Google Play · closed test

Rat Race

A dark maze, one torch, and three rats who want the same piece of cheese.

It is finished and it is on Google Play. It cannot leave closed testing until twelve people have it installed for fourteen days in a row — that is Google's rule, not ours, and it is the only thing standing between this game and a release.

6 / 12 testers opted in as of 25 September.
We need six more.
Join the tester group

Step 1 of 2 · Android · free · then the Play opt-in below

What you would be testing

You carry the only torch, which sounds like an advantage until you notice it lights about two metres of a maze you have never seen.

The other rats are out there somewhere. You find out they are close when their lantern light starts coming through the walls.

Every rat can sprint — about a second of speed, then five seconds of wishing you had saved it. Spend it on a straight and you take a corner off someone. Spend it just before a dead end and you have simply spent it.

A rat running a dark corridor by torchlight, the walls falling off into black a couple of metres ahead.
The torch lights about two metres.
A six-sided maze seen from above, with a rat starting at each corner and the cheese at the centre.
Six rats, six corners, a hexagon.
The end-of-race results screen listing each rat and its finishing time.
Where the sprint you saved shows up.
The Rat Race title screen.
Races the computer in aeroplane mode.

Bring more rats and the map changes shape to match: five rats, five corners, a pentagon. Every corner sits the same distance from the cheese along the same shape of route, so nobody gets the short side and a loss is just a loss.

How testing works

  1. Join the tester group Google only lets members of the Rat Race tester group into the test, so this has to come first. Anyone can join it, there is nothing to approve, and it is the same Google account you use on your phone. The group is only used for this.
  2. Open the opt-in link on your Android phone Signed in to that same account. If Play still says you need to be added, the group join has not gone through yet — give it a minute, or email the address at the bottom and we will add you by hand the same day.
  3. Tap “Become a tester”, then install from Play It installs like any other app. Free.
  4. Leave it installed for fourteen days This is the part that actually counts. Google measures opt-in, not playtime — but leaving the programme resets the clock, so the ask is simply: don't uninstall.
  5. Tell us if anything is broken Entirely optional, and more useful than the fourteen days if you do.

Testing something yourself?

We will do the same for you. Send your opt-in link and we will install it, opt in, and stay in for the fourteen days. We have done this for Thymora, Quote & Invoice Maker PDF and Stamina.EXE, and we would rather trade than ask.

The honest details

Costs
Nothing. The game is free to play; one optional $2.99 purchase unlocks the sewer and catacombs, and you never need it to test.
Ads
None for anyone who owns the full game.
Account
None. Racing the computer works with no connection at all.
Online
Optional. If you join a race, the name you pick and your rat's moves go to the race server so the others can see you run.
Needs
An Android phone and a Google account. There is no iOS test yet.
Built by
Rebel Studios, in Godot. One person.

The whole job is to install it and leave it for fourteen days. No playing required — Google counts the install, not the hours.

Join the tester group

Then opt in on Google Play · Android · free