Before Nintendo even confirmed the Switch 2's mouse controls, Shovel Knight spin-off devs started making a co-op game with a cursed "Frankenstein Joy-Con 2 alternative"

We now know almost everything about the Nintendo Switch 2, but there was a time, long ago, when everything about it was just hearsay. Developer Nitrome took a big gamble, however, and began developing a game centred around the console's rumored mouse controls before its mouse controls were ever properly revealed.

You might know Nitrome as the developer behind spin-off roguelike Shovel Knight Dig, and the studio recently announced Mouse Work, a new co-op party game about controlling cute mice using the Switch 2's mouse controls to tackle short and sweet mini-games. Like WarioWare without the stress of having new games flying at you as if they're being shot through a hose.

Janky climbing, X-ing pop-up ads, recreating paintings - it looks fun! And here's its first trailer:

Mouse Work Reveal Trailer - YouTube

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What's especially interesting is that Nitrome doesn't actually have a Switch 2 dev kit yet as Nintendo has seemingly only sent them to big publishers and a select few indies - like the Hades 2 and Hollow Knight Silksong studios - so the team instead strapped an OG Joy-Con to a computer mouse to prototype their game in the uncomfiest-looking way imaginable. "How do you make a game for Switch 2 if you don’t have a dev kit yet?" the studio wrote on social media. "Behold our Frankenstein Joy-Con 2 alternative!"

Speaking to Eurogamer, studio founder Mat Annal said the "project has been developed very rapidly after assuming the mouse mode rumour was true from the January Direct."

Essentially, there were rumblings that the Switch 2 would have mouse-like functionality for months, letting players scrape their new Joy-Cons across a surface to move a cursor or whatever the in-game equivalent was, and the minute Nintendo teased the feature with the console's reveal trailer, Nitrome got to (Mouse). The quick turnaround isn't too unusual for the team, either, since they already have experience making flash games that are done in a couple of months, too.

Find out what other upcoming Switch 2 games are on the horizon.