Transformice

"...which are two of the finest things in life. Cheese... and an anvil."
—Strong Bad

Transformice is a Flash-based multiplayer game, featuring a mischief[1] of mice trying to get as many pieces of cheese back to the hole as possible on various deathtrap-laden maps. Among the mice is a Shaman, who can conjure up a variety of items to help his disciples in their task. Sometimes, the game will add a bit of competition by selecting two Shamans and pitting them against each other in a fight over who can get more mice to the hole of their color.

Because getting in each other's way is of course what this game is all about. Most maps are completely trivial and could easily be navigated successfully with zero casualties if it weren't for the fact that the mice tend to rush recklessly forward at the earliest opportunity. There are two reasons for this. The first reason lies in the scoring system. The player with the highest score gets to be Shaman in the next round, then their score is reset and they start over. Players score points by bringing cheese to the hole, and the more people they are quicker than, the more points they get. The second reason is that getting cheese first unlocks various titles. The consequences of this arrangement are apparent.

Seeing as this is a browser game that anyone can play at any time, it offers a unique insight into the Internet's collective consciousness. The game currently runs on the following servers:

Tropes used in Transformice include:
  • Artifact Title: The "transform" part of the name comes from an early version where the mice could transform into shaman items.
    • Version 0.154 re-introduced the mouse transformation in special maps.
  • Artificial Stupidity: Completely averted, due to all the mice being controlled by other players. Not that you could tell just by watching, mind you.
  • Ambidextrous Sprite: Monocles, ribbons, eyepatches etc. switch from side to side depending on which way the mouse is facing.
  • Balloonacy: Balloons can be used to lift items and mice.
  • Blatant Item Placement: Sometimes a map is nothing more than an empty room with a piece of cheese in it. Results may vary.
  • Blatant Lies: Occasionally when one of the shamans say 'peace' in a shaman battle map, they're plotting the downfall of the other one.
  • Blackout Basement: Nightmare "Nighttime Mode" maps.
  • Bottomless Pit
  • Caramelldansen Vid: Danced in the game itself!
  • Cartoon Bomb: Possibly the only threat that cannot be directly brought on by Shamans.
  • Cartoon Cheese
  • Chained Heat: Several levels revolve around pairing off mice and tethering them to each other, forcing them to work together to survive and sometimes to reach otherwise unreachable cheese. Some of them succeed.
  • Cosmetic Award: Fulfilling certain criteria unlocks various titles, such as "Pirate Mouse", "Mouse On Strike", "Accomplished Shaman" or "Nice Mouse". Players can use any title they've already unlocked. You can also buy various accessories such as hats with cheese in the shop.
  • Critical Encumbrance Failure: Caused by chocolate ground. Without cheese, you can run across a bit slower than normal. With cheese, you aren't going anywhere.
  • Dronejam: Some levels cause the mice to physically interact, pushing each other around. These maps are inevitably built around bottomless pits and/or long narrow passages that need to be traversed both ways and through which mice can only pass single-file.
    • Cranium Ride often results as a convenient way to traverse said pits, much to the frustration of the mice being ridden.
  • Dummied Out: There was a version with portals (later said to be a 'test of a piece of code'), which were removed after a massive fan outcry. Later versions re-included them in a specific couple of levels.
    • There also was a super-spirit at one point, but it was removed after a few days for being massively overpowered.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Through dark shaman troll magic and abuse of Transformice physics, shamans are able to create a flying aberration formed of anvil tentacles; the aforementioned Anvil God. In one of the maps, you must face a resident Anvil God to get the cheese.
  • Escort Mission: The entire premise of the game. Interestingly, all the escortees are controlled by other players, proving that real intelligence performs no better in these than artificial one.
  • Explosion Propulsion: It is possible to use bomb explosions to propel the mouse to the exit faster than would be possible by running, but pulling this off on purpose is tricky.
    • There's also Spirit, an invokable-by-shaman explosion. There is at least one level built around it.
    • Two levels are built around the shaman creating balls that explode after a few seconds, rather than the usual kind.
  • Face Palm: One of the newer emoticons is that.
  • Fan Nickname: "Fan God" (or sometimes "Plank God" or "Windmill God") for the aforementioned spinning board.
  • Floating Platforms
  • Frictionless Ice: Annoyingly, ice walls can't be walljumped off of, which is especially deadly when jumping from one thin ice spike to another.
  • Game Breaking Bug: The game's physics engine can, on occasion, sabotage a Shaman's bridge-building efforts simply because of the odd ways in which the various pieces interact with each other. Fortunately, because it only affects one stage at a time, it can be very entertaining to watch.
