| Archived This article contains content about something or someone who is no longer directly affiliated with or within Mech Mice. |
| Mech Mice Academy | |
|---|---|
 The logo of Mech Mice Academy. | |
| Information | |
| Released | December 20, 2013 (Alpha) |
| Created By | Hyper Hippo Productions |
| Website? | http://www.mechmice.com/academy/ |
Mech Mice Academy, Academy or MMA was a first person shooter multiplayer version of Mech Mice Tactics, based on the academy in Mech Mice Genesis Strike. It morphed into "Wild Warfare" on May 23, 2014.
Mech Mice Academy was first announced on December 18, 2013 and the alpha test was released on December 20, 2013. It received a very positive and enthusiastic reaction. Mech Mice Academy had two maps, both based in Blackwall Burrow.
Servers[]
There were four main global servers; United States, Europe, Asia and Japan. In each global server, there were six match servers for each game mode. The servers can be seen below:
Classes[]
There were three classes in Mech Mice Academy:
Commander: the Commander is the well-rounded opponent. He has average speed and health, a burst fire blaster, and the ability to zoom his aim for improved accuracy. He is best used for beginners starting off.- Engineer: the Engineer is a class that is best utilized by more experienced players. The Engineer only uses a melee style wrench attack and has low health points, she has to rely on her incredible speed and double-jump abilities to take on the Commanders and Heavy classes.
- Heavy: the Heavy is the slowest of the three. He is able to counter that disadvantage with the largest amount of health points and a massive, fully automatic, 12 shots per second megablaster. There is one catch; the Heavy's blaster isn't as accurate after firing continuously as the Commander's burst fire and can overheat if used for too many consecutive shots. If your blaster overheats, you will have a delay before you can start firing again. He is used by both experienced and new players.
Mech[]
The Mech was a special vehicle available in Capture the Flag only. To use a Mech, walk underneath it and press the 'E' key. While riding a Mech, the player isn't able to carry a flag or jump, as the 'Space' key is used instead for switching between weapons. Mechs are extremely slow, but they compensate this with their extremely powerful weapons and extremely high health base.
The Mech has two weapons; a pair of massive rapid fire suppressors- useful for confronting mice coming by foot- and a pair of Plasma Cannon launchers- the best weapon against other Mechs. Similar to the Heavy, the Mech's primary weapon overheats when it's used for too long non-stop. Its secondary weapon, the Plasma Cannon, requires recharging between shots, although a Mech is able to carry up to three rockets at a time.
Loadout[]
The Loadout is an area where you can customize your classes to your preferred looks and view each class from different angles of the players choice. Currently, the Loadout is only available to registered players and restricted from guests. Players may also view their levels, experience and the amount of points until they reach the next level.
Game Modes[]
Players could compete in the following game modes:
- Skirmish: a free-for-all battle mode. Players must fight each other and score as many points as possible in five minutes. The player with the highest score when the time runs out wins.
- Team Skirmish: same gameplay as Skirmish, but players are now divided in two teams: red and blue. The team with the most total points at the end of the round wins. Customization is disabled in Team Skirmish.
- Capture The Flag: players are divided the same way as Team Skirmish into a maximum of 5 against 5. The main goal of Capture The Flag is to capture the flag from the opponent team's base, and take it to your base while your allies defend your team's flag. Each flag capture gives five points to the player's team who captured it. The team with the highest number of flags captured after 10 minutes wins.
Maps[]
- Skirmish Map: A daytime map filled with Lava Boxes and Purple Cactus. This map is only available for Skirmish and Team Skirmish.
- Flag Map: A large night-time themed map with blue and red torches, depending on which side of the map a player is present. It is filled with high platforms, allowing ambushes and shooting points for various areas of the map. Engineers particularly excel at this map with their quick speed, double jump and agility.
Tactics[]
Explosions[]
Explosions occur often in the Skirmish map when a player shoots at an object that can be exploded (either a Lava Box or Purple Cactus). The explosion results in your player or opponent launching several feet backwards. They were first added to the game on December 24, 2013 for the first Hyper Hippo Productions team meet-up[1], and were implemented by Paul. How far your player is pushed backwards depends on how close you were to the object that exploded, and the closer you are, the more damage you'll take. This can occasionally result in a successful defeat, which you can even earn points by if you're the one who provoked the explosion, and the person near it was close enough to be defeated instantly.
Healing Flowers[]
Healing Flowers are placed in different areas of the Skirmish map. Walking over to one will increase the mouse's health by 3 points, or it may restore full health depending on the type of flower. After a Healing Flower has been used, it will not be able to be used again for a brief period of time, approximately less than a minute.
Speed Boots[]
In Capture the Flag, Speed Boots are placed all over the map. Running over them will double the player's speed for five seconds. They are particularly useful for Engineers who already have the fastest speed of all the classes.
Other[]
- Holes in the ground a commonly places around the Skirmish map, players often fall into them to prevent other players from shooting them.
