Goal and setup
Be the final mouse that has not been captured. Two to four mice begin together at Start, with no cheese. There are 52 cheese pieces in the shared supply and 23 components to assemble. The selected starting player takes the first turn; seats then take turns in order, skipping captured mice. Multiple mice may share a space.
The number of seats selected at the beginning determines Build-space eligibility for the entire match, including after captures.
An ordinary turn
Roll one six-sided die and move forward that many spaces. Resolve the space where you finish. Movement through a space does not activate it.
| Space | Result |
|---|---|
| Build 2 | Build only in a game that began with 2 mice. |
| Build 2–3 | Build only in a game that began with 2 or 3 mice. |
| Build 2–3–4 | Build in any supported game. |
| Eligible Build before the loop | Install the next component and receive one cheese from the supply, if available. |
| Either Build in the loop | Install the next two components, or the one remaining component; receive one supply cheese per installed component, if available. |
| Take cheese | Receive the displayed quantity from the supply. If there is not enough, collect the shortfall from the richest eligible rival or rivals. |
| Take 3 from the richest rival | Collect up to three from the richest rival or tied richest rivals, even when supply cheese remains. |
| Lose cheese | Return the displayed quantity to the supply, or all your cheese if you have less. |
| Go back / move ahead / go to a named space | Make that second move, then end your turn. Do not apply the destination's effect or collect destination cheese. |
| Dog Bone | End your turn with no effect. |
| Safe | End your turn. Another player cannot select this mouse for a cheese-paid move while it stays here. |
| Cheese Wheel | Collect two cheese, using the same supply/empty-supply rules as a Take space. This is also the cage's capture space. |
| Turn Crank | Once the machine is complete, enter the trap phase described below. Before completion, end your turn. |
Ineligible Build spaces and Build spaces after completion have no effect. Building always follows the numbered order; players cannot choose a different component.
Cheese and tied rivals
When an effect takes cheese from the richest rival, compare the cheese of the other uncaptured mice. If rivals tie for the highest amount, the collecting player may take the permitted amount from one or divide it among those tied rivals. The total taken from rivals is capped at the amount requested and at the richest rival's cheese count when that collection begins. For example, if three cheese are requested and two rivals are tied with two each, at most two can be collected, from one or divided between them. The game offers the legal choices; it never creates extra cheese.
If the supply has some cheese but less than the requested amount, take that available cheese and collect the shortfall from the richest eligible rival or rivals. Build rewards never take cheese from rivals. These supply-shortage interpretations are identified below.
The loop
After the approach path, movement enters the repeating six-space loop:
Safe → Build 2–3–4 → Turn Crank → Build 2–3–4 → Take 2 → Cheese Wheel → Safe.
The loop is permanent: subsequent forward movement continues around those six spaces. Both loop Build spaces install up to two components. The machine remains shared by everyone.
Setting a trap
The machine must contain all 23 components. Your mouse must have landed on Turn Crank on its ordinary turn. Only opposing mice on Cheese Wheel can be captured.
During that trap phase you may:
- Spend one cheese to move a rival. Return the cheese to the supply, select an uncaptured opposing mouse that is not on Safe, roll a die, and move that mouse forward by the result. Its destination does not activate a board effect in this digital implementation.
- Repeat with the same eligible rival or other eligible rivals while you have cheese. A mouse moved onto Safe becomes protected from further selection while there. You may also spend cheese to add more rivals to Cheese Wheel when another rival is already there.
- Turn the crank when at least one opponent is on Cheese Wheel, or finish the turn without operating it. A crank attempt is not legal without a target, before construction is complete, or outside this trap phase.
Each legal crank turn has an independent 20% chance of mechanical failure (80% success). On failure, the cage sticks: nobody is captured, all mice keep their cheese and remain on Cheese Wheel, and the turn ends. On success, every opponent on Cheese Wheel is captured together and all their cheese goes to the triggering player. Replays and reloads preserve the already-decided result. Captured mice cannot move or take further turns. If one uncaptured mouse remains, that mouse wins and gameplay ends.