    • When two shamans each build an item at the same time, the game can occasionally get their properties mixed up, resulting in the items being physically connected to each other despite being in two different parts of the room. Then they start interacting with the environment. "LOL PHYSICS" indeed.
      • The same thing used to happen with snowballs.
  • Gimmick Level: There's the occasional upside-down level. This includes the mice's names and speech bubbles.
  • Good Bad Bugs: The walljump and airjump. A good portion of the user made levels require people to use these in order to win.
  • Gravity Screw: There's a level in which the gravity switches after a few seconds. Naturally, it consists of a flat floor, has no roof or platforms of any kind, and the sky kills you.
  • Griefing: If a Shaman is a dick, there is not much the other mice can do about it. It is also possible on certain maps to screw over other players.
    • Imagine if the other players had a deliberate means of knocking other players and shamans off precarious platforms and messing up careful structural design, including pushing invisible objects. Well, thanks to the likely seasonal addition of snowballs, they did, but they have been removed.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: Some of the titles. "The Cheesen One," anyone?
  • It Amused Me: It might as well be named Trolling: The Game.
  • Jump Physics: Walljumping and airjumping abounds. Both are technically bugs, though.
  • Level Editor
  • Luck-Based Mission: Your success in most of the pusher maps depends entirely on where you spawn in the mouse pile. Most levels are also impossible to finish if you happen to get a shaman who doesn't know what to do.
    • Also, the Fan God maps. The shaman is supposed to stop the fan from moving, but if the shaman dies while doing so/doesn't know what to do/is AFK or if you want to be first, you just have to run under it and pray that it won't fling you off the screen.
    • Map 99, if you want first.
    • In map 41, you start in a special car that the Shaman is supposed to push to the cheese and back. You better hope you glitch out of the box, or no cheese for you ^_^
  • Nice Hat: Quite a few. A Soviet-looking Commissar Cap among them.
  • Nintendo Hard: Boot Camp mode.
  • Non-Indicative Name: The mice actually don't transform... until version 0.154, which introduced a couple of special maps where mice do transform.
  • No Plot, No Problem: Mice want cheese. That's all there is to it.
  • Obvious Trap: It doesn't matter how obvious, someone will run straight into it.
  • Ocular Gushers: The "/cry" command.
  • Pink Shaman Teal Shaman
  • Pit Trap: How about a fake floor surrounded by normal, visually indistinguishable floor? Located on a map that looks identical to another map, which has a normal solid floor throughout?
    • How about a level with four chunks of cheese, three of which have under them aforementioned invisible pits? How about having these pits distributed randomly each time the level starts? Yeah...
  • Randomly Drops: The Christmas presents in the 2011 Christmas event have a 10% chance of giving you an item, 40% chance of giving you a piece of cheese, and 50% chance of giving you nothing whatsoever.
  • Red Herring: Sometimes the cheese is a lie.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: The mice.
  • Running Gag: There are several maps that look to be a straight run to the cheese with no visible obstacles.
  • Sequence Breaking: The game world actually extends beyond the edges of the screen, which can be used to bypass some obstacles on certain maps.
  • Shout-Out: "No cheese for you!"
  • Slash Command
  • Spring Jump: The shaman can summon a trampoline on most maps. There's also a map that is essentially an enclosed box with walls that bounce mice up to warp speed.
    • Then there's lava, which will make you fly off the screen unless you hold the jump button when jumping on it.
  • Temporary Platform: Some normal ones, and a made-of-ice variation.
  • Timed Mission: You get 2 minutes per level, and if the shaman(s) die or there are only two mice left in the game, the clock is reset to 20 seconds.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Some levels are blatant deathtraps, yet inevitably at least half the mice rush blindly towards their doom anyway.
  • Trial and Error Gameplay
  • Victory Pose: The /dance command, which makes your mouse do a little dance, can be used for this effect.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: The whole idea behind the shaman is to help other players. In theory. In practice, however...
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: And how. Note, however, that any and all cruelty is done upon real players.
  • Wide Open Sandbox: You have a map layout, the mice, the cheese, and the mousehole. Everything else is up to you.
  • Wiki Rule: Didn't even take that long.
  • Wreaking Havok: It uses the Box2D engine.
  • X Meets Y: Observing the usual course of a game, one would surmise that this is a multiplayer version of Lemmings.)
  1. ↑ Yes, that is the right term.
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