Mouse Work is a fun-looking Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive that Shovel Knight Dig developer Nitrome began work on in January, just four months ago, following Nintendo’s first Switch 2 trailer.
Remember in that trailer how we got a glimpse of a Joy-Con 2 controller zooming along a flat surface? This prompted whispers that Switch 2 would include mouse controls – which, of course, we now know that it does! And it was this hunch that prompted Nitrome to begin work.
“The truth is that this project has been developed very rapidly after assuming the mouse mode rumour was true from the January Direct,” Nitrome founder Mat Annal told Eurogamer, following the launch of Mouse Work’s first trailer – which has already been positively compared to Switch 1 launch title SnipperClips.
Like SnipperClips, Mouse Work is an indie game from a British studio with experience in Flash development – and it’s this background which has enabled Nitrome to make such fast progress, Annal continued.
“We have a background in making games in one month back in the browser days so we are used to working fast,” Annal told me, adding that the team was aiming to get Mouse Work ready as soon as possible for the Switch 2’s launch window.
Mouse Work sees one to four players completing quick mini-games using mouse controls, with more than a dozen shown in the game’s reveal trailer, above. There’s a distinctive visual style to the project, too, reminiscent of Nintendo’s own mini-game compilation, WarioWare. It’s definitely one to keep an eye on.
Nitrome won praise for its work on Shovel Knight Dig, as well as other past titles such as Gunbrick:Reloaded and Bomb Chicken. For more from Annal, Eurogamer previously chatted with Nitrome’s founder for a look at why the spirit of Flash gaming should never die.