The Rat's Run
Free · play online in your browser, no download
Guide Love the roof rat home across four backyard zones in a free side-scrolling platformer modelled on old Nintendo scrolling games.
Official site blonderoofrat.com, verified Nov 3, 2026. Linked from the developer's own Reddit post on r/aigamedev; the page is on the developer's own site.
Where to play
Every platform this game is on. Links are checked against official sources; we never host or mirror games.
- Play free — official siteBrowserReleasedFree
Runs in a desktop or mobile browser. No download.
Browser (no download) · Mobile · Official link verified Nov 3, 2026.
About The Rat's Run
A free side-scrolling platformer that runs in the browser. You play Love, a roof rat, and help her find her way home through four zones: the Fences, the Fish Pond, the Stream and the Clothesline, and the Tree Canopy. Sunflower seeds trace the intended line through every jump, keepsakes such as a bottle cap, a marble and a ring are hidden off the path, and two friends, Pip and Moss, set four optional push-block puzzles (move a crate in the shed, plug the pond leaks, balance the clothesline weights, follow the canopy trail) whose rewards reveal nearby secrets or absorb one animal hit. A mild, medium or spicy difficulty changes how fast the animals move and how long they warn you, never where the fences and gaps are, and your time, seeds and falls become a grade, with the best run kept per difficulty. Each zone ends with a short animated scene, and after the last one the game plays a short film of the real Love. The developer, Brian, runs the Blonde Roof Rat site about a domesticated roof rat colony and says the game and the site were made entirely using Claude and ChatGPT; the site's about page says Brian does not write the software and that Claude builds it to Brian's direction. The developer's stated goal was to copy the style, graphics and gameplay of old Nintendo scrolling games. The animals were made with AI image tools and cut into sprite sheets; the music is synthesised in code from public-domain scores by Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, Grieg and Handel. Free and non-commercial, played with a keyboard or with on-screen buttons on a phone or tablet.
How it was built
Partially verifiedThe developer's post on r/aigamedev (26 Sep 2026, UTC) is titled “Rat's Run (and the website it lives on) entirely using Claude and ChatGPT. Claude even made the demo video for me.” The site's about page adds: “I also do not write the software. The pages, the registry, the pedigree certificates and the colony tools are built by Claude, an AI assistant, working to my direction”, with Brian's part being “the science, the voice, and deciding what is safe to publish.” The site's build page describes the game as one HTML file of about 14,000 lines of plain JavaScript, tested before each release by an automated suite, several of whose tests play the game in a headless browser. Comments in the game's code record Brian's playtest feedback being turned into changes.
- DeveloperAbout page by Brian: “I also do not write the software … built by Claude, an AI assistant, working to my direction.” — Blonde Roof Rat
- Developer“How Rat Run was built”: one HTML file of about 14,000 lines of plain JavaScript on a Canvas 2D surface, with Web Audio for music and sound and local storage for saves; automated tests, several playing the game in a headless browser, run before each release. — Blonde Roof Rat
Named next to Claude in the title of the developer's Reddit post (“entirely using Claude and ChatGPT”). What ChatGPT did for the game is not stated.
A single HTML file of about 14,000 lines of plain JavaScript with no engine, framework or outside scripts, drawn on a 480 × 270 Canvas 2D screen that scales to the device, with pointer events so a mouse, a finger or a pen work the same. Per the build page, the animals were made with AI image tools and cut into sprite sheets (comments in the game's code refer to Gemini art prompts); the working copy packs every sprite sheet inside the file (about 86 MB), and the site version moves the pictures into PNG files, with a check that rebuilding gives the original byte for byte. All music and effects are synthesised in Web Audio from code and from public-domain scores (Mutopia Project and IMSLP editions); the one real recording is the startle call of one of the developer's rats, and the closing film is the developer's own footage. A setting reduces camera shake and flashes. The game does not call AI services.
- Engine / framework
- None (vanilla JavaScript)
- Languages
- JavaScript
- Team size
- 1 (solo)Developer ReportedBlonde Roof Rat
- Initial build time
- Not disclosed
- Development time
- Not disclosed
- Development cost
- Not disclosed
- AI-written code
- Not disclosed
“I also do not write the software. The pages, the registry, the pedigree certificates and the colony tools are built by Claude, an AI assistant, working to my direction.”- Rat's Run (and the website it lives on) entirely using Claude and ChatGPT (r/aigamedev)
- How Rat Run was built (developer's site)
Verification notes: AI use from the developer's post by u/blonderoofrat on r/aigamedev (26 Sep 2026, 01:04 UTC), read from the Arctic Shift Reddit archive on 8 Nov 2026 (score 4, no comments archived; observed, not a metric), and from the site's about page “Brian” and build page “How Rat Run was built” (26 Sep 2026), re-read on 8 Nov 2026 through the site's WordPress pages API. Zones, puzzles, controls, difficulty and the film from the game page, which the WordPress data shows was first created on 9 Aug 2026 and updated on 26 Sep 2026; no public release date is stated, so none is recorded. The post names Claude and ChatGPT without saying which did what; the about page says Claude builds the site's software, so Claude is recorded as the main tool. No share of AI-written code is stated. Developer: Brian, the site's breeder and record keeper, first name only; the about page says the colony moved to Florida and that Brian is “one person doing this alongside running the colony”. The about page's statement covers the site's software in general and is not specific to the game. Comments in the game's code name Gemini art prompt files; the developer's post names only Claude and ChatGPT, so the image tool is not recorded as a tool. The developer's goal of copying old Nintendo scrolling games is a stated inspiration; no Nintendo names, characters or assets are used, and a code comment credits the jump arc to Super Mario Bros. as a design reference. The 1.2 MB game file (backyard.html) was searched for AI service addresses and contains none; it talks only to the site's own WordPress API. The game was not played.
Development history
The game's page is created on the developer's site (WordPress page date).
ObservedBlonde Roof RatThe developer shares the game on r/aigamedev, saying it and the site were made entirely using Claude and ChatGPT, and publishes a page on how it was built.
Game performance
Each figure measures something different — concurrent players, owners, downloads and sales are never interchangeable and are never added together. Labels show where each number comes from.
Browser (official site)
Free and, per the developer, 100% non-commercial. Played in a frame on the developer's site with a keyboard (arrow keys or A / D, Z or space to jump) or with on-screen buttons on a phone or tablet; progress is saved in the browser.
No public metrics recorded for this listing.
Not publicly available: Concurrent players (site), Monthly revenue, Gross revenue.
Sales & revenue (all platforms)
Browser game — there are no downloads to count.
Reviews & rankings
Not yet reviewed by our editors.
Not currently ranked.
Sources
| Source | Type | Published | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rat's Run (and the website it lives on) entirely using Claude and ChatGPT (r/aigamedev) Reddit (u/blonderoofrat) | Social post | Sep 26, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| The Rat's Run Blonde Roof Rat | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
| How Rat Run was built Blonde Roof Rat | Devlog | Sep 26, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Brian (about page) Blonde Roof Rat | Official site | Sep 14, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Official game page (language check) Blonde Roof Rat | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
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