The Lost Microsoft Puzzle Game Was Found! - Cheese Terminator Reloaded

Back in 2022, I published a video on an obscure Microsoft game from 1992 called Cheese Terminator. And in today's episode, we're going to explore a modern version of it that was unearthed earlier this year.
Cheese Terminator Reloaded: www.chroscielski.pl/cheese-te...
Original Video: • Microsoft Cheese Termi...
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#MichaelMJD #CheeseTerminator #Windows

[@Puddingskin01]

What's really impressive is Microsoft just going "Oh wait, he is gonna need a floppy reader too."

[@haniffaris8917]

Rare Microsoft w

[@abdillahahmad7025]

Knowing that an old game about mouse and cheese was resurrected fills you with determination.

[@ARockyRock]

hey, that's a reference to a thing I know

[@MailMainbutnot]

*undertale-related vine boom*

[@fairnut6418]

It truly does.

[@TheTimmynatoRex]

undertrash (I don't hate the game, I just hate forced references like this one)

[@Akashi880]

@@TheTimmynatoRex it's not really forced

[@RyzesTechZone]

What an amazing coincidence, mentioning a game and then being a reason it gets redistributed after it was basically lost media. Really interesting!

[@tennickjestzajety69]

and funnier is that Hunagarian game was only distributed in Poland by German branch. Even in Poland that game was lost media, nobody ever speak about it

[@anok98]

I'm Polish and I've always thought it was just regular Windows game, like Solitaire. Cool to see it again.

[@ArCgon]

I actually think, back then in Poland, people would share this included with pirated copies of "Microsoft Entertainment Pack" games. (And no, I am not confusing it with Rodent's Revenge - a game that actually *was* part of the MEP - which had a similar premise and gameplay, but totally different graphics).

[@wolf1438]

I did not know this game was so rare. I got it from my cousin on diskette to my first Window 98 PC.

[@overnexus.]

Wow, you’ve been around for awhile, you still have it?

[@alakani]

Are you sure you're not thinking of Rodent's Revenge?

[@hashbrown777]

​@@alakaniI swear I had RR and this game on my Compaq win3.1 TabWorks machine

[@Hexapoly]

micheal soft CHEESE.

[@Eurotool]

Best thing I've read all week

[@Pickelhaube808]

I want a piece of Michael's soft cheese if you catch my drift

[@ultragamer135]

​​@@Pickelhaube808I do not "catch [your] drift"

[@UltimatePerfection]

@@ultragamer135 Then you obviously never had a Nintendo Switch.

[@dannystavs2003]

[Insert James May reference here.]

[@Tahngarthor]

We probably all heard the name "Cheese Terminator" and probably got some idea in our head of robots and lasers and stuff. But to terminate means "to bring to an end" and in the case of this game, means bringing the cheeses from their starting points to the ending points. And I think that's how the name came about.

[@ArCgon]

Most deliberately confusing 1990's video game title, next to Ninja Baseball Bat Man (where the protagonist is called Bat Man, since he is literally a man with a baseball bat).

[@Tahngarthor]

@@ArCgon Now there's a game I've actually heard of that I never expected to be mentioned here lol

[@IceBreak23]

this Dev is based, i like it, glad to see the old game coming back to life and not lost forever

[@ajtiti_pl]

Cheers! 🙂

[@Soup-Boot]

@@ajtiti_pl Great job in helping the internet's efforts in trying to find all lost media! :D

[@gaenu582]

incredible cool person detected@@ajtiti_pl

[@vindi167]

​@@ajtiti_plCheese*

[@person749]

I love it when Microsoft does quirky things like this!

[@NopWorks]

Yeah. They've also banned April Fools Day jokes a few years back. Windows Insider also no longer have it's cat branding, and replaced by a very safe logo. They've gone full bland corporate mode now. It's lame when the joke is a result from forced marketing cross-promo mandate (T-Mobile Onesie comes to mind), but a blanket ban preventing even a bit of genuine fun from employee can be a bit too much.

