Mousehole

Mousehole is a free online platform game you play in the browser, with no download and no account. You are a mouse in a house at night, and something much faster than you has noticed. Twelve hand-built rooms, one piece of cheese at the end of each, and a cat behind you the whole way. Get caught and it is that room again from the start.

The first thing to understand is that you cannot outrun it. The cat is genuinely quicker than you are, and on a flat straight run it closes the distance every second - that is not a difficulty setting, it is the premise. Running well only buys you a little time. What actually saves you is the one thing a mouse can do that a cat cannot: go through a hole too small for it.

The skirting boards are full of them. Squeeze into a mousehole and you slow to half speed for a moment, because you are squeezing - but the cat has to scramble over the top, and while it is scrambling it is not chasing you at all. That is the whole exchange, and it is the decision the game asks over and over. A shelf runs above the floor in most rooms: quick, clean, no squeezing, and the cat simply leaps up after you and keeps coming. The floor below is slower, but every hole down there costs the cat far more than it costs you.

So the question is never which route is faster. It is whether you can afford the time right now. Get too far ahead and the cat picks up speed, so a big lead is worth less than it looks; let it get close and the floor route is the only thing that will buy the distance back. Some floors are laid with mousetraps and some shelves are, which means the answer changes room to room and you have to look before you commit.

Rooms teach one idea at a time: run and jump, then your first mousehole and the sight of the cat scrabbling over it, then a fork with the cat right behind you, then traps, then rooms where the fast road is the dangerous one. The last room is a kitchen, and what is waiting at the end of it is the whole wheel of cheese. Crumbs are the other half of the toolkit: you pick them up as you pass, and dropping one behind you stops the cat to eat it - the only way in the game to buy time directly rather than by choosing a route. Play free on desktop or phone - arrows to run, space to jump and S to drop a crumb, or on a phone tap the left edge to go left, the middle to go right, the right side to jump and the upper right corner to drop a crumb.

Arrow keys or A/D to run, Space or W to jump, S or the down arrow to drop a crumb. On a phone the left edge walks left, the middle of the screen walks right, and the right side jumps - with the upper right corner reserved for crumbs. Crumbs are the one way to buy time directly: pick them up as you pass, drop one behind you and the cat stops to eat it instead of chasing.

The cat behind you is quicker than you are, so running in a straight line only ever loses ground - you cannot outrun it and you are not meant to. What you can do is go where it cannot. A mousehole in the skirting board is exactly mouse-sized: you squeeze through at half speed, the cat has to scramble over the top, and while it is scrambling it is not chasing. Every stretch of the level offers the same choice.

The shelf above is quick and clean, and the cat simply leaps up after you. The floor below is slower - you lose a beat at every squeeze - but every hole down there costs the cat far more than it costs you. So the question is never 'which is faster', it is 'can I afford the time right now'. Some floors are laid with mousetraps and some shelves are, so look before you commit.

Reach the cheese to finish the room; get caught, and it is that room again from the start.