Mouse P.I. for Hire takes place in a city called Mouseburg in the 1930s, after a war in the Old World over an event called The Quite Big Affair. The city mimics a 1930s styled New York, with cheese prohibitions, film industries, and city corruption. Mouseburg is not shy of crime rates, as there are many criminal operations involved, such as shrew violence, organized crime, and “cheeselegging.” While cheese can be eaten as normal, it can also be consumed in a melted state like liquor, and blue cheese and powdered cheese is considered to be the same as drugs. The city is home of rats, mice, and shrews, with the later being seen as a lesser kind of rodent, due to their short nature. They used to have their own town called Shrewthicket, but rising tensions led to it being destroyed.
Characters
Mouse: P.I. for Hire is centered around a series of cases being investigated by Jack Pepper (voiced by Troy Baker)[5], an anthropomorphic, hardboiled mouse detective, a former war hero and police officer. His office resides next to a bar called “Little & Big,” owned by John Brown, a hard-working shrew who used to live in Shrewthicket before it was destroyed. Also residing nearby is Tammy Tumbler, a young mouse mechanic who usually helps Jack upgrade his weapons. Jack has always looked after Tammy ever since he arrested her step-father during his cop years when she was 13. Due to Jack’s gambling, he has to work on small and cheap cases, usually depending on journalist Wanda Fuller for any intel and leads.
Jack has a war brother named Steve Bandel, who has turned into a stage magician after the war. Jack has some anger against Steve, as he has caught Steve in some illegal activity years ago during his cop years. However, Jack looked the other way, which was one of the reasons why Jack left the force. A mouse actress named Betty Lynch, Steve’s former stage assistant, died not too long ago, and the police ruled out foul play. Vivian McCarthy, mouse actress and a friend of Betty, believes someone was involved in her death. There’s also a mayoral election coming up, and Jack and Steve’s former commander-now politician Cornelius Stilton is running against Milford Soyer, leader of a new and rising political party called the Big Mouse Party, which is also questioned to be involved in Jack's recent cases. Cornelius himself is concerned about a recent string of shrew disappearances.
The game’s campaign covers three cases that unlock as the story progress. While one case can contain clues that could lead to locations for other cases, they can be completed in any order.
Journalist Wanda summons Private InvestigatorJack to investigate his former war brother Steve Bandel’s recent disappearance during his latest show as a magician. His investigation leads him to find his Stage Designer who, after Jack stops mayoral candidate and former commander Cornelius’ assassination set up by unknown thugs at the Opera House, tells Jack that Steve mentioned having a lab under his mansion. As a thanks, Cornelius gives Jack Steve’s address as to where his lab might be. Inside, he finds it overran by cultists and notes about sidestepping a project to “The Unknown” after his former show assistant Betty’s resignation and death. It details how he built robot prototypes based on her appearance, which Jack has to defeat one-by-one. Jack then uncovers Steve’s ties to an Old World scientist called “Ze Professor.”
After surviving his assassination attempt, Cornelius goes back to Jack’s office and requests his aid uncovering a recent rumor of missing shrews, the minority populace of Mouseburg, and how the police might be involved. Jack soon uncovers corrupt cops gathering shrews and transporting them underground using old cheeselegging routes. Digging deeper, he finds out that actual cheeseleggers were involved and working with the crooked cops.
In between cases, a female mouse actress named Vivian McCarthy has requested Jack’s services in uncovering Betty’s death, to which she believes foul play was involved by her old studio Tinsels. Investigating the studio she used to work, Jack finds her trailer emptied, but a photo of her next to Milford. Jack believes that the two got close thanks to spokesperson of BMP Miles Curd. Upon questioning Miles, he has Jack suspect he was once close to Betty as well, but is confused why he now thinks little of her.
Jack gathers enough clues to get a lead to Wallop Bay for his other cases, where he witnesses police Captain Slims with Ze Professor ending a conversation, as well as a third big mouse. He concludes that they are working together transporting the shrews, with a trail leading to the wetlands. In there, he overhears a conversation detailing how the crooked cops planning to kill the cheeseleggers due to their usefulness running out. Jack finds the Cheeselegger Boss dying, and he confesses to helping the cops and Ze Scientist with promises for houses based on the cleared out homes where the shrews lived, from Mouseburg to the Depths. He also finds a clue that mentions a meeting at a place called the Secret Show.
