About us

Occupation

Co-CEO & Chief Technical Officer

Speciality

Transformice is a free app for the Windows PC through Steam engine which lets you play as one of the mice and trying to return with the cheese. You are a mouse trying to return wit a cheese, but. Transformice is an MMO Mouse Simulator platformer about dozens of mice running to bring back the cheese, trying to avoid pitfalls, leading to unexpected and hilarious situations!

Ketchup noodles, AS3, making scary jokes (i.e : “I broke everything”)

Tigrounette (or Tig for short) was born on February the 22nd of 1984, and is the guru of all Transformice’s code. He can debug the map system while coding new features for an event, and making troll jokes in the same time. He likes good cuisine, though often too lazy to cook himself.
During his free time, he codes small games for fun, and has more than 40 unfinished games into his hard drive.
He plays tons of videogames, to the dismay of his Steam account and wallet. His favorite games are, in no particular order : Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Portal, Left 4 Dead.

Transformice is a multiplayer game, where you play as a little mouse out to get cheese! A new adventure in the world of Transformice on PC, Mac and Linux. A colorful multiplayer action RPG full of mice and dungeons! A new adventure in the world of Transformice on PC, Mac and Linux. October 3 at 12:00 PM Splish splash! The Fashion Squad have designed you two outfits which are perfect for those rainy days.

His sister Ley was an admin during the early days of Transformice’s life, helping with hirings the first moderators. She since left, in order to take care of her newborn.

Occupation

Co-CEO and Art Director

Speciality

Repairing herself her 22 years old car, Flash CS5, not throwing away old junk (drives Tig crazy at the office)

Melibellule (or Meli for short) was born on July the 24th of 1986, and is the designer of almost everything that isn’t text. She learns fast, and has a particular interest into debug, optimization and coding, which made her work a lot with Tig and become the favorite graphic designer among the developpers at her previous work.
She loves to read a lot, play videogames, and take hot baths. Her favorite authors are Anne Mc Caffrey, Robin Hobb, Orson Scott Card, Dan Simmons, George R.R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss. Her favorite videogames are Portal, Left 4 Dead, Pokémon, Super Smash Bros Melee, Animal Crossing, Sonic Generations, Anno 2070, Dungeon Defenders, Guild Wars 2, Lethis Path of Progress and Rocket League.

Occupation

Lead Programmer

Speciality

Throwing plushies back, being quiet, making nice figures with his metallic bucky balls

Azrou was born on June the 24th of 1984, and is responsible of a lot of the code located on our servers. He makes the whispers and connexions possible! He also is a Linux and Ghibli fanboy, and always wears sandals, even in winter.

Occupation

Chief Financial Officer

Speciality

Swimming in numbers

Larirette was born on January the 3rd of 1967, making her the caring mother of everyone at Atelier 801. She seems to master black magic when handling very intricate numbers on financial reports, but also takes care of every little task that us geeks tend to forget about (like, insurances, or… taxes)
Nonetheless, she’s a real geek at heart herself, and enjoys a lot being around silly nerds like us.

Occupation

AS3/JAVA developer

Speciality

Decryption of Tig’s code

Pikashu was born on January the 12th of 1990, and he is dedicated to Transformice! He was a mod for most of Transformice’s life, and recently was hired among us to fix all the bugs and code the new features o/
He’s shy but fearless in front of Tig’s code, making him a real development ninja!

Occupation

JAVA developer

Speciality

Maths

Stardev was born on March the 18th of 1993, and replaced Narayan for the development of our intern tools and countless other things. He’s incredibly brilliant and a perfectionist, juggling with maths and dark code, which makes him an invaluable addition to our small team.

Occupation

International Community Manager

Speciality

Russian

Streaxx was born on July the 23rd of 1993, and replaced Zou for the community management of international communities. She speaks French, English and Russian fluently! She likes going to the gym with fellow Atelier 801 colleagues and buy colorful clothes on the internet for cheap.

Occupation

Level Designer & Integrator

Speciality

Being crazy too

Adrazaelle (Adra for short) was born on July the 11th of 1992, and replaced Zou for the community management of international communities. She’s super energetic, and already hid some chocolate eggs around the office for Easter!
She later joined the Dead Maze team to work on the Level Design.

Occupation

Brazilian & Spanish Community Manager

Speciality

Being always super happy

Galaktine was born on August the 29th of 1980, and takes care of the huge Brazilian Community. Like her fellow Community Managers, she has to manage moderators, answer emails, and keep an eye on the forums to bring us the problems the brazilian players might encounter. She’s overall a very joyful person, and interacts a lot with her community.

