What Is the Cheese Effect in MouseHunt?

Function

• Any baited cheese that fails to attract mice to its trap risks going stale. The Cheese Effect rating influences how long the cheese remains fresh before turning stale. Once stale, baited cheese won't attract mice. You must then replace the cheese, which saps your inventory or costs you an extra gold expenditure.

Traps

• All "MouseHunt" traps consist of two main components: a base and a weapon. The game offers dozens of base options, ranging from a basic wooden base to such materials as stone, gingerbread or even bacon. Weapons include such mechanisms as spikes, pneumatic tubes, shrink rays and robots. The base and the weapon each possesses its own statistics that determine how effective it is at attracting and capturing mice. You can also apply a variety of charms, such as amplifier charms and attraction charms, to improve a trap's performance.

Cheeses

• Cheeses serve as your best bait when attracting mice. The game includes common cheeses such as cheddar, marble, Swiss, gouda and brie, plus rare cheeses that must be obtained from other players, awarded for donating to the game's designers or created through the use of in-game potions.

Cheese Effect

• A trap's overall Cheese Effect equals the base's Cheese Effect rating plus the weapon's Cheese Effect rating. The higher the Cheese Effect rating, the less likely the cheese is to turn stale when not attracting mice. The Cheese Effect scale features 13 rankings, ranging from the worst, Uber Stale, to the best, Uber Fresh. Any trap with a Cheese Effect of -6 or less qualifies as Uber Stale. Conversely, any trap with an overall Cheese Effect of +6 or higher registers as Uber Fresh.

Considerations

• The Cheese Effect only influences baited cheese that fails to attract mice -- it does not affect the cheeses in your inventory, so it's not like the clock starts ticking as soon as you purchase a piece of cheese. Avoid using rare or expensive cheeses on traps with low Cheese Effect ratings. However, stale cheeses may still be useful when crafting items, as you can combine stale cheese with other materials in the crafting lab to create new cheeses, advanced traps and other items.