In Mouse Trap Hotel the player takes control over the mouse Maxie who wants to visit his girlfriend. Unfortunately she is located in the penthouse of a hotel and Maxie is in the cellar. The goal is to reach said penthouse by solving a number of levels by finding the exit. Those levels are side-scrolling in nature, but there is also some vertical movement involved. Regarding gameplay, there are no specialities: the player jumps over platforms and dodges traps and enemies in order to avoid losing life energy. Getting hit too often results in losing a life. The only way to destroy enemies is to hit them with Maxie's tail and power ups grant either an extra life, a tail upgrade (range) or bonus points.