Above all, I give "Mouse" credit for being possibly the quirkiest installment in the Survival series - there is at least one choice (possibly two) you can make where the outcome appears to be something of a joke. Something I likewise find endearing about "Mouse" (besides the murine-orientated content), is that it is the Survival edition in which your player animal comes the closest to conveying something of a personality. I get the impression that this mouse is a proper little scrapper, and that feisty, determined spirit makes it hard not to warm to it as your murine manifestation. As with "Frog", you're playing as a very small animal, and there is naturally a lot of emphasis on how vulnerable you are, in a world where everything seems dead set upon devouring you, or at the very least beating you up and taking your food stores. And yet I would say there is just as much emphasis, if not more, on how surprisingly tough and capable you are of meeting the challenges that world throws at you. Being a small animal does not make you a pushover, and "Mouse" contains a lot of situations, probably more than any other edition of Survival, in which you're prompted to make bold decisions on whether it's advisable to stand and confront something that could potentially deal you a wad of damage. Do you take on a marauding squirrel? A legless lizard? A hive of bees? A cartoon-friendly mousetrap? Where are you inclined to draw the line? Part of the allure of the Survival series is in the fragile barrier it so elegantly (and harrowingly) depicts as fluttering between life and death, but "Mouse" equally provides a crash course in what a deluge of adversity you're capable of living through.
If I have one nitpick with "Mouse", it's that Wood doesn't make compelling use of the game's points system, in either of his contributions, but then this was something that Tabor before him was really inconsistent with. "Fox" and "Squirrel" were the only two in which it was possible to lose points for non-fatal mistakes - with every other book, so long as you keep advancing through the narrative, you'll gain points, only losing them if you run into a death ending. And the number of minus points allocated for each death, while ideally reflecting the obviousness of your misjudgement, also seem kind of arbitrary in practice. Personally, I was always invested in Survival for primarily the narrative/puzzle element, and found the points aspect really hard to give any attention to. Maybe it's more fun if you're looking to compare your results with a friend's, as the introduction suggests, but I am a lonely Survival-ist.
The points system does have one practical application in "Mouse", however. One of those aforementioned aggressors you can either fight or flee from - Wood actually gives you contradictory information with each potential outcome, suggesting that both choices were perfectly valid responses. One scores you twice as many points as the other, however, making it obvious which you should have gone for.
- Death #1 (4) - Death by kestrel: This, honestly, might be the single creepiest death in all of Survival; I find the illustration more chilling than that with the fyke net in "Otter", maybe even more so than the phantom snake that haunted me in "Frog". It consists of you perched upon a blackberry bush, feasting contentedly, while the faint speck of a bird of prey hovers ominously in the distant horizon. The emphasis, both visual and textual, is on the idea that the bird is very far away - too far away to have a chance of seeing us? Are we good to stay where we are and keep feasting? Well, what do you think, really? Even if you don't recall The Animals of Farthing Wood and how Kestrel's razor-sharp eyesight was her character's most prominent attribute...this image makes me feel profoundly unsafe just looking at it. That darkened bird silhouette might be small, but boy is it looming. You get the distinct impression that it's already coming for you, even from afar. Your best bet is to get off of that bush post haste.
- Death #2 (7) - Death by rain barrel: Like "Squirrel", "Mouse" offers an even split between the human-related deaths and those caused by the predators on your trail. Unlike "Squirrel", most of the human-related deaths here are gruesome accidents, which probably didn't need to occur if more thought was given to the potential impact of even the most seemingly minor of environmental modifications on the little guy. Here, Wood doesn't actually explain how your drowning in the rain barrel could have been prevented, but one solution would be to put a secure lid or mesh on top to stop animals from falling in. Then again, if this is the same human who's putting traps out to kill you (see below), then maybe this is all part of a nefarious conspiracy.
- Death #3 (11) - Death by rat: If you choose to back down from the legless lizard instead of confronting it, your moderation does not serve you well, as there's something even more dangerous (but oh so cute) lying in wait for you in the log pile. Ah well, it's a murid eat murid world. And if you brought a rat enjoyment, I'd say that you definitely didn't die in vain. Although, if the rat already had his eye on you, I find it odd that he doesn't also try to make a move while you're exhausted from battling that lizard (I recall that stoat who could move positions in "Squirrel"), but I guess that would have shifted narrative emphasis from how thoroughly impressive it was of you to have taken on a lizard in the first place.
- Death #4 (12) - Death by poisoned seeds: The shed scene is interesting because you get a choice between two food options that frankly look as ominous as each other - a chunk of cheese in an old-fashioned mousetrap or a mountain of seeds that some human has obligingly left out on a tray for you. The giveaway that the seeds were poisoned, Wood tells us, is their unnatural blueish appearance, although you might also have figured out that any human who'd leave out cheese to try and trap you probably isn't put down seeds only inches away as a token of good hospitality. Presumably, the intended trick here is that the mousetrap is so conspicuously dangerous that you might be tempted to see the seeds as a comparatively safe option - or you could take what seems to be the safer option still and just vacate the shed altogether. Turns out, that's actually not the best answer. If you had the gall to go for the cheese, well...
- Death #5 (19) - Death by cat: Your classic enemy makes an appearance, in another creepy (although somewhat cheesy) illustration where the cat is represented by a single eye glinting at you through a gap in the hedgerow. You can either take cover in one of two directions or try to outwit the cat through a chase out in the open. This isn't Tom & Jerry, however (your apparent immunity to mousetraps - see other observations - notwithstanding), and if you give the cat the opportunity to catch up with you, the outcome's not going to particularly favour you. But it is all fun and games as far as the cat's concerned; it has a jolly time stalking you across the forest floor before finally going in for the kill.
- Death #6 (21) - Death by orange juice: Between this and the incident with the rain barrel, it seems to be a running theme that whenever you try to quench your thirst in "Mouse", things end in disaster. Since everyone loves orange juice, it's easy to head straight for the discarded bottle without taking into mind your particular vulnerabilities as a mouse - namely, that if you venture into that slippery plastic terrain, you might not find your way out again. Actually, there a few items in that discarded picnic that could prove potentially hazardous to wildlife, including a set of six-pack rings just waiting to strangle some unsuspecting victim. Litter kills, kids; take it home and recycle.
Other observations:
- So, that cheese in the mousetrap...if you avoided it, then the joke's on you, since it transpires to have all been a test of nerve. If you went for the cheese, then not only do you NOT die, but you get to advance directly to the winning ending and settle down safely for the night. It's why it pays to read the accompanying text closely, since Wood's narration openly acknowledges that it is a trap (things that kill you in Survival typically do so with an element of surprise), and that you are extremely good at extracting the bait from traps before the jaws spring shut, effectively giving you the go-ahead to do something that might be considered tremendously risky under general circumstances. It's in this outcome, that I suspect Wood of very deliberately evoking the humor of a Tom & Jerry short - to the murine underdog, cheese represents the ultimate jackpot, and if you can outwit the man and his traps and walk off with a huge wad of ill-gotten cheddar, well done, you may consider yourself a winner at life.
- Likewise, the outcome of the beehive encounter might also be seen as something of a joke...unless you're really good at identifying bees and feel qualified to make the judgement on whether those buzzing out of the hive are drones or workers. Otherwise, entering into that hive to look for honey is a total game of luck - and perhaps being prompted to turn to page 13 to find out if you lived or died was subconsciously putting you off? Anyway, they're drones, so if you actually went inside, then lucky reckless you. And yet Wood only awards you a measly four points. No stings in this hive, but stinginess? Sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment