Danger Mouse Saves The Day
- Brand
- Danger Mouse
- Year
- 2015
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Goodboy Digital
Objective
CBBC was relaunching Danger Mouse as the channel's flagship series and needed a way to hold its audience between episodes. The brief called for a game that extended the show's world and tone rather than a generic tie-in, working across mobile, tablet and desktop so it could reach kids wherever they were.
Solution
You play as Danger Mouse, running, jumping and firing gadget blasters across levels styled after the show, and in places you switch to Penfold, whose trick is hiding rather than fighting. Along the way you pick up DM coins and power-ups, duck into timed bonus rooms, and close out each chapter with a boss fight against one of the series' villains. On phones and tablets everything is driven by an on-screen D-pad, tuned after early players got stuck in specific spots — those snags were fixed and a level-skip option was added.
Results
The Danger Mouse Saves the Day HTML5 game was the biggest game launch on the CBBC website in two years. It went on to have a multi-year run rather than a brief tie-in moment: CBBC expanded it five times with new worlds, levels, stories and characters to coincide with new episodes, before it was repackaged as the Danger Mouse Ultimate mobile app.
- 1
The player opens the game directly in a browser on the CBBC games section — no install required, playable on desktop, tablet, or mobile — and lands on a title screen with Danger Mouse and Penfold introducing the game before play begins.
- 2
The player picks a story (a chapter grouping several levels, starting with an introductory chapter and followed by others that can be taken in any order), then opens that story's level map and a short in-character story scene before each level.
- 3
Levels are controlled with a directional pad (or arrow keys) to run and a jump button, with no time limit on exploration.
- 4
The core objective per level is a side-scrolling platformer run: collect scattered coins and bonus items while reaching the exit, jumping across moving platforms, conveyors, and bins, and avoiding traps and surveillance cameras (a double jump is available).
- 5
As Danger Mouse, the player fires an action button to shoot gadget-based ray guns picked up along the way, each with a different effect such as shrinking, freezing, pixelating, or turning enemies to cheese, plus a jetpack.
- 6
On levels played as Penfold, the same action button instead triggers temporary invisibility to enemies and cameras, turning those levels into stealth challenges rather than shooting ones.
- 7
Standard levels are followed by a timed Penfold bonus round in which the player races a visible countdown to grab as many extra items as possible before reaching a door.
- 8
Each level is scored one to three stars based on coins and bonus items collected, can be replayed to improve that score, restarts immediately and without limit after a death, and offers a skip option if the player gets stuck for too long.
- 9
Each story ends with a boss fight against a villain from the show, such as Baron Greenback, Dr. Lou-Cifer, or Isambard Kingkong Brunel, with later chapters adding further villain bosses.
- 10
Progress saves in the browser, letting the player return later from their unlocked levels, and new stories were added over time to tie in with new episodes of the show.
