galaxyBETA
explore
· ·
log in

log me in

log in forgot password

don't have an account?

sign up

Idle Lab Rats

Thumbnail

developed by

developed by cdsa142 gamedev

favorites

completed

124 ratings

rated 4.3 stars, 124 ratings.
idleprestigeresource-managementproceduralhours

Posted June 16, 2024. Updated April 24, 2025. Played 8533 times for a total of 10012 hours.

description


Buy and Train rats
Rats may all start slow and witless, but they all have a wide range of undiscovered potential. Train the rats in mazes of increasing difficulty to push them to their limits. Use what you learn from the rat’s training to improve their proficiency.

Fulfill Grants and buy lab tools
Once a rat has improved enough, submit them for grant money. Use the money to buy new rats but also to acquire new lab tools. Fill your lab with the equipment that will serve your playstyle:
-Get more mazes an train many rats at once
-Improve your rat’s proficiency with specialized chemical regimens
-Use other training tools like running wheels to passively train your rats
-Experiment with new maze styles

Discord - https://discord.gg/3pPM2Qkxzu

latest update


0.4.2 May 7, 2025

Ver 0.4.2 is available now!

  • Game window auto resizes
  • Confirmation on grant submits
  • Songbird hover info fixed
  • Close hover info and popups when navigating
  • Recorded stats fix when changing maze size
  • Recorded stats ignores proficiency
  • Resetting maze also resets the recorded stats
  • eaten grass can be marked as deadends
  • Husbandry Accelerants charge the player their cost (instead of being free!)
  • Maxed attributes update their display
  • Improvements to lab tools dragging (should be closer to the cursor)
  • fixed a build problem causing bad performance
view all updates

similar games

newest comments


Enxity oversight May 6, 2026
+2comment score: 2
one of my favourite games, sad the saving system doesn't work and it's sadly not being updated. Still, love the game

developer response: I've lost a few fights trying to fix the saves (I'm assuming you're talking about importing large save files). The (albeit annoying) workaround is to paste it directly into local storage:
for Chrome: F12, Application tab, Local storage, save value
Progress has been slow. I have a new version but it's too buggy to replace the current version. It's available if you'd like to take a look
https://labrats.faff.games/test/index.html

caeden April 17, 2026
+1comment score: 1
yo cdsa whats the end goal of the game?

developer response: Objective is to gain grant levels and reach grant level 20 (max). Current game only has content up to GL 10, with a test release including content through GL 13ish.
Science and progress are pushing the rats away from their natural strength and more towards power at any cost. As the researcher, there will be mounting pressure to produce better rats to satisfy grants, and it might lead towards harming the relationship with the wiser rats.
More spoilers:

caeden April 15, 2026
+1comment score: 1
bug discovered... negative deadends

developer response: Thanks for the report! If this was a ram rat, I think I've got a fix in the next release, but I'll keep an eye out.

krims1on April 12, 2026
+2comment score: 2
the rats are making me self aware of how much i play incremental games and how pointless they are.
thank you for this game man this is peak
auth August 20, 2025
+2comment score: 2
i love this game, only gripe is that its a bit weird to navigate around the UI but overall its pretty good

top comments


Termt June 30, 2024
+23comment score: 23
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
+16comment score: 16
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
+9comment score: 9
Can't read any of the buttons at the top, they're cut off.
oppressingbird July 2, 2024
+7comment score: 7
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.

read all comments