41) Ratshaker (2025)

Released earlier this year, Ratshaker is a game in which you, wait for it, shake a rat. To boil it down in such a manner, while absolutely true, does a bit of a disservice to the admittedly short experience. The game uses its razor thin premise to mask a surprisingly deep horror experience. What seems like, and frankly is, an over the top parody of what the horror genre has become serves both as a deconstruction and a fairly competent example of how to effectively use stupidity as a foil for horror.

We start the game with an advertisement for the Ratshaker product, which promises to rid our home of the furry pests. From there, we find ourselves standing in an open field as we open the box, and pull out a rat. The game is presented in a first person view with only our arm, rat firmly in hand, in view. We're then presented with instructions on how to shake said rat and the simple command to do so. Obviously we can move our arm up and down, but our only other form of interaction is the ability to squeeze the ever loving shit out of the rat. As we do so, the rat will begin to scream in a very human like manner. I have to really hand it to the team, as the rat's screams are performed to perfection and have way more variety to them than was probably needed. As we shake the rat, a barn, a windmill, and finally a house materialize in the distance. The rat then proceeds to talk to us in a cryptic foreboding manner, as rodents are apt to do.

From here, we begin to explore the house in all of its PS1 style glory. We have a few options for interaction, but you can very much find yourself dead if you aren't careful. The deaths are generally pretty goofy, with the idea of having to restart or admit that you died in a game about shaking rats being scarier than most of the threats we find. Slowly we begin to unravel the story and the house changes, getting more labyrinthine as we proceed. We begin to see imagery or blood and viscera that honestly seem pretty tame due to the graphics.

I don't have a lot to say about the game as it's an exceedingly short experience, lasting an hour or so depending on how much you want to explore. The story is largely left up to interpretation, though there are some incredibly dark and sinister things that it alludes to. The game, such as it is, plays and controls well, and the graphical style certainly has a charm to it. While there is some grisly imagery, the game never really outright scared me, though it did make me laugh on more than one occasion.

Ultimately, what little game is presented here is very hard to recommend, though it's lower price point and short runtime can be very appealing. It seems like a game that was almost designed for let's play and reaction channels, and in that regard, it's very well made. I had fun with the game on my own, though I could have just as easily watched someone play it for the same effect. It's a game that lives and dies by its novelty, and your mileage will certainly vary.