On 10th September 2015 PlayStation Mobile is due to close. I released 3 games on the platform, Castle Invasion, A Bad Operatunity and Mouse Bounce. All 3 were small bite sized fun that wouldn’t look out of place on Google Play or the App store.

As a hobbyist developer at the time, PlayStation Mobile made me feel it was an achievable goal to make games that people wanted to buy and play. It was this feeling that lingered with me through a full time job and in the end prompted me to start Cat Trap Studios.

Myself and a friend recently developed and released Mouse Bounce, an addictive, arcade platformer for iOS, Android and of course PSM.

I initially took to developing the game for iOS and Android using Unity. It was my first time working with the engine on one of my own projects but using it made the whole process much easier. From concept to a final build took around two months with very little compromise from how myself and the artist originally imagined.

Mouse Bounce is out right now on Android and iOS. It’s sitting in both stores looking pretty waiting for you to go and download it.

Mouse Bounce has been developed by 2 people, myself (Dave) a programmer, and a friend (Adam) an artist. I’ve known Browny (Adam Brown) for far too long; he grew up in the village next to mine and we went to the same school together. Through a string of coincidences we ended up going to the same university and living next to each other in Nottingham for a while. Since then he trotted off to London for a bit and now he’s in Australia while I moved back to nice warm Yorkshire. After spending 15 months in full time work I fancied the excitement of making my own games. A few days before I was about to leave my safe, secure, paying job I dropped Browny a message, that was along the lines of:

“G’day mate! Hope I haven’t interrupted you drinking Fosters around the barbie. How do you feel about making a mobile game, ripper? You do the art, I code, we both design. As a pommie you’ll be wanting to explore Aus so you can just pitch in when you’re free”

The most interesting and difficult part of Mouse Bounce to develop has been infinite, randomly generated levels.

A level is a combination of:
– Platforms
– Pickups
– Enemies

The main goal of level generation is to make something that is different every play through, fun and more difficult as the player progresses. Easy, right? So, starting at the beginning, Platforms! Hopefully, as you’ve noticed, there are two levels of platforms, one at the front that the player can jump on and one at the back that he can’t. They are switched around with a double tap to make finding a path more fun and challenging.

Wearing the same clothes for years may work for cartoons but not this mouse. As probably the worlds only mouse fashionista there is a huge wardrobe of costumes to choose from. Take for instance the samurai outfit with cheese knife thrown in for good measure.

Mouse Bounce is a fun 2.5D mobile game coming to iOS and Android.

You take control of a cheddar thieving rodent manoeuvring him up a dangerous never ending level filled with tasty cheese to steal and pesky cat cops to stop you.

Hey there!
I’m Dave Ward, a game developer from Yorkshire, U.K. As this is the first blog post I’m giving a bit of background to Cat Trap Studios talking about how it came to be.
My first taste of game development came in the form of Castle Invasion, a side project throughout the third year of University. At the time, PlayStation Mobile has just launched and not that long before it the PS Vita. I found it the coolest thing in the world (even cooler than those parrots that talk back to you) to be able to develop for a PlayStation device and dove straight in to make something of my own.