Occupation

English & French Community Manager

Speciality

Staying zen in all circumstances, being shy, cookies

Sydoline (or Sydo for short) was born on June the 29th of 1990, and took care of everything community-related. From organizing events to managing the moderation team, she worked a lot to make Transformice a better and safer place to be at.
Among weird things, she doesn’t like chocolate, but likes to bake cookies. She’s an overall adorable, very shy person, and soothes anyone working around her with her omnious zenitude. We are very grateful for all she did at Atelier 801.

Occupation

Marketing Manager

Speciality

Phoning master, understanding law talking, soup-like mashed potatoes

Loukno (no short name this time) was born on August the 6th of 1989, and took care of everything marketing-related, like ads sales, IRL events, or answering the phone. She was contaminated by Sydoline’s tendency for sweets, and they used to steal regularly from each other’s desks for sugar treats.

Occupation

International Community Manager

Speciality

Being crazy

Zou (from her second name Arzu) was born on April the 12th of 1989, and replaced Sydoline for the community management of international communities. She speaks three languages fluently (French, English and Turkish), is a vegetarian, and often changes her hair color, based on her mood. She’s very joyful and daring, but somehow manages to focus all her energy into knitting when she wants to.

Occupation

System and Network Administrator

Speciality

Mac lover

Mickaelsan was born on December the 10th of 1981, and was taking care of everything concerning our servers. Updating them, cleaning them, monitoring them, plugging some cables in their… hum.
He’s also an Apple evangelist and it leaded to many heated debates in the office.

Occupation

2D Artist

Speciality

Dinosaurs lover

Maharadjah was born on May the 21th of 1991, and was in charge of many graphic assets in all the games. She draws a lot of dragons and dinosaurs, making Tig nag her everytime she didn’t.

Occupation

Tools Developer

Speciality

Being handsome

Narayan was born on June the 5th of 1984, and is an awesome multi-tasking dev. His skills range goes from developing useful tools for us to use locally, to coding a whole forums solution from scratch. He also has the hidden ability to look quite handsome on every single picture taken of him.
He also likes turtles.

Occupation

2D & Concept Artist

Speciality

Ninja

Not much is known about this mysterious graphic designer. The most shy of us all, he’s in charge of many designs of Fortoresse and Dead Maze.

Occupation

Spanish Community Manager

Speciality

Forgetting everything, eating weird stuff, slowpoke

Kura was born on March the 29th of 1983, and took care of the spanish-speaking Community. He was in charge of hiring new moderators, talking with players, and is a pretty good artist, among being an gigantic troll sometimes. Having Tig and Kura trolling each other in the office could be very dangerous.

Occupation

Turkish Community Manager

Speciality

Being shy, not eating much

Vanlu was born on October the 10th of 1983, and took care of the Turkish Community. He had to manage the forums, hire new mods, answer emails, and overall was a real help for us to understand our Turkish community.

Atelier 801 is a company founded in October 2011 by Tigrounette (Jean-Baptiste Le Marchand) and Melibellule (Mélanie Christin).

Its purpose is to rally players from all over the world around cute and fun free online games.

Its first game ever created was Transformice, where mice ally to gather as much cheese as possible.

In the near future, Atelier 801 will develop more multiplayer games.

More info : http://societe.atelier801.com

Transformice (sometimes abbreviated to TFM, or T4M) is an onlineindependentmultiplayerfree-to-playplatformvideo game, created by French game designers, known by their aliases Melibellule and Tigrounette. Melibellule produces the game's artwork and graphics, while Tigrounette programs the game's functions and mechanics. The game was initially released on May 1, 2010, playable on browsers as a browser game^[1]Transformice was released on Steam on January 30, 2015, as a free-to-play game.^[2]

Gameplay[edit]

The main objective of the game is to collect a piece of cheese placed in at least one location on a map. Players control a mouse with the arrow keys or the WASD keys to run, duck, jump and perform various techniques, such as wall jumping, long jumping, turn arounds, and corner jumping. Players' mice must touch the cheese to collect it. After which, the player must take the collected cheese back to the map's mouse hole to finish. The number of cheese and mouse holes varies between maps. Players are awarded points on a scoreboard that is updated in real-time. Bonus points are awarded for players who place first, second or third. Collecting cheese is recorded into a player's permanent stats when there are about 2 or more players in the room. Players are also given extra recognition in their stats for finishing first when there are eleven or more players in the room. Maps have a general time limit of two minutes, at which time a new map is loaded. Maps can instantly switch before the time limit if all players complete the map or die. The timer will change to 20 seconds if the Shaman dies or there if are only two mice left on the map. Dying adds one point to a player's score on the scoreboard, no matter what time in the game it is or the cause of death.

When a player reaches the highest score on the scoreboard, they will become a Shaman in the next map involving one. The general objective of the Shaman is to help the other mice obtain the cheese and bring it back to the hole. Doing so will award the Shaman with 'saves' for each mouse who completes the map, which are recorded onto the player's profile. The Shaman can do so by summoning objects such as boards, boxes, anvils, spirit, and balloons to create buildings or contraptions such as bridges to cross gaps or various other obstacles. A Shaman can 'anchor' or connect boards and boxes to other world objects or summoned objects with various-colored nails. Red nails keep an object firmly grounded and will not move, but it can rotate on the anchor. Yellow nails connect to most other objects, particularly red-nailed ones, and keep an object's placement, but can move. Blue nails connect two objects but are loose and can rotate.

Upon reaching 1,000 total saves as a Shaman, a player can choose to become a 'hard mode' Shaman. In hard mode, a Shaman cannot use red nails which anchor an object solidly, nor can they use the Spirit tool, which can push mice and objects with a flash of light. Spirit is the only object allowed to be cast outside of summoning range. In lieu of this, hard mode Shamans can create a pre-made 'totem', which is constructed on an in-game editor map. Totems can be constructed with up to 20 objects, but only one red nail may be used as an anchor. A completed totem construction can be summoned instantly as a hard mode Shaman and is immediately functional, but may only be summoned once per map. After saving 5,000 total mice, 2,000 being in hard mode, a player will unlock the 'divine mode' Shaman setting, a setting released as an update on May 26, 2014.^[3] In addition to not being able to use red nails and the Spirit tool, a divine mode shaman cannot use yellow nails which connect and stabilize most objects, nor can they use a totem. Despite the constraints, divine mode Shamans have the ability to spawn available objects almost anywhere on a map.

Collected cheese is also saved up and used as currency in the game. Players can use this currency to buy virtual clothing items for their mouse in the game's item shop. Players can also buy virtual clothing items by purchasing 'fraises', an in-game currency that can be obtained by paying real money. Items are purely visual and do not give bonus stats. Players can also create their own maps via an in-game editor. Created maps must be verified by a test run of the map where the creator has to be able to successfully collect the cheese and bring it back to the hole. Once verified, players can choose to submit their map into rotation at the cost of 40 cheese.

An in-game achievement system awards players with new titles and badges. Titles are awarded for collecting specific numbers of cheese, obtaining a certain amount of first place victories, accumulating saves as a Shaman, buying items from the shop and completing events. Badges are awarded for buying any type of fur (except plains) from the shop and completing events.

An experience and level system^[4] was added on July 29, 2013, allowing mice to unlock Shaman abilities and traits by collecting cheese and saving mice. The abilities are separated into five trees: Spiritual Guide, Wind Master, Mechanician, Wildling, and Physicist. A Spiritual Guide increases the Shaman's ability to save more mice, a Wind Master focuses on the Shaman's mobility, a Mechanician gives the Shaman more options when it comes to building, a Wildling enhances both objects and mice, and a Physicist increases the Shaman's power.

Trolling is considered a part of the game, as stated in the in-game 'Help/Rules' menu.^[5] Some players infrequently decide to troll, whether playing as the Shaman or a normal mouse. Shamans can kill other mice by striking them with cannonballs and other objects, creating structures that causes lag to other players, as well as blocking them from progressing in the map by building a structure that is impossible to pass. Normal mice can troll by stalling, which is to stay on the map for as long as possible without capturing the cheese. Normal mice may also choose to push the Shaman's buildings off the stage. In maps where there is collision detection, they can also push other mice, including the Shaman, off the stage. Trollers can also use the in-game consumables to make a shaman build go haywire or slow down mice Common consumables used are: Beachballs, Tombstones, Pumpkin Throwables, Crumbled paper Throwables and the Snowball.

Game modes[edit]

Transformice has several game modes, each with different mechanics and objectives.

Transformice[edit]

This is the 'normal' mode of Transformice. The mechanics of this mode are described above. A round may also occasionally feature a racing map.

Vanilla[edit]

Vanilla is very similar to Transformice. This mode only features admin-created maps and maps chosen from map creation events, which are considered easier for beginners to complete, as well as Cheese Farmers. It is the only mode that features player-made maps, besides Transformice.

Survivor[edit]

In this mode, the shaman attempts to kill the mice, mainly by using cannonballs, or other summoned objects. In this mode, there aren't any mouse holes, but there is cheese in some maps to make it harder to move. The mice try to avoid the cannonballs and stay alive by the time the round is over. Sometimes, this mode features 'vampire' maps. These maps have no shaman. A few mice are randomly selected as the vampires. The vampires attempt to 'infect' other mice, while the mice attempt to stay away from the vampires. After a mouse has been infected, it also becomes a vampire, helping its comrades to infect other mice.

