The Mischievous Molluscs

The Mischievous Molluscs is an episodic action-adventure video game developed by Ministry Interactive Software. The game, structured like a television series, is centred around a group of talking mollusc animals as they get up to antics that cause trouble for the human race. Unlike other games produced by Ministry Interactive Software, The Mischievous Molluscs is targeted towards an older audience, with minor profanity, sexual references and comical drug use. The game also mocks American Saturday morning cartoons, implementing limited animation, inconsistent continuity and in-universe "rules" and purposefully flat villain characters.

The Mischievous Molluscs was released on 10th February, 2006 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PlayStation Portable. The game received mixed reviews from critics, who enjoyed the game's episodic format and large amount of easter eggs, but criticised the writing and humour. It sold approximately 3.5 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling game developed by Ministry Interactive Software, and was the only one to be released on a portable console.

Plot and setting
The Mischievous Molluscs is structured into thirteen different "episodes", each of which jave a different storyline. All of the episodes, however, focus on four land animals who live together in an underground tunnel. The group consists of Happy, a green snail who likes to learn about human life; Ringa, a lazy white snail who enjoys causing trouble for the human race; Zeux, a pessimistic blue caterpillar who dislikes the human race for no reason; and Amber, an extremely arrogant yellow slug who often ends up getting herself kidnapped, frustrating the others.

The group are capable of talking to each other, but claim that humans are unable to hear what they are saying. However, it is implied that the humans can hear the creatures speaking if it is through a telephone or they are unaware they are talking to animals - the group begin to take advantage of the loophole later on. The final few episodes ignore the rule completely, and show humans understanding the group with no problem.

The Mischievous Molluscs frequently mocks low-budget animated cartoons. Tropes included in the game include an inconsistent continuity, repetitive dialogue, limited animation, reusing character models and settings whilst treating them like new people/places, deliberate animation errors, characters learning and forgetting the same lessons frequently, one-dimensional villain characters and limited animation. The game also breaks the four wall a lot, especially by Ringa.

Development
The Mischievous Molluscs was developed as a means to contradict the more serious and down-to-earth approach Ministry Interactive Software took with their previous games like Penny's Paradox World. Director Adam T. Clark said "the main purpose was to have fun making the game".

Alongside the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, the game was also released for the PlayStation Portable. This was decided because the console had a more powerful graphic engine than the Nintendo DS. A GameCube version was planned, but Clark thought its child-friendly nature would make the game unsuitable for the console.

Anti-Piracy measure
The Mischievous Molluscs has caught attention over its anti-piracy measure for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox version. If the console detects it is running a pirated copy of the game, a group of snail-like skulls creatures will, at a random period during gameplay, jumpscare the player whilst "Bite Me", a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic, plays loudly in the background.

After the jumpscare, a bomb appears in the middle of the screen, with a message telling the player to turn off the console immediately. The bomb counts down a number per second, beginning with nine. If it hits zero, and the player has still not turned off the console, the screen will change to a garbled mess whilst a loud glitched sound for about two seconds before the console turns itself off. In the PlayStation 2 version, the game will also delete all of the data on the player's memory card.

The game's unusually cruel anti-piracy measures resurfaced on the internet in early 2020, with rumours claiming that repeating the entire process again corrupts the console and causes it no longer function at all. However, these were proven to be false.