[@JamesTDG]

This does open the door to potential questions from me, most notably what other old windows promo games were there?

[@CarlosPCmx]

I was in college in 1992 and for some homework I did a DOS mini-game with a mouse in a labyrinth searching for cheese. I did some icons for the mouse, cheese and walls. It shocks me that the aesthetics of my icons were similar to the ones of the original MS Cheese Terminator. Maybe it was just the way those icons were made in those years? Or did I somehow saw Cheese Terminator somehere? It's a mystery to me.

[@computerdl]

Was it from 40 Games?

[@uponeric36]

With very limited color pallets and sprite sizes there's really only so many ways you can draw pixel art back then; so if you decided to frame the mouse from top down it wouldn't be shocking that they happen to look similar.

[@CarlosPCmx]

@@uponeric36 You are right, in those times graphics were limited albeit simple to make.

[@gengar-1997]

Cheese + Sokoban + Unity + an old game discovery + Microsoft Poland = Cheese Termination Reloaded EDIT ON NOV 26 2023 - thanks for almost 200 likes! ^_^

[@kirstanjones2175]

Sokoban! Ty, trying to remember the original game name was driving me mad. lol

[@Moshiur_Rahman]

This remindes me of the unplayable buggy games I used to make on scratch

[@ajtiti_pl]

It is almost like that in full honesty, small game made in 2 days by a student... Hopefully no bugs though 😅

[@UltimatePerfection]

@@ajtiti_pl Well, the levels can be cheesed...

[@ghost_ship_supreme]

I love when companies honor ancient deals and rewards

[@OldUKAds]

I love how everyone is banging on about AI and what now, and this is bringing Windows 3.1 games to life. It's great and soul-warming.

[@superconductives88]

Awesome. Thanks Michael MJD and Dawid Chróścielski for reviving this game!! 😁

[@ajtiti_pl]

No, thank you for putting the effort finding me and making it possible! 💪

[@raflen100]

its really intresting to see that my country had something kind of exclusive

[@UltimatePerfection]

No tak, nasi górą.

[@ArCgon]

Wasn't it also distributed at least in Germany? Notice you had to send the letter to a German adress (1:02) to get it.

[@UltimatePerfection]

@@ArCgon nope

[@username5155]

Imagine if other companies cared this much. I remember one KZbinr took the Mach Pizza scratch-n-sniff card out of his Earthbound Player’s Guide, thus devaluing it by like $100 dollars, and he sent it in asking if he could still get the air freshener, and in exchange he got 2 bookmarks and an ad for the Nintendo Power podcast.

[@geirtwo]

I remember this as bulldozer in "24 games for windows". That was a bulldozer pushing rocks, which makes a lot more sense than a mouse pushing cheese.

[@DavidWonn]

Nice find! Now I will have to find the Win16 version to see which Win 3.x environments it plays in (3.0 vs. 3.1, real mode vs. standard mode vs. enhanced mode, etc.)

[@UltimatePerfection]

Win16 version is on the Internet Archive.

[@nlaumeyer]

Very interesting to see olkd games come back. Great job and really enjoyable. Keep up the excellent work.

[@mtoffo2275]

I have a distinct memory of seeing this game in one of those semilegal game compilations of the late 90s/early 2000s

[@stifanchostreams]

i remeber having cheese terminator on my grandfather's pc in Bulgaria

[@MARTINALEJANDROCERDALAGO-yd3td]

nice video michael never heard before about cheese terminator reloaded because one of my friends on chile beat it on 2 hours without cheats and guides and that's awesome we have the remake of an old win 3.1

[@luie1]

You can play the game on a android tablet too!

[@Nolidior]

I vaguely remember playing this game as a kid in the 90s. I'm so old now, dang.

[@eugiblisscast]

I remember this game from your videos, I don't know if I'd have the patience to go through it XD

[@caesumisrude]

2 minutes have not passed and this has already been a rollercoaster of plot twists istg

[@maureen-hm4in]

this is the best thing i knew today, i mean a new video and a chance to play it again ?? this made my day!

