kids sit and peacefully discuss pussies. In principle, I was not far from the truth, only here the audience is older.

It's sort of like "Ultimate Chicken Horse", but with a more online component. The main gameplay of the game is simple - run to the cheese and drag it to your hole. Bottomless abysses, acid pits and other obstacles await us along the way. Each round, a random player in the room becomes a “shaman” who can build various auxiliary devices such as platforms or teleports. And you can play like this ad infinitum. The game has a fairly large skins store and people are constantly exchanging items and currency to purchase new items. Probably, after some time, running mice across the screen would quickly get boring if it weren’t for the local chat.

I think that it is this that is the main gameplay mechanic, and the game itself is just something in the background. This is where people meet and families are created. And I probably would have died of boredom when I was farming 300 cheese on a quest if it weren’t for the chat. Many reviews mentioned toxic chat and evil players, but I never encountered anything like that in 20 hours. I was thrown into vanilla1's room, where I stayed until the end. On the first day, I found myself in a conversation between two girls who were discussing various diets and their consequences, such as fainting in various places. Many guys shared their recipes and health tips. It was nice enough. Well, on the second day people came who were probably mentioned in the reviews. In particular, there was a certain Vasya there at that moment, who shared with everyone his sexual preferences and what kind of girls he liked, namely a detailed description of the genitals and their use. Moreover, the conversation was so lively that in an hour I learned several new interesting physiological features. Overall, I didn’t see anything particularly toxic or shocking here. Sometimes on random servers in discord I saw more shit than here in 15 hours of chatting. There are, of course, trolls who deliberately destroy skating rinks and make fun of inexperienced shamans, but this does not look somehow evil. I don’t argue that anything can happen in other rooms and I was just lucky. But I generally got the impression that everyone here knows each other and this is a big family of mice who come into this game to exchange a few words with each other.

I will leave a neutral review here, since this is a fairly large game in terms of community and there is quite a friendly atmosphere here. Everyone jokes about pussies and other obscenities, but I myself often have such conversations with different people, so I didn’t find anything criminal here. On the contrary, the guys themselves ask them to swear less and not bully newcomers. The game itself has remained afloat for quite a long time and I think this is largely due to the very people from the chat. Vanilla1's room will definitely stay in my memory for some time. I wish all the guys from there all the best.