After telling Vivian his current leads for Betty’s case, Jack goes to investigate Curd’s own home in Curtsville, where he finds another mention of a meeting at the Secret Show, as well as Curd’s illegitimate half-shrew daughter Millie. Before returning to his office, he receives a call that reports Miles Curd was killed during the opening performance of the Secret Show. He takes Millie to his office and finds Vivian nowhere to be seen. Once Curd that the Secret Show is a circus, he heads there to find that Miles died when an elephant fell off of a trapeze wire and crushed him. Upon interrogating the elephant, he learns that the elephant has a usual habit of cheese consumption, but somebody spiked it with blue cheese, causing him to loose his balance. Jack overhears a rumor that a strange dame was also at the performance, but nobody remembers who she was.
While at the Secret Show, Jack finds a secret meeting between some Old World scientists and some crooked cops, holding many shrews in cages. While listening for evidence, the gathering groups are suddenly killed by an assassin who was sent to take Jack out. However, before either could win, the hitman reveals his hourly payment is up and leaves, not without letting it slip that his bookkeeper has a thing for Westerns. The only thing Jack could take of the remains of the gathered group was a paper slip with a familiar symbol.
One of the rescued shrews gives Jack a ticket to a Steamboat they pocketed from one of the crooked cops. Talking with Cornelius, he reveals that he knows of the event that is supposed to go on in the boat, but he usually declines going to protect his public image, usually sending a representative instead. He agrees to let Jack be his representative so he can get in and shop the one in charge of the shrew trafficking. On the boat, he finds Captain Slims conversing with some BMP thugs. He takes a picture for evidence, but forgets the flash and brings attention to himself. Upon Captain Slims recognizing him and realizing the mess he’ll have to clean up, he attacks Jack with a biplane, but ends up defeated and crashes into the boat, sinking it and ending the crooked cop’s operations.
Jack investigates the Western Backlot to find the Bookkeeper, who is also working for a new mob that took over the power vacuum when Wanda and Jack took out the old one years ago. The bookkeeper flees when questioned about Betty Lynch, but ends up getting killed when a piano drops on his head. Jack searches through his belongings, finding a piece of a note claiming how an uptight lady ended their Curd “headache,” and the bookkeeper’s ledger that states “One Dead Actress” by MouseTrap Inc was ordered months ago.
Jack goes back to his office to find Vivian awaiting his news. He reveals that Curd was not the culprit, rather it was the mob who killed Betty. He also reveals how he figured out that Vivian killed Curt when Jack told her he was his current primary suspect, before realizing he was just a social fling and nothing more. Before Jack could arrest Vivian, she gave him the slip and fled. Jack was able to track Vivian down back to the studio, where she was with mobster Reginald Shingler. After defeating Reginald in a fist-fight, he chases Vivian, who once again gave him the slip, fleeing the country, but not before leaving behind a letter stating that she learned that MouseTrap Inc. was an alias for the Big Mouse Party. Jack concludes that Betty was a socialite who thought she could play all sides, but ended up acquiring sensitive information and innocently told it one too many people, and eventually the mob was called in.
Meanwhile, the trail of Ze Scientists led him deeper through the Quagmire, where he sees a sign for the Curdsville Nuthouse, which had the same symbol he saw earlier. Going inside, he gets exposed to a gas that makes him hallucinate Millie that guides him through the facility. Inside, he discovered the missing shrews being held captive, as well as a talking brain named Jar-Head that orders Jack to “fuel” him with ink, the blood of the rodents. After doing so with the crooks that roamed the facility, Jack ends up lucid and discovers a portal to the Unknown, a chaotic dream-like dimension. Deep inside, he finds Steve, who made himself disappear to hide from the mob and Ze Scientists. Steve reveals he had been searching for the Unknown after the war, and through Betty’s connections teamed up with Ze Scientists after learning they shared the same goals. Upon realizing ink was needed for the portal, Ze Professor suggested shrews, and initially agreed with this, hiring cultist to help. However, he soon realized the brutality the shrews faced for his plans and, unable to turn from Ze Scientists, decided to hide in the Unknown. When Jack reveals Ze Scientists are trying to reopen the portal, he begs Jack to stop them and destroy Ze Professor’s u-boat. Jack agrees and, with Steve wanting to stay in the Unknown, part ways.
