Mad Rat Dead

A lab rat dies after experimentation by a human scientist. Approached by an entity called the Rat God, he is given the ability to rewind time and relive his last 24 hours to fulfill his dream so that he can die at nightfall without regrets. Going back in time and discovering that his literal Heart can speak to him, Mad Rat goes on a quest to kill the human that experimented on him.[1] Heart dubs him "Mad Rat" after hearing his goal, and calls him mad and denies the existence of zombie rats and ghosts Mad Rat encounters, up until he finally kills the scientist. After challenging Mad Rat to a fight, Heart slaps Mad Rat to reveal he's in a forest near a city and not in the lab, and narrowly avoids being attacked by a cat. Mad Rat was hallucinating everything until Heart started slapping him, following the cheese that Rat God had sent to the cat. Mad Rat plans to head into the city to fight the scientist in reality, but him and Heart end up following a stray rat that was behaving insanely as Mad Rat. The stray rats praises the Rat God for giving them cheese before a cat catches and supposedly kills them, but a young girl rescues Mad Rat from the cat.

Entering the sewers, Mad Rat escapes another cat who begins to drown as the water levels rise. He uses Heart to rewind time and orders the cat to help him out of the sewers instead of fighting to save the cat's life. Mad Rat forms an alliance with the cat and warns it to avoid eating rats, because it might catch the stray rats' disease (indicating toxoplasmosis). Further, into the city, Mad Rat finds the girl who saved him from a truck crash - he rewinds time as well to save her. At nightfall, Mad Rat faints and wakes up without Heart to see Rat God, who plans to feed Mad Rat to a cat whose time is up. The cat turns out to be the sewer cat who spares Mad Rat. Mad Rat wakes up back in reality and makes his way back to the lab, chasing the scientist to his journal. The scientist's name, values, and journal entries are based on the name the player entered at the beginning of the game and how they answered the questions, and Mad Rat has a choice to either kill or spare the scientist. Having fulfilled his wish, Mad Rat prepares to die when Rat God appears and rewinds time back to the morning, threatening to repeat it until he is eaten by a cat. With Mad Rat's mark on the world erased, he wakes up without Heart just before the fatal experiment, revealed to be a failed heart transplant replacing Mad Rat's failing heart with Heart. Realising taking the transplant kills him and Heart, he attempts to rewind time to stop the transplant, dooming him but saving Heart. Rat God appears to stop the rewind, forcing Mad Rat back into a darker version of the afterlife. Rat God is revealed to be a parasite transmitted via the heart transplant (heavily implied to be Toxoplasma gondii) that can only live and reproduce by leading rats to cats. Mad Rat and Heart defeat her, then wind back time - an ability that Rat God showed can be used by any animal, but most aren't aware of.

Waking up in the morning pre-operation, Mad Rat escapes his cage and finds Heart as a cat, something that he couldn't tell Mad Rat due to his hatred of cats. After embracing, a dying Mad Rat trusts Heart to leave the lab before the transplant to prevent Heart's death and save the cat in the sewers and the girl. In a post-credits sequence, Heart rewinds time to return to the lab and asks to stay a little longer with Mad Rat before he dies, carrying him out of the lab.

Mad Rat Dead is a rhythm-based platform game in which players control Mad Rat in time to the beat of the music, with the goal of making it safely to the end of each stage. Mad Rat is able to dash forward, jump, drop downwards, and perform a dance to charge up a super dash, as well as perform homing attacks on enemies known as Nightmares. If Mad Rat dies by colliding with an enemy or deadly obstacle, the player can rewind time to resume gameplay. However, the game will end if the player fails to reach the end of the stage before a timer runs out. Stages that are cleared in story mode can be replayed with any unlocked music tracks, allowing them to be played at different speeds depending on the music. Additionally, stages can be played in Hard Mode, which adds additional beats that need to be hit.[2]

Mad Rat Dead was directed by Yu Mizokami, creator of the 2015 survival horror game Yomawari: Night Alone, and its sequel. According to her, the project was conceived before the release of Yomawari, but was shelved for a while.[3] Nippon Ichi Software first revealed the game in June 2020 with October 29, 2020 release date. Participating composers were also announced, alongside the first images of the upcoming title.[4] The worldwide release through NIS America was confirmed later that day, with plans to publish the game on October 30, 2020 in North America and Europe, and on November 6, 2020 in Oceania.[5]

Upon release, Mad Rat Dead received "generally favorable" reviews for Nintendo Switch version,[9] and "mixed or average" reviews for PlayStation 4 version,[10] according to review aggregator Metacritic. Nintendo Life and TheSixthAxis both praised the game for its soundtrack and visual design, while Hardcore Gamer noted that the game "controls like a dream and uses your hands, ears and eyes to their fullest."[11][12][13] However, aspects such as the game's story and gameplay received more mixed reviews. While Nintendo Life praised the satisfying gameplay loop, PlayStation Lifestyle found the game's regular levels to be quite repetitive.[12][14] PlayStation Lifestyle additionally calls the story dull and states that it "loses momentum quite quickly".[14]