«Previous post | Next post»

Press release:
Somerville, MA – February 3, 2021.
The indie games development studio Chump Squad are today very happy and excited to announce that they have just released a free PC demo via Steam for their upcoming satirical indie puzzler “Lab Rat” (the demo will be available to play at the Steam Game Festival between February 3rd and February 9th).

Brought to you by the creator of Kine, Lab Rat is a hand-crafted narrative puzzler masquerading as a machine-generated video game. Players progress through over a hundred satisfying yet surprising puzzles in an AI-administered test. Over time, the AI will develop an understanding of humanity—albeit ludicrously misguided—based on your performance and survey response.

Maneuver objects, divert lasers and manipulate electricity to overcome 100+ genre-bending puzzles.

Outwit a metrics-obsessed machine intent on heckling you for your humanity.

View and contribute to in-game analytics that are updated in real-time with real player data.

Lead developer Gwen Frey comments, “I had this oppressive and absurd feeling in lockdown, cut off from much human interaction and only communicating with others through social media. I wanted to make a game that captured that, not in a way that’s negative or dark, but kind of light-hearted. I wanted to poke fun at the absurdity of our current situation.”

Lab Rat’s demo will launch in tandem with the Steam Game Festival on February 3rd. Expect to try out hand-on demos, chat with developers, watch live streams and learn about the best new games at this digital event, all from the comfort of home.

Human test subjects for this demo will be accepted on PC only. It’s up to you to avoid becoming just another data point for the next tester’s playthrough! Please note the direct transfer of electrons to test subjects may occur, but does not typically result in long term damage…

About Chump Squad
Founded by industry veteran Gwen Frey – former CFO of Molasses Flood, where she helped develop ‘Flame in the Flood’ – Chump Squad is a fully remote game development studio. Since its inception in 2018, Gwen has used the “Hollywood Model” starting each game with a small incubation team, with collaborators brought on as a project hires specifically to realize the vision of a single game. This has allowed her to leverage the expertise of specialists while keeping her studio low-cost and fully independent.