Mouse: P.I. for Hire Is a 1930s Cartoon With Guns, Jazz, and a Body Count

A Noir Drawn Frame by Frame

Most retro-styled shooters settle for pixel art and call it a day. Fumi Games went a different direction entirely — every frame of Mouse: P.I. for Hire is hand-drawn in the rubber hose animation style of 1930s cartoons, the kind where limbs are noodles and eyes are pie-cut circles. It looks like a lost Fleischer Brothers short, except the protagonist carries a Tommy gun and the missing persons case he's working involves murder.

You play as Jack Pepper (voiced by Troy Baker), a war veteran turned private investigator navigating the city of Mouseberg. What starts as a routine disappearance spirals into corruption, kidnapping, and a body count. The noir setup is familiar, but the presentation isn't — and that tension between hardboiled detective fiction and cartoon absurdity is what makes the whole thing click.

More Than a Pretty Face

Strip away the visual style and there's still a meaty shooter underneath. Jack's movement kit reads like a boomer shooter wish list: sliding, dashing, double-jumping, wall-running, and a multi-purpose tail that doubles as a grappling hook, lockpick, and improvised helicopter. The game wants you moving constantly — Jack goes down in just a few hits, so standing still is a death sentence.

The arsenal matches the energy. Eleven conventional weapons range from the Micer revolver to the James Gun Tommy gun, each with alternate fire modes. Then there are the experimental ones: a freeze ray, a paint-stripper chemical weapon, fire-damage chainsaws, and something called the Loose Cannon that probably does exactly what it sounds like. Spinach boosts your punching power. Coffee gives you literal finger guns. It's the kind of design that knows exactly how silly it is and commits fully.

Across 20-plus levels — film studios, opera houses, poisonous swamps, underground sewers — the layout leans non-linear, encouraging exploration over corridor-running. Fumi Games estimates 12 to 20 hours of gameplay, which is substantial for a $30 indie shooter.

Jazz, Vinyl, and Caravan Palace

The soundtrack might be the most ambitious part. Composer Patryk Scelina recorded live big band sessions in Georgia and Poland, running the audio through vintage filters to match the visual era. The result sounds like it was pulled from a 1930s radio broadcast — which is exactly the point.

Then there's the Caravan Palace collaboration. The Parisian electro-swing band recorded an exclusive track called "Good Mouse" for the game, complete with an animated music video in the game's rubber hose style. It's the kind of crossover that signals confidence — Fumi Games isn't treating this as a niche curiosity, they're swinging for something bigger. Mondo is pressing the soundtrack on limited-edition vinyl, because of course they are.

A Long Road to Mouseberg

This hasn't been a smooth ride to release. Originally announced as simply "Mouse" in 2023, the game picked up the P.I. for Hire subtitle in August 2024 alongside a proper gameplay reveal. It was initially targeting 2025, slipped to March 2026, then finally locked in April 16. For a small Warsaw-based indie studio, the extended development signals care rather than trouble — especially given the hand-drawn art pipeline, which doesn't exactly scale efficiently.

Mouse: P.I. for Hire launches April 16 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC, with last-gen ports coming later. At $30, the biggest risk isn't the price — it's whether the visual style carries a 15-hour game or becomes wallpaper after the first hour. The weapon variety and movement depth suggest Fumi Games has thought about that problem. Whether they've solved it is something we'll find out in two weeks.