After giving his report to Wanda, she’s disappointed that the case ended in an anticlimax, but realizes where the u-boat was due to a small article she wrote a while ago. With the help of Tammy, Jack’s neighboring mechanic, Jack is able to go underwater and confront Ze Professor head on in his submarine. After defeating Ze Professor and before the submarine self-destructs, Jack grabs a piece of evidence stating that the BMP brought the scientists from the Old World themselves. Back at the office, Jack also gets intel that the third big mouse he saw back in the bay was “Pierogi Jake,” once a low-life crook turned to right-hand man of the BMP.
With all the clues laid out, Jack confirms that the Big Mouse Party was involved in all three cases. They wanted to get rid of the shrews and take their homes and land for free housing, so they payed the cops to arrest and hired the old cheeseleggers to transport them. They then allowed Steve and Ze Scientists to do what they want with the captured shrews, effectively getting rid of them. Once Betty innocently heard parts of the plan and spread it as party gossip, the BMP soon heard and payed the mob to silence her and have the crooked cops cover it up. While Jack planned to release his evidence after sleeping, he is awoken by his next-door bartending neighbor John to find his office in flames. The whole block was set ablaze, and many, including Wanda, Millie and Tammy, fled. The BMP has sent their accomplices to gather and destroy the evidence, which Jack stashed in John’s bar. However, upon arriving, they found the evidence long gone, and are forced to take an alternate exit due to the increasing fire. In the sewers, Jack comes face-to-face once again with the hitman, and properly defeats him. Wanda greets him with his car at the sewer exit.
At Wanda’s, Jack goes into a drunken spiral following the loss of his office and evidence, but is then greeted by Steve from the Unknown through a mirror. He tells Jack that he hid tape recordings of the BMP’s conversations in his manor just in case, and lets Jack go to retrieve them. After navigating through the manor and remaining cultist, who Steve wasn’t able to shake off when he started to get cold feet, Jack found the tape and agreed to meet with Wanda at the World’s fair, where the BMP was planning to make a speech for the event. Wanda suggests giving the tape to her editor-in-chief, but Jack soon learns that the editor is also affiliated with BMP. Running out of options, Wanda remembers a new vision and sound transmission device being shown off at the fair, and tells Jack to use it instead to expose them in the spot. Upon using the recording, it reveals not only Milford and Captain Slims’s plot and involvement to remove the shrews, but also to steal Steve’s fortune and assassinate Cornelius, as Miles Curt feared him as an electoral candidate against Milford.
Exposed, Milford runs away in the BMP blimp. Before Jack could catch him in the elevator, Milford warns him that they captured the one closest to his heart. Believing it to be Tammy, Jack engages in a rageful pursuit. In the blimp, Milford leads him to a skywalk and breaks the bridge with Jack on. However, Tammy rescues him in her own biplane and reveals that it is John who they kidnapped, as John’s short height makes him literally close to Jack’s heart. Still determined to save him, Jack returns to the blimp and confronts Jake and Milford for a final showdown. During the fight, news broadcasts highlight the BMP’s corruption, angering Milford. Eventually, Jack is killed and Milford gets tossed out of his podium, allowing Jack to deliver the finishing blow. He is then able to rescue John, and they locate an evacuation plane. They take a beaten-up Milford with them and escape.
With all cases wrapped up, Tammy and John safe, and Cornelius rising in the polls for mayor, Jack considers calling it a day before remembering that his work is never done.
Gameplay
Gameplay includes both investigative sections where Jack has to find clues and solve puzzles and combat sections where he engages in shootouts wielding a variety of guns, melee weapons, and cartoon gadgets.[6][7][8][9]
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