Racing[edit]

Racing mode has no shaman whatsoever. Mice try to complete maps as fast as possible. Returning to the hole first awards progress to certain badges and titles.

Bootcamp[edit]

Bootcamp levels are very hard, designed with experienced players in mind, they sometimes make use of shortcuts.

Defilante[edit]

In this mode, the map scrolls horizontally, and mice must keep up with it. There are points distributed on the map, and mice must collect as many as possible before gathering cheese and entering the hole. There is no shaman in this mode.

Village[edit]

There is no objective in this game mode. The map is made to look like a village, with several NPCs distributed throughout. The NPCs stay stationary, and users can buy items, titles, or badges from them using 'coins' or other items. Players use the village to chat, roleplay, or trade.

Module[edit]

This mode has a list of user-created minigames. They have varying mechanics and objectives.

Development[edit]

The game was developed by Melibellule (real name Mélanie Christin)^[6] and Tigrounette (real name Jean-Baptiste Lemarchand).^[7][8] The two met at work and became friends. The idea for Transformice came about when the two decided to team up and create a game together. Tigrounette had experience making games in the past and wanted Melibellule's artistry experience to help in creating the visuals. Melibellule pitched the idea of a little mouse who had to grab a piece of cheese and bring it back to the mouse hole as quickly as possible.

Before Transformice, Tigrounette had worked on another online flash game in April 2008 titled Aaaah!^{[citation needed]} The object of the game was to control a stick figure-like character through a silhouetted map to reach a pharmacy. The game had similar mechanics to Transformice, in that multiple players were competing for the same goal while one player with the most points was designated as a guide and could draw pathways to help the other players reach the goal. The game also has a map editor.

After quitting their jobs, Melibellule and Tigrounette founded the independent gaming company Atelier 801 as co-CEOs, and later published games like Bouboum, Nekodancer, and Fortoresse.^[1]

Reception[edit]

The game is recognized by Kotaku,^[9]Rock, Paper, Shotgun,^[10] and PC Gamer.^[11] In 2010, GameOgre recognized the game as the best browser game of the year.^[12] The game has also received a People's Choice Award in Mochi Media's Flash Gaming Summit 2011.^[13] The game has been nominated for the 2012 indie game of the year and is under the top 100 indie games of 2012.^[14][15]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^ab'Atelier 801 company'. Mod DB. DesuraNET Pty Ltd. Retrieved 2 September 2012.
2. ^Agahnon (23 January 2015). 'Les souris de Transformice s'installent sur Steam' (in French). Retrieved 29 January 2015.
3. ^'Version 1.159: Divine mode!'. 2014-05-27. Retrieved 2014-07-17.
4. ^'Version 1.82: Shaman skills update!'. 2013-06-29. Retrieved 2014-07-17.
5. ^'Trolling Is Part Of The Game! discussion on Kongregate'. 2010-10-29. Retrieved 2011-04-14.
6. ^'Contact information for Melibellule'. Archived from the original on 2010-11-15. Retrieved 2011-04-14. (French)
7. ^'Success souris pour Transformice ?'. Retrieved 2012-06-03. (French)
8. ^'Adobe Flash / Flex & Actionscript: Training & Forums > Viewing profile: Tigrounette laBelette'. Retrieved 2011-04-14.(registration required) (French)
9. ^McWhertor, Michael (2010-06-21). 'Transformice Is Pure Mayhem, Everyone Should Play It'. Kotaku. Retrieved 2011-04-14.
10. ^Gillen, Kieron (2010-06-22). 'Boomtown Rats: Transformice'. Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 2011-09-20.
11. ^McDougall, Jaz (2010-06-21). 'Browser game: Transformice'. PC Gamer. Retrieved 2011-05-27.
12. ^'2010 Online Game Awards - The Best MMO Games of 2010'. GameOgre. Retrieved 2014-06-04.
13. ^''Crush the Castle 2′ takes home two Mochi Awards at Flash Game Summit 2011'. 2011-02-27. Retrieved 2011-04-14.
14. ^'Top 100 - 2012 Indie of the Year Awards - Indie DB'. Indie DB. DesuraNET Pty Ltd. Retrieved 2012-12-23.
15. ^'Transformice! ≫ Vote for Transformice on 'Indie Games of the Year'!'. Retrieved 2012-12-23.

External links[edit]

Transformice On Mac Desktop