Rat Race
A downloadable game
For our game, we were inspired by New York’s long, ongoing and riveting battle with the rats. Given that our usual role is that of a city resident and thus certainly not a friend to the rats, we decided to take the opposite POV here and embody a rat trying to scuttle through the streets unseen. In level 1, we navigate the streets of New York to gather as much food as possible to drag down into the subway. In level 2, we need to cross consecutive tracks to reach a hole that brings us to the underworld without getting hit by incoming trains. For the final level, the rat navigates a low-lit winding system of pipes to reach his lair on a countdown before the rat poison gas gets released into the pipes.
Following the technical difficulties of our first week, we were able to iron these out, clean up transitions, add the missing code, and add in-scene text. We also worked to position the rat at the proper eye-level and reduce the speed of the player to make it more realistic.
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I had some problems launching the game on my Mac on the itch app. Not sure if it just me! I remember the play through of this game and I love the idea of being a rat going around the city. The world building seems very detailed and vast. I wonder if the rats movements make sense, (it being fast and jumping high) When the environment and scale are so accurate this feels like a stark contrast, however rats are pretty speedy so I don't know! Either way super cool and fun idea. I want to see more rat adventures.
I really really love the concept of this game. It's super fun and the player really gets immersed in the game. If you were to continue to update and enhance the game further, one thing I would recommend is definitely polishing the player movement speeds, jumps, etc, as it felt very fast paced (I know this may be your intention as you are playing as a rat) but maybe almost too fast? It would be cool if you are able to make the rat climb on walls too. I would also lower the jump height of the player too.
I really love the environment that you have created though, the lighting adds to it a lot.
I love your stories so much! A mouse has to find food and dodge all kinds of mishaps on his way home. It looked like my everyday routine and I could empathize with your characters! It would be nice if you could add some camera close-ups, like when you're collecting food the camera goes back to a third view to see you eating I think it would add a lot of fun! Also I think it would be helpful for you guys to try different player testing (although player testing is needed for any game.) Because your game is set up so that all players are at one level. But in reality it's not, there are so many players who are not good at playing the game and need to figure it out. There are so many players who can guess the quests of a level as soon as they see the game interface. So it's necessary to make sure that all players can experience your wonderful design.
I thought this game was really charming and thought that the little home the rat made for itself was quite cozy. One thing that I thought might enhance the overall immersion would be to put little rat scurrying or scampering sounds in that would trigger whenever the player moved. All of the basic mechanics are there though so maybe a next step would be incorporating more variety into the overall level designs.
I think this game is a beautiful display of empathy and a stress-inducing experience. You've built such a complete and convincing environment that really enhances the immersiveness and sense of being as small and vulnerable as a rat.
It was really enjoyable getting the hang of the controls, I would've liked to see some kind of accuracy test or just more room to let loose and run, maybe do something fun for the rat? (collecting things, surfing down something...)
Hi! I'm having issue with downloading this game from the itch app on mac. I'll write my comment based on what I recalled seeing the presentation/playtest in class.
Great job on the city environment! And as someone living in NYC and saw rats countless times in the subway, playing as a rat running underground feel so realistic. It's interesting how you combine 3 different game plays into one global theme.
I remember the controlling of the rat was moving very fast(which make sense!) and jump very high (personally feels a bit too much) that it almost feel like we are controlling a super rat.
I remember playing this as a part of your presentation and I thoroughly enjoyed playing through this game. Being able to run around as an extremely speedy rat was an experience and even though this game is a commentary on the state of NYC (which I'm definitely all too familiar with due to living there my whole life), being able to slightly suspend belief to fly across the level creates a shock factor that exaggerates the issue but in a good way.
My main feedback would go to the last level and the movement of the rat. Only thing about the last level that would have been nice is to have it more of a maze so the gas feels more threatening, but that's something that can easily be done with time. The movement of the rat is more subjective as if you wanted to turn up the realism I think more time could've been spent on fine tuning the rat's physics. This also could lead to potential level issues/redesigns but the physics of the rat is more subjective and is dependent on how you want the game to feel to the player on a more detailed level. Otherwise this was fun to play and I'm glad I had the chance to playtest it.
Thank you John!! Appreciate your kind words and this very helpful feedback :)