Bad Cheese attracts attention with its disgusting shell. Here, familiar cartoon characters are maximally disfigured and frighten the main character in every possible way. It's a pity that the gameplay is not as well thought out!
Mouse House
The game is inspired by classic Disney characters from the era of Steamboat Willie – a 1928 short black and white cartoon. However, in Bad Cheese, they are disfigured almost beyond recognition. Their bodies are swollen and seemingly melted, they stretch out horribly, are covered in holes, and are armed with sharp teeth. Only the distorted shells remain of the beloved characters from childhood.
Among the monsters lives the main character – a young and obese version of Mickey Mouse. One day, his mother leaves for a few days, leaving notes asking him to take care of household chores. The hero does this until his father returns.
From this moment on, hell begins — the father turns out to be an avid alcoholic and tyrant. He uses any excuse to mock his son. In these conditions, the main character has to survive, eat away stress, and fight hallucinations.
Supermouse to the Rescue
The basis of the gameplay consists of completing the tasks left by the mother. The main character must grab the appropriate tools and bleakly perform routine household tasks: cleaning, washing, cooking, and so on. The situation is complicated by the not-so-convenient controls, which make every movement feel painfully slow.
It is worth noting that the design of the tools themselves is excellent. Cleaning boots, washing socks, or cooking potatoes — each task is associated with a massive machine that seems to function on a mixture of technology and magic.
For the sake of role-playing, you can occupy yourself with searching for collectible items. Chips and sausages are reliably hidden in corners and drawers, which the protagonist will devour with loud smacking. For the rarest collectible items, you will have to run and jump a lot. However, the platforming sections in the game are so uncomfortable that there is no desire to do this.
After the father returns, you need to do everything possible to avoid his anger. You'll have to look for pills so that the tyrant doesn't lose his temper. Or sneak into the toilet in the middle of the night as inconspicuously as possible. If you fail, the belt will definitely find its target.
The most creepy and realistic moment is when the father brings friends to visit. The son, who does not want to sleep, decides to distract himself by playing a console. The player needs not only to play the game, but also to listen to any rustling – the guests can rudely break in at any moment and complain to the father.
Periodically, the game forces you to participate in combat sections. They boil down to clicking on opponents until they stop twitching. The situation is complicated by moments when there are many opponents and they surround you from all sides, and their attacks block the screen.
A thick and enveloping darkness reigns in most rooms, which makes you strain your eyesight – adjusting the gamma does not help the situation much. At a certain point, my head even started spinning from the tension — I had to interrupt the game session.
There were also problems with seemingly the most mundane actions. Approximately after every third screenshot, which is critical for the review, the game consistently crashed — the technical condition of games in 2025 is surprising! But the most offensive thing is that the progress rolled back to the very beginning of the level, which meant that all the routine actions had to be done again.
Diagnosis
It is striking how Bad Cheese manages to be an excellent and terrible game at the same time. The gamer is greeted by a magnificent visual style in its grotesqueness, and it is simply interesting to walk around the mouse house, as well as to examine the cartoon mechanisms and interior items.
The developer skillfully depicted the suffering of a child from a dysfunctional family. His personal space is violated, he is ridiculed, and attempts to do his own thing lead to physical punishment. The consequences for the psyche that such an attitude leads to are also shown without embellishment. This effect is complemented by the magnificent acting of the voice actors.
But all the positive aspects are greatly spoiled by the gameplay. There is no desire to interact with the numerous game mechanics and bother yourself with searching for collectible items – unless they are lying right under your nose. It's good that the game takes an average of two hours to complete, so the player's nerves are not particularly damaged.
Pro:
- Visual style
- Creativity of the environment
- Work of voice actors
- Plot
Contra:
- Gameplay