- Beside a stream on the side of the Skirmish map, there is a rickety bridge that players can use that brings them to a small, disclosed spot that has a high view of most of the area. Players can also keep going up to reach a plateau with two Lava Boxes, with a hole in the ground that allows the player to either fall in or other players to shoot from the hole. To the left of the plateau, there is a small cave-like area which, like the other two areas, allows a high and unobstructed view of the map, though this one has a jumping point where other players can use to reach the area.
- On the other side of the plateau, there is another plateau that contains a Healing Flower. They are used to shoot down at other players, also similar to the other plateau.
- A common tactic used by players in Skirmish is to score a large amount of points, at least ten points ahead of the second player on the score board, and use the Esc key or the stream to hit themselves and not press the Respawn key until the end of the match. It is often used when about a few seconds remains in the game.
- The Esc key exploit was later changed so that when you press the Esc key, it will bring you to the changing class screen, which you could choose to cancel and return to playing, or respawn, giving an opponent an opportunity to beat the player before he hits himself.
Known Glitches[]
- Some users have the game crash and not respond after clicking the login button. This is common among laptops.
- Some users experience the game randomly crash while playing.
- The menu may bug out when you first join a game, resulting in a mutated Heavy/Engineer glitch.
- Players may experience no point gain after knocking out another enemy player.
- A message which appears during gameplay, saying for example "Mouse1 has picked up the blue flag" will sometimes stay for the whole game, and other messages that should appear will not. Only some players experience this.
- Shortly after the Engineer was made a playable class, one could double jump over the stream and reach external areas of the map. Even though this didn't bring any advantages to the player, an update patched the glitch, as going outside the map boundaries now automatically hits you. Even before this update, Commanders could jump atop a Lava Box and shoot at it simultaneously and reach outside of the map and restricted areas as well. The Commander and Engineer exploit is now patched.
- Customization would not save for the home screen in the downloaded version of Mech Mice Academy.
- The Treasure Token symbol does not appear beside Hyper Hippo Productions employees unless they play from their development server.
Update History[]
Trivia[]
- Mech Mice Academy is based on the Academy of the same name in Mech Mice Genesis Strike.
- Both maps are based in Blackwall Burrow.
- Hyper Hippo Productions employees often post sneak-peeks of future game updates on their Instagram.
- A broken Betsay is placed in the middle of the Skirmish map. It is unknown whether if it will be usable in the future.
- Hyper Hippo Productions employees will have a Treasure Token symbol beside their username, along with their text marked in green (originally blue). They're worth double points when hit, allowing players to rack up a score of above 100 points.
- Every first match in a 24 hours period is worth 3x experience.
- Occasionally, Hyper Hippo Productions employees host meet-ups where players can battle the Mech Mice team members. These usually occur after major updates, such as new classes and game modes.
- If you get out of the Skirmish map with the Engineer, you can see two Small Bugs spying on the area (which was blocked by after a map update). They remain passive and do not affect the gameplay. Three more bugs can be spotted if you shoot at the cactus at the other end of a stream.
- When you spawn, a blue aura will surround you and prevent you from being immediately shot for 3 seconds.
- During the early stages of Academy, all players played as a white, purple, blue, red, pink or green Unit, the colors being chosen at random though usually the first player to join the match was white. With the launch of customization, the colors are only used in the score board.
- During Christmas in December 2013, snowflakes would fall in the Skirmish map. Note that Capture the Flag had not yet been released during that period of time.
- Falling into a stream in the Skirmish map will kill yourself. Other players will not gain a point from this, nor do you.
- Shortly after the Engineer Unit was made a playable class, one could double jump over the stream and reach external areas of the map. Even though this didn't bring any advantages to the player, an update patched the glitch, as going outside the map boundaries now knocks you out. Even without Engineers, Commander Units could jump atop a Lava Box and shoot at it simultaneously and reach outside of the map and restricted areas as well. The Commander and Engineer exploit is now patched.
- Originally, players weren't allowed to use their own usernames and had to choose from two pre-selected names to form a call sign. Players who used to have a Mech Mice Tactics account are now able to use their own call signs, which must be approved by a Hyper Hippo employee. Guests are still able to use the pre-selected call signs.
- It is possible to walk on the sharp stick fences and cactus.
- Any player capable of getting outside the map (usually an Engineer) will automatically be hit. Certain areas can still be accessed without being hit.
- No more classes will be added in the near future, as Hyper Hippo Productions is working on other updates before new classes.
- Mechs will also come to the Skirmish map in the near future.
- During his spare time, Paul created Mech Mice Academy. He stated that 90% of all of the code had to be redone.
- Mech Mice Academy will be morphed into another game featuring other animals rather than mice under the name Wild Warfare.
- After exiting a match, there is a poll asking if you would be disappointed if Mech Mice Academy closed down for an unknown purpose. It was later revealed the purpose of this was because Mech Mice Academy would be morphed into another game named Wild Warfare.
- Small Bugs will be featured as enemies in Mech Mice Academy.[2]
- In the programming files for Mech Mice Academy, there are unreleased Recon files which the Mech Mice team may have been testing.
- Players also found previously unreleased in-game chat files, weeks before this feature was implemented.
Gallery[]
Videos[]
