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comments for Idle Lab Rats

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Termt June 30, 2024
+18comment score: 18

Finally figured it out. The carpenter bench in the lab needs to be adjacent to the maze(s) in question for you to be able to switch to different maze styles. My bench is now adjacent to 2 of my 3 mazes, and I can finally switch to other maze types for those two.
This... should probably be made clearer or the adjacency requirement should be removed entirely.

cdsa142 gamedev July 2, 2024
+13comment score: 13

Hi all,
Thank you to everyone for giving this game a try. There’s definitely more work to be done, including bugged abilities, UI/UX, better descriptions and some balancing. I’m hoping to have the next release done in a few months with a good amount of new features. I was originally planning on wiping progress with the next release, but after seeing the enthusiasm players have shown, I’ll probably have to reconsider this.
Thanks again for the feedback,
-Alex

Termt June 30, 2024
+11comment score: 11

I feel like the scry ball ability might not work as intended? I've repeatedly had a rat go down dead-end paths that were scouted by the scry ball, or completely ignore the arrows pointing towards the cheese when the scry ball found it. Right now I'm rating it at the bottom of all abilities I've encountered.
The chemistry upgrades get prohibitively expensive quite quickly, meanwhile there's no major rise in research gain so it just comes down to throwing time and rats at the cost.
Training equipment seems of very limited use right now, especially seeing as the rats' proficiency does not factor into it at all so higher levels are impossible to gain with training equipment. It gives some easy early levels, but that's about it. If you sell the training equipment you can have a 4th rat instead.

dgrim November 11, 2024
+8comment score: 8

Can't read any of the buttons at the top, they're cut off.

oppressingbird July 2, 2024
+6comment score: 6

This game has tons of potential. It's already fun in its current state, but has a lot of places it could (should) grow in. In its current state, not only do I not see much reason to purchase more than one of each rat training facility, but you just don't have the space in your garage to do so. A good alternative maybe would be to allow us to upgrade those things so they level up a rats stats faster. Another good example of this is the chemistry set or the carpenter bench. Why would you ever want two chemistry sets when all it does is unlock research and takes up 4 squares of space?
Secondly, some of the level-up perks your later rats can unlock are just super useless at best, and detrimental at worst. For instance - spin top is basically completely useless. It doesn't appear to make your rat go much faster and just seems to be goofy, but it doesn't really appear to make them any slower either. In stark juxtaposition, drift king is extremely useful. Scrying orb is VERY detrimental in its current state. Maybe it's bugged? It seems like when it reveals a bad path that dead-ends, my rat will follow it anyway, and even when it scries the correct path to the cheese, my rat will also completely ignore that and wander around as usual. The worst part about it though is a combination of 2 things - firstly, it pauses your rat every time it scries, which slows things down quite a bit, and as Trondor mentioned in another comment, if you have a rat with 2 INT perks and they are scrying orb/blink, your rat will just freeze when it blinks and scries simultaneously. Other perks in the game all seem to be in a good state, even though some are definitely stronger than others.
This is definitely a fun experience right now though, so don't give up on the project. I could very much see this being a game that ends up being an indie release on steam or something with some more depth and love given to it.

helloman October 26, 2024
+5comment score: 5

"OMG GO THE OTHER WAY!!!!" -me

Bingus June 30, 2024
+5comment score: 5

the window size only worked once i went on the original site

oSquid October 25, 2024
+4comment score: 4

might be the most infuriating idle game I've ever played... it's so addictive though (I love it so much)

hotcatgirl69 June 29, 2024
+4comment score: 4

@galaxyuser63274 literally what are you yapping about...
1. Select the rat.
2. Settings.
3. Buy a cage.
4. There is a free rat in the shop.

Termt August 23, 2024
+4comment score: 4

I hope there'll be another update soon.
Maybe something like higher tier rats not starting from 1 on stats. Or free rats' max stats being raised so you can always complete a grant. Or a repeatable grant that gives lower than average money but can always be completed with a free rat.
Or maybe rebalance stat growth just a little. Stamina usually falls behind agility and intelligence in growth (when the upgrades are equal).

developer response: Update is in progress. The plan for getting stuck with difficult grants is to increase the sell value of a rat based on stats gained rather than just half of buy cost. This is effectively a cheap repeatable grant except it doesn't award grant level progress.
Also the math for stats is going to change pretty drastically. In the live version, stats have an exponent on the actions that award xp, which makes a rat that does a bad job at solving a maze and wastes time rack up increasing amounts of xp. This is being replaced with a multiplier based on maze size and flat gain during the maze solve. This awards fast and slow maze solves the same amount per time.

Trondor July 2, 2024
+3comment score: 3

As though scrying orb wasn't bad enough, it also causes your rat to freeze if activated at the same time as Blink.

sandhinfk July 24, 2024
+3comment score: 3

I do not see anyone mention this.
Ram ability becomes disability in a way that the rats break too many walls and they wonder in circles which slows down the process.
Especially when you have low intelligence.

Sovereign June 30, 2024
+3comment score: 3

You need above the price to purchase the upgrades. ex: Cost 18 Needs 19.

Ham5terzilla December 26, 2024
+3comment score: 3

I love this game.
Here is a whole spoilers area.






developer response: Thank you for playing and for all the constructive feedback. Totally agree on most of these points. Ram will soon mark dead ends as if walls weren't broken but I'll consider your suggestion as well. I have an update to scry and deadends to handle alternate objectives like grass. A cancel for husbandry is a good idea. For now, there's a bug in husbandry that lets you activate the accellerants again after coming back to the tab. I plan on adding a later upgrade to husbandry to make it work more instantly. I like the radius based on attribute idea.
Next update will be soon, but doesn't include any major features, just some balance, new abilities and some story elements. I can probably tackle some of these as part of that update. Thanks again!

ReddmanEhee September 6, 2024
+3comment score: 3

its good but I tried it on Chromebook and the size is messed up

Termt August 23, 2024
+3comment score: 3

Personally I do feel like the "bad path marking depth" should reason from the closest end-tile rather than furthest, in the case of converging paths.

developer response: I think this could easily lead to massive dead end chains, at least up to the max dead ends limit.

ai78665 April 24, 2025
+3comment score: 3

i just started yesterday and im already hooked this is a great game please dont abandon it though

developer response: Almost at 2 years working on it. Updates might not be fast, but I have content planned through Grant level 20.

Bingus June 30, 2024
+3comment score: 3

is it just me or is the window size a bit small cuz i couldnt see the other menus or all of the text

unicodes gamedev July 1, 2024
+3comment score: 3

oh my god the beginner rats aare so stupid
they're 1 tile from the goal and they turn the wrong way

H3draut3r counter July 1, 2024
+2comment score: 2

i want to move. grant level 11 and still locked with that little room, blocked by the truck.
want moar cages,, mazes, training-utils, even moar rats running around...