The construction plan
The digital machine uses these 23 numbered steps. The first ball is loaded with the bucket at step 10; the second ball is its own step 17.
| No. | Component | No. | Component |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Base A | 13 | Plumbing |
| 2 | Gear support | 14 | Helping hand |
| 3 | Gear 3 | 15 | Thing-a-ma-jig |
| 4 | Crank | 16 | Bathtub |
| 5 | Gear 5 | 17 | Second metal marble |
| 6 | Stop sign and rubber band | 18 | Diving board |
| 7 | Lamppost | 19 | Diver |
| 8 | Shoe | 20 | Cage Base C |
| 9 | Stairway | 21 | Washtub |
| 10 | Bucket with first metal marble | 22 | Cage post |
| 11 | Base B | 23 | Cage |
| 12 | Rain gutter |
The crank moves the gears and stop-sign mechanism. The shoe tips the bucket; its ball descends the stairs and gutter and trips the helping hand. The released second ball passes the upper assembly and bathtub, lands on the diving board, and launches the diver into the washtub. That releases the cage over Cheese Wheel.
Exact path mapping
The original board's ordered effects are retained in a newly drawn layout. The indexes below are internal space identifiers: Start is 0 and the repeating loop is 44–49. B2, B23, and B234 mean Build spaces eligible for those initial player counts.
| Index | Effect | Index | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Start | 25 | B2 |
| 1 | B2 | 26 | B234 |
| 2 | Take 2 | 27 | Go to Dog Bone (21) |
| 3 | B234 | 28 | B234 |
| 4 | B2 | 29 | B23 |
| 5 | Go back 2 | 30 | Go to Cheese Wheel (49), without collecting cheese |
| 6 | B234 | 31 | B2 |
| 7 | Take 1 | 32 | B234 |
| 8 | B234 | 33 | Go back 4 |
| 9 | B23 | 34 | B2 |
| 10 | Move ahead 4 | 35 | B234 |
| 11 | B234 | 36 | B23 |
| 12 | B2 | 37 | Take 3 from richest rival |
| 13 | Go to Start | 38 | B234 |
| 14 | B234 | 39 | Lose 3 |
| 15 | Go back 6 | 40 | B234 |
| 16 | B2 | 41 | B23 |
| 17 | B234 | 42 | Go back 6 |
| 18 | B23 | 43 | B2 |
| 19 | B2 | 44 | Safe: loop begins |
| 20 | B234 | 45 | B234: install up to 2 |
| 21 | Dog Bone | 46 | Turn Crank |
| 22 | B234 | 47 | B234: install up to 2 |
| 23 | B2 | 48 | Take 2 |
| 24 | Lose 2 | 49 | Cheese Wheel: take 2 |
Digital adaptations and clarified edge cases
These choices make the browser implementation precise and are not claims about additional printed 2004 rules.
- Custom mechanism: 20% failure per legal crank; uncaught mice stay on Cheese Wheel. Unlike the physical booklet’s miss rule, they are not moved to Safe.
- Original drawing: board geometry, characters, interfaces, and machine artwork are newly drawn. Space order and effects follow the reference.
- Cheese-paid opponent movement: only position changes; no Build, collection, loss, redirect, or extra trap phase is triggered by that move. The booklet does not explicitly resolve those destination effects.
- Final loop build: if only one component remains, install one and award one available cheese. The booklet describes two parts and two cheese without separately addressing this final single-component case.
- Supply shortages: a partly depleted supply pays what remains, then the remaining Take/Wheel entitlement uses the empty-supply rival rule. The booklet explicitly covers an empty supply but does not separately explain a partly depleted one. Build cheese is available only from the supply. No reward invents cheese.
- Initial player count: Build eligibility stays tied to the game's original seat count after captures.
- Animation has no authority: a game action is committed once. Replay, skip, reduced motion, refresh, and playground animation never award cheese, capture another mouse, or advance another turn.
- Online seats: room codes locate a match and private saved tokens recover seats. A host may replace an absent human under the documented online procedure. This is a connectivity provision, not a board-game rule.
Play features
Solo, mixed human/computer play, and same-device play share the same rules. Computer difficulty changes legal strategic choices, not dice probabilities. Online rooms use server decisions for gameplay. Local matches save automatically when browser storage is available.
Choose Overview for the whole board, Trap close-up for the mechanism, Movement path for the approach, or Zoom to mouse to enlarge the current player’s neighborhood. Zoom follows the active mouse as turns change. Inspect a space opens readable instructions for any numbered space.
Use the separate Trap Playground to inspect or run the whole machine without affecting a match. Normal/faster playback, Replay Last Trap, Skip Animation, and Reduced Motion change presentation only. Sound begins after interaction; sound and music preferences can be adjusted independently.