‘Crabs and Rats’ – Precise Jumping Away from Deadly Critters

Crabs and Rats is a wall-jumping arcade game against chaotic enemies that will devour you if you don’t avoid the bottom of the screen.

I played the game at BCN Game Fest where I found that the concept was simple: enter the level, work your way up the tower that you are currently in, and avoid death at the bottom of the screen. In each level, there are a bunch of different monsters with varied abilities that can appear at the bottom of the screen. Some fight against you while others just wait for you to fall down. Ahead of you, there are a bunch of different platforms that are both flat and sideways, giving you places to jump to and walls to slide on. However, these platforms will disappear shortly after they are interacted with.

As these walls are disappearing, you will need to pick your moves carefully since falling hardly ideal when you’re going to get eaten by a giant monster. Sometimes those creatures will shoot at you or remove areas of the map from use by highlighting them, so you do need to be careful. The game itself also speeds up, which makes things trickier as time goes on. You can find cannons randomly throughout the level that, when triggered, fire at the monster at the bottom of the screen. There are also some levels that are in the dark or that have other random features that break repetition from these levels.

Crabs and Rats has a bunch of power-ups (if you can make it that far) making it a bit easier to play if you have unlocked something. You can also play in a two-player mode where only one of you needs to stay alive, If the other dies you can unlock them from a door that spawns in. This felt much easier and like you could really depend on someone.

Crabs and Rats is available now on Steam Early Access.

About The Author

Jupiter Hadley

Jupiter is a prolific indie game journalist, writing for Metro UK, Big Boss Battle, AlphaBetaGamer, and many more, all with a focus on smaller indie gems. She covers thousands of game jams and indie games on her YouTube channel, letting every game have a moment in the spotlight. She runs indiegamejams.com, a calendar of all of the game jams going on in the world, judges many jams and events.