Watchables: High Tension Spring 3D

Came across this 3D rendering of my fave novice mousetrap, The High Tension Spring.. Gotta love the marketing brochure-y feel to it.. Looking forward to more already.. Good Job, Chris - and congrats on your newborn!

Your Hunting Party and Mousehunt Tournaments

Mousehunt now has a Tournament gameplay feature. To join in, all you need is to form a Hunting Party of up to 4 hunters. Tournaments are time-based (hours and days) mini-contents that can happen anywhere around the world of Gnawnia. There are different themes for everyone and by setting them in different locations, it's a soft-restriction on hunter's game levels. With the first wave of tournaments just over, it's probably obvious that you need a little planning to position your hunting party. The more frequent you sound it, the higher your multiplier goes and stays. That will really boost your hunting score for your team. Of course, for ultimate results, you'd need a team of four that essentially will sound the horn every 15 min, 144 times a day (well, if you do hit the max horns perfectly, you might be put down as a bot :T ) The flip side of this is that while you are in a tournament, you do not share the horn with the Hunting Group (the rest of your MH Friends). So your Hunting Party of 4 have to pull your own weight. May not be an option if you are a casual player with odd (poor?) access to the Internet. At this time, the developers are still tweaking the rules of the tournaments. I believe that the prizes are also not finalised yet. But it can only get better.

Town of Gnawnia

The Town of Gnawnia is where it all begins for all Mousehunters. And it's a place we all call home, so it costs nothing to travel back here. Ever. My personal Trap advancement : - High Tension Spring (starter) - 500 Pound Crusher (obvious) - Mary O'Nette (because no one advised me to skip this) - Trebuchet (Fresh was better then because there was no Stale Cheese feature) - Swiss Army (Luck Rules!) You would need to buy every base. I'd recommend the Target as fast as possible. Then the Explosive just after the Treb/Rocketine purchase. By the time I could afford it, I reached the Town of Digby - The NVRMC and the Deathbot are cheaper there. You'd only need the Cheddar and Marble to hunt here. Stop whining for Super Brie!

The Meadow, Gnawnia

Sometimes I think the Meadow was the location included just so the King could chase all the loitering hunters out of the Town of Gnawnia.. Another Novice area. You get a little stronger mice but you still wouldn't need the Swiss nor Brie. Because some strong mice do follow other hunters back to the Town, you would get a little beating staying there - so well, the Meadow could be a place to rest. That is, if you don't get trampled by all the hunters passing through there every minute, as advised by the Travel Planner. It'll probably turn to Marsh by the next rainy season. :)

The Harbour, Gnawnia

The Harbour has undergone a number of interesting changes over the history of Mousehunt. For Apprentices, you get the first taste of the Pirate and Ninja mice here. The Granite mice here may also drop the Whisker Woods Clearing Map Piece (the Calm Clearing, which you can't access yet due to your level). A General Store has been built here and you would be able to start crafting. With the ingredients here and now, you can make a more expensive version of the White Cheddar. Recommended device here - Swiss Army Trap/Explosive or Stone base, using Swiss or White Cheddar. No! You still don't need the Super Brie!

[Oh Noes! Our regular ship there has sunk! What happened?]

The Mountains, Gnawnia

The Mountains are the place for the Journeyman to gain gold and points. But other than getting the Lab map from the ninja mouse, this area is forgettable once you pass it.. Well, ok go grab the Abominable Snow Mouse too. The Dwarf mouse drops Splintered Wood here, but that's not really necessary yet. Cheese? Brie, if you're feeling rich. You still get many catches with Swiss eventhough you start getting more "Failed to Attract".

The Forbidden Grove Timing

The Forbidden Grove isn't always open. It roughly works along the repeated pattern of 3 hours Open then 3 hours Closed, making it accessible 4 times in a full day. If you're in the grove when it closes, you'd be whisked to the Acolyte Realm. For a more accurate measure of the Forbidden Grove timing, you might want to check out Pooflinger's Forbidden Grove Timer.

Mouse Hunt Map

Trying out a Map Navigation method for the Locations described on this Mouse Hunt Guide. Please check out the Mouse Hunt Map. There are hotspots around the map that you can click on. They will bring you back to the relevant posts on the mousehuntguide. It's not finished yet, with quite a few dummy links around (those with the "-" at the end). I'm a little undecided about the size of the map. It looks rather oversized now. However, making it fit to a 1024 pixel width makes everything look really small. Love to see any comments you have.

Super Brie Financials

If there is any indication of how well a game like Mousehunt has matured, it has to be from the springing up of websites like Mousehunt Finance.

MouseHunt Finance is an application built to trend the average offered selling and buying price of SUPER|Brie+ - a highly traded item on the Facebook social networking game MouseHunt. The application looks at the price hunters are offering to buy and sell SB+ and creates an average for each day it finds entries.

I love the layout of the page, especially the way it reads like a regular stock trading page. They also indicate that the price reports are not the actual trading price, nor does it indicate the futures of Super Brie. But it certainly is a very telling graph of the way it is. Maybe someday, someone will write an app that will track the trading prices of all FB Games. And we'd have a virtual stock trading game based on Game counters. That would be an idea, eh? But as for Mousehunt, it is possible to play the game without Super|Brie. If you take it for the passive gaming pleasure of it, there are free ways to earn SB or gain the type of cheese you need via potions or crafting. There is also a wonderful community on the forums that offer spinoff contests and games, giving away SB. For more active gaming, you could read my past posts about SuperBrie and getting Gold.