[@RichsRandomRetroReviews]

It reminds me of Rodents Revenge! Except you have to trap cats and when you win, you get cheese bonuses.

[@gengar-1997]

You mean in the Microsoft Entertainment Pack?

[@RichsRandomRetroReviews]

@@gengar-1997 It was released on the Microsoft Entertainment Pack 2 but we got it on a Microsoft Home CD Sampler.

[@gengar-1997]

@@RichsRandomRetroReviews So I looked up the Home CD Sampler, and I saw that it was archived on the Internet Archive. Couldn't find any info about the sampler though.

[@RichsRandomRetroReviews]

@@gengar-1997 What do you want to know about it?

[@gengar-1997]

@@RichsRandomRetroReviews Its release date (month and year could work)

[@johanneshaukanes4531]

Never seen cheese or sokoban. But I played Bulldoser witch was exactly the same. It was in 24 games.

[@1sola]

Next they should do Rodents Revenge (if that's even a Microsoft game) I know it runs on Windows 3.1, I used to play it on an online emulator.

[@whoshotdk]

I made a Javascript/web version of it that I called "Rodent's Retribution" but didn't bother to upload or share. I think its still on a hard drive somewhere.

[@scorpi0n486]

As a Polish person i am proud hearing about Poland here

[@jim1342]

I really like when Microsoft rbings back old games and apps

[@mememe37]

Damn, that's so obscure. Thanks!

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

The even bigger find is finding this channel ;)

[@brendanrobertson5966]

I remember playing this. I'll have to check if we still have the floppy tucked away somewhere.

[@1337GameDev]

Now if only chips challenge can come back....

[@maxtech66999]

I love every of your videos

[@basically_ar.]

Serowy Terminator jest spoko grą.

[@kriskrisminer]

Nie grałem jeszcze, zobaczę jak nic

[@ArCgon]

Jeśli chodzi o tego typu gierki z czasów Windowsa 95, to rzeczy typu Ski Free, Jezzball i Microman wciągały o wiele bardziej. Ale Serowemu Terminatorowi też można dać szansę ;)

[@Lestibournes]

I remember a game where you play as a cat that needs to chase mice through a maze and catch them. I really enjoyed it back then but I don't know how to find it.

[@Cart1416]

microsoft is so cool

[@Mario583a]

And yet, there are people out there that say that Microsoft is too cheesy.

[@LalawalonaTT]

0:33 Czy tylko ja jestem z Polski? (edit: Dobra dużo osób xD)

[@TheMultii]

Nie xd

[@krzysiek13]

Nołp

[@Robin91862]

Nie

[@gengar-1997]

Nie.

[@ajtiti_pl]

Nie 🙃

[@TheDreamcastLover]

We need an HD remake of the remake

[@ajtiti_pl]

My graphic design skills are kinda limited, but if someone would provide better ones, I could potentially just change it 🙂

[@UltimatePerfection]

@@ajtiti_pl I can make a good pics for it, what resolution do you need the tiles to be at and how do I contact you outside YT to actually send them?

[@taleladar]

I remember a game similar to this, but this isn't it. You were still a mouse and still trying to get cheese, but you just ate or collected the cheese. You didn't have to push it into certain marked squares. There were also boxes you could push, and cats that chased you. And if you happened to trap a cat into a one-square area, it became cheese as well.

[@hashbrown777]

That's Rodent's Revenge

[@pcpanikMusik]

What I've been looking for for years are the windows „mouse“ cursors. In addition to the mouse, instead of an arrow, there was a set of animated mouse pointers. Utilization was simulated, for example, by a cheese being nibbled on. Does anyone have an idea where I can find this mouse pointer set?

[@UltimatePerfection]

I know what cursors you are talking about, I used to have them in the 90s, but don't know where to get them either. Perhaps they were part of one of the Plus! packs or Win98SE themes?

