8 Steamboat Willie Game Ideas

The Walt Disney Company lost the copyright to its inaugural Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, on January 1, 2024, putting the earliest iteration of Mickey Mouse into the public domain. Multiple horror games and even a boomer shooter using the art style of Steamboat Willie were teased within hours of the news breaking, and rumors of other creative projects are on the horizon.

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The modern iteration of Mickey Mouse with his red shorts and distinctive voice remains copyrighted, but Mickey & Friends as they appear in Steamboat Willie are pretty much fair game. With that in mind, here's a contribution to the Steamboat Willie whirlwind — eight Mickey Mouse video game ideas.

8 Cuphead-Style Side-Scroller

The early-cartoon art style of Cuphead is one of its most charming factors, so creating a Steamboat Willie side-scrolling shoot 'em up where you play as Mickey and/or Minnie seems like a no-brainer. Painfully predictable, but you just know it works.

As well as leaning into the wackiness of Steamboat Willie, a developer could go even more old-school by keeping the graphics black, white, and gray like the 1928 cartoon. The other characters could be put to good use, too. Pete as a boss, Minnie as your partner, and maybe even the Parrot as a special weapon.

7 Rhythm Game

Mickey whistling in Steamboat Willie is arguably the cartoon's most iconic scene, so there is definitely scope for a Steamboat Willie rhythm game.

This game could have you could press buttons to control Mickey's whistling and the wheel of the Steamboat, all in rhythm to vintage remakes of popular songs. This would be a creative way to honor this monumental cartoon scene in cartoon history whilst making a solid video game in a hit-and-miss genre.

6 Microgame Mania

Imagine the microgame frenzy of Wario Ware but based on the black-and-white fever dream that is Steamboat Willie. The only way to make it off the Steamboat is to win a certain number of Mickey-centric microgames that get faster and more difficult, all made up in archaic Steamboat Willie art style with kooky low-res '20s music adding to the chaos.

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Two scenes that instantly come to mind that would translate well to microgames are Pete stretching Mickey Mouse into noodle-like form in the first scene, and Mickey playing both a duck and a bull as musical instruments later on in the cartoon. In other words, mirroring the zany pandemonium of Wario Ware wouldn't be difficult with Steamboat Willie as source material.

5 Rodent Wars - Platform Fighter

There are a fair few strong rodents in the gaming industry. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' Splinter, Rat King from Dark Souls 2, Twitch from League of Legends, Conker, and even Boo from Baldur's Gate 3. With Mickey now in the public domain, there's no better reason to create a Super Smash Brothers-adjacent platform fighter that pits all of these against each other.

This one would licensing nightmare, for sure, but something that could become a cult classic. The aforementioned Super Smash Brothers series proved 2D characters can work in a 3D fighting game through its inclusion of Mr. Game and Watch, so OG black-and-white Mickey could look just as cool in a platform fighter.

4 2D Beat 'Em Up

Not everyone wants to see old-school Mickey roll his sleeves up for fisticuffs. Oh wait, they do? Well, in that case, let us pitch a Steamboat Willie beat 'em up in the vein of Streets of Rage or Golden Axe.

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge & Scott Pilgrim Vs. the world: The Game proved that, when done right, this classic genre still holds up today, and this beat 'em up could have you strafing across cute grayscale cartoon-scapes with Mickie, Minnie, or Pete — each with their own unique fighting style and move set.

3 Survival Horror

Resident Evil: Gaiden, as well as being the rarest physical Resident Evil game, is set on a boat, and there's no reason why a developer couldn't apply the survival horror treatment to Steamboat Willie.

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Mickey slasher flicks and horror games are predictable as they provide cheap shock value by being the antithesis of Mickey Mouse, whereas this idea could take notes from Luigi's Mansion by offering up a survival horror with vintage cartoon graphics and a whimsical 1920s score that would make for a more well-rounded experience.

2 RPG

Sure, Mickey Mouse appears in the Kingdom Hearts series, but there is certainly room for an RPG made in the image of Steamboat Willie.

Devs could whip up something that falls in the middle of a Tunic / Kingdom Hearts ven-diagram, expanding the vacuum world of Steamboat Willie into a fully realized 2D land full of early 20th-century charm. The Steamboat could serve as a method of transport between explorable cartoon worlds, and the animals featured in the original cartoon could serve as companions rather than improvised musical instruments.

1 Point-And-Click Mystery

Point-and-click games are a fantastic way for devs with fewer resources to flesh out a concept into a compelling story, and Steamboat Willie could act as an almost-blank canvas for a point & click mystery game.

Let's go off-piste here and have Minnie Mouse investigating Mickey's murder on the Steamboat, searching it and the surrounding areas for evidence. Click your way around to find clues and speak with various old-timey cartoon characters to solve the mystery. Is there a Disney conspiracy involved? Better steer clear of using the company name, but we're sure there is a great game to be had here.

Forget Horror Steamboat Willie, There's A Mickey Mouse-like Boomer Shooter

Mouse is back in the spotlight now that Steamboat Willie is in the public domain.