LAB RAT
Kine’s creator returns with a lockdown-inspired puzzler
Developer/publisher Chump Squad
Format PC
Origin US
Release Spring
Lockdown has been more productive for some than others. For Gwen Frey, it’s been something more - the inspiration behind her follow-up to last year’s wonderful Kine. Built on that game’s codebase, it’s a Sokoban-style puzzler which casts you as a human test subject, put through a series of challenges by a machine-learning algorithm. The play space is cramped, with the player character trapped within four walls, as two computer monitors loom large in the background - reflecting Frey’s own desk.
Much of Lab Rat’s design is already in place, Frey says. The next focus for her team is working the metrics into the narrative
“I felt like I was going stir crazy,” Frey says. “I’m stuck here, and the only way I can communicate with anybody else is through this computer in front of me. I was like, ‘What is life like right now? It’s like being picked up and dangled like a rat in a cage.’ It all tumbled out of that feeling - the feeling of 2020.”