[@pcpanikMusik]

@@UltimatePerfection Unfortunately not. I’ve searched the Plus! Pack. Maybe it was on a Mouse-Driver Disk for MS-Mice. But I’m pretty sure that they were called mouse.ani

[@redfoxsecurity3334]

@@pcpanikMusikI remember having them on an old 💻 when I was a 👦. It was running some version of Windows 95 with Plus. It also had a pirated 💿 with a software called “Microsoft (something) pack” that had a bunch of games like Ski ⛷ Free and Microsoft Chess, desktop backgrounds and some business calculator thing. It might have come from there, but I don’t remember the name, only that it was given out to corporate users.

[@NiGHTSaturn]

You unlocked a memory of mine. WOAH.

[@AdamvanAlderwerelt]

Anyone else remember a somewhat similar game that had cheese and mice but also cats? Pretty sure it was from the floppy days when I played Chip's Challenge and Microman.

[@benn454]

Rodent's Revenge. You trapped cats in boxes and they turned into cheese

[@daV_000]

i'm from Poland, and i did not even know about this!

[@chihisou838]

This is just like gorbino’s quest. This is the gorbino’s quest of cheese.

[@ikbintom]

I'm Dutch and I feel like I played something very similar before, maybe around the year 2000. I'm pretty sure it had sound. Maybe a munch/nom sound effect?

[@averagewhiteguy2]

Wow, what a cool situation.

[@TRDiscordian]

My mind is melting seeing a game I haven't seen in over 20 years lol.

[@wtfisgoingon535]

I'm french and for some reason one of the computer at the recreation center had this game :) (OG version)

[@ArCgon]

Forget the Witcher trilogy, Cyberpunk and Call of Juarez! Time to recognize Cheese Terminator is THE greatest game to ever come out of Poland!

[@The8BitNerd]

“Hi I filled out the survey, can I have Cheese Terminator” Microsoft 2015: “Yeah Sure.” “Wait WTF?!”

[@Huwitto]

What??? I was researching about this yesterday!!!

[@KevinMunchyButtons]

I feel like I played this though in my youth in the states

[@DryPaperHammerBro]

Rare video where nothing goes wrong

[@RanaRandom]

I remember a similar game called Loader Larry.

[@OfficialBeHolder]

I had this game on Floppy disk, regards from Poland :)

[@musicalplayzyt]

Let's go, it's out

[@TheChannel635]

i remember playing a similar game on scratch when i was a kid

[@zdanee]

I had the OG on my IBM 386 back in the day.

[@pauljs75]

I remember it being in the included games with Ski Free and Space Cadet Pinball. It was just called Terminator in the list of games, but it was this game. I'm sure everyone that first saw it was expecting something with killer robots, but no. So it was in Win98 and NT at least.

[@lassikinnunen]

Not on any release i installed or saw installed i think. could be localization regional.

[@skuripandaburns3489]

The original game, which predated Windows, is called Sokoban and it was a DOS game. This Windows game was a poor ripoff using the same concept and same puzzle maps, but reskinned the game with cheese instead of crates from the original.

[@frydemwingz]

I had this game on a Packard Bell computer with a 75mhz processor. it came in a box of demos or something. the year was 1995 I think when I played it, I would have been 9 years old. I didnt know this was a rare game. I think it was a box of like a dozen floppys.

[@Nexiusify]

My cousins had this exact game when I was a kid, wow

[@Crimson-Hat]

They say one man doesn't have the power to change the world, but this story clearly proves that wrong.

[@alkevier7127]

weird i remember playing this and i live in Australia

[@glimmer8048]

same here. i think maybe i saw it on one of those "1000 in 1 games" discs they used to sell

[@ArCgon]

Well, once someone from Poland got their copy, there wasn't really anything stoping them from sharing it foward, including on the Internet (plus the game was more or less freeware anyway). The thing is, back in the middle 1990s, most people didn't have Internet at home, so the game didn't spread as wide as, say, Flash-based games would after the year 2000.

