Thou art the Rat King! How long may thy life be – and how much mischief mayest thou cause whilst it lasts?

STORY

In Rat King, you are an illustration of a Rat King sprung to life on the pages of an illuminated portfolio. Your creator – The Hand – has made you, but he does not feel so merciful now … probably because you started munching up all his beautiful plant illustrations. And so, the creator tries to combat you – he adds words that block your path (and maybe pierce your poor soul a little too), and draws up bombs (they hurt) and even cats (which will kill you).

Other creatures may be helpful at times, and cause chaos at others: 

Fish will change the way your controls and movement work (inverting rotation or controls). Snails help you slow down (rotation or forward movement). This can be a boon, because the more you eat, the faster you move and spin, and the harder it is to avoid collision with your creator’s traps. 

And if that were not hard enough, you are also, well, made out of rats, and they each might have a mind of their own. So, collaborate, breathe, and then cause mischief together!

Your goal? Survive as long as you can, eat as many plants as possible, and see how long your rodent kingdom will last! 

Will your Rat Kings name go down in history? 

…Or, well, the global scoreboard at least.

CONTROLS & WELLBEING

Movement:

Each rat can move in two directions, forwards and backwards.

To make this game playable by 1–4 people, you get to assign which keys you want to use for which rat. (We recommend pairs like Rat 1: A+Z, Rat 2: S+X etc.)

When one rat is moving forward, and the opposing rat is moving backwards at the same time, your speed increases drastically.

Each rat also has only a limited amount of stamina (refilled by food) – so beware that you don’t push and pull too much against your fellow rats, or you’ll soon run out of breath

Ratking’s Wellbeing:  

• Each Rat has an individual stamina bar that corresponds to their colour (red, blue, yellow & green) 
•  The Rat King also has a shared health bar (purple), showing you how close you are to Starvation. When it runs out, the game ends.

Made for the Norwich Games Festival Game Jam 2026

Team

This game was made by

• Martin Sweet aka Liverot - Programming & Game Design
• Susi Bauer aka n3rdybirdy– Game Art & Design
• Nivadra– Sound Design
• The insults were taken from plays by William Shakespeare  (with thanks to NoSweat Shakespeare for the handy list)
• Many of our illustrations were taken from various old medieval manuscripts, sourced mainly from the ever amazing Public Domain Review and this awesome asset pack by Franz Kafka's Office Printer