[@smfanqingwu1474]

for years-training now I can finish after 1-3 click (othermines all by " calculation " not by lucks)

[@Hal_2189]

I assume this is the OG Rodents Revenge? What a kick in the nostalgia receptors.

[@RodrigoPerez79]

Rodent's Revenge was the best game.

[@beez1717]

Cheese Terminator reloaded: "I'll be back!"

[@o0Donuts0o]

I used to play this game on Win 3.1 but the version was Box World.

[@JustPyroYT]

This is soooo cool :D

[@catharsis222]

I remember doing Chips Challenge all day

[@MrSaydo17]

I swear i played this way back in the day

[@AdakanUwU]

0:32 wow, one of the last document about this game is from poland and i can read all the things easily

[@Chubby_Bub]

This sounds like such a fake story and I love that it's real. And has a happy ending too.

[@yeshuayeeyee7430]

i remember beating this game on my TI84. it was called Bulldozer on that.

[@oroville12345]

I love this game omg

[@Stiky_Piston]

I literally just watched @Dankpods Wisconsin Cheese headphones video!

[@-Cinderace-]

The game you need to push the box to correct position, i saw alot of different versions

[@adridovlecel4559]

respect for that employee that made this remake

[@williamt2700]

Search "Tim Minchin's song Cheese". Perfect to listen to while playing 😁

[@ZachryMedearis]

I take a look at the state of Windows today and think of how anti-user it feels but sometimes they certainly go above and beyond for their customers and you gotta hand it to them! They did not have to give that person anything but they gave them the game on floppy, gave them a USB floppy drive to use it on modern hardware, and redeveloped the game for Windows 8 Microsoft Store and Windows Phone. Quite above and beyond!

[@bluesillybeard]

Microsoft is a giant company, with a huge number of people - My guess is a handful of employees got together and made this happen. I doubt it got anywhere close to higher management.

[@matthewblank7691]

I’m looking at the beginning of this video and thinking… I know this game somehow… I played it before, but how? I wasn’t even born in 1992. And then you show the remake blog post and I was like “Right! Dawid made this and I played it when he showed it to me!”. He is my old school buddy and we were both very much into game dev back then. I decided to make it my career when he went more towards Cloud computing. Damn its funny how KZbin algorithms works sometimes and the videos it recommends.

[@0OolIi]

I remember something similar with a puppy

[@WackoX1337]

0:13 i thought more like Chip’s Adventure

[@SteamSigun]

HUH literally 2 days ago I randomly mentioned this game while on voice chat on discord. I found a floppy with it while sorting old cds and floppies. it's interesting tho, didn't know it was sort of rare software, back then I just thought it was part of the windows. lol maybe I'll give it ago after all those years, since I do have a spare floppy drive :D

[@bradye21playsIndieHorror]

Gone in 1995 and again in 2015, but we knew he'll be back. 😂

[@RectangleJourney]

Huh, the.. cheese terminator? Interesting.

[@jay-arts]

1:14 SCREENSHOT FROM A WINDOWS PHONE SPOTTED

[@jay-arts]

(my first smartphone was a windows operating system phone and that's that the browser looks like, with that bar along the bottom! always fun to see windows phone references in the wild)

[@PhilMcCool]

I wonder if this game was the inspiration behind Rodent's Revenge that came with the Microsoft Entertainment Pack.

[@crisper1614]

OMG! I remember that game!!!!!😊

[@khatharrmalkavian3306]

So... The ancient enemy rises once more.

[@dancoroian1]

Whoa Microsoft was actually chill for once? 😲

[@HarleyAMV]

Damn, I remember playing this on my moms computer in the mid 90s. Don't think she mailed in to Poland to ask for a copy tho... I live in Sweden so maybe it got bundled in other countries??

[@RetroGamerOG_]

Cheese terminator was on my school computer and it was fun