Building Lab Rat: Gwen Frey on Logic, Laughter, and Laser Grids

Gwen Frey is no stranger to big ideas—or big games. After working on titles like BioShock Infinite and The Flame in the Flood, she’s back with a new game! Lab Rat, a satirical Sci-Fi puzzle game launching on Xbox that pits players against an overly confident AI named S.A.R.A.

With over 100 handcrafted puzzles, sharp writing, and a surprising amount of heart, Lab Rat is as much about logic as it is about being observed. I sat down with Gwen to talk puzzle design, working solo (and not-so-solo), and what it’s like to voice nearly every character in your own game.

Corey: S.A.R.A. plays a central role in Lab Rat—a hyper-intelligent, metrics-obsessed AI who observes and reacts to everything the player does. Inspired in part by your experience working alone during lockdown, she brings humor, tension, and a sense of being constantly evaluated.

Did the concept for S.A.R.A. shape the gameplay, or did the puzzles come first?

Gwen: The idea for S.A.R.A. developed naturally alongside the game’s core mechanics. Early on, my puzzle designer and I were exploring a new system, but thematically we both felt like rats in a cage—trapped inside, isolated. We built that feeling into everything: puzzles that evoke confinement, jittery character animations, and even blocks that electrocute you when misused, like a science experiment gone wrong.

Visually, I was inspired by my own dual-monitor setup during lockdown, when most of my interaction was through screens. That evolved into the concept of S.A.R.A.—an overbearing algorithm watching your every move, built to reflect the eerie, disconnected mood we were living through. Once I saw the game world through that lens, everything started to click.

Corey: You’ve described Lab Rat as a game that “makes people think and laugh.” Which of those two was harder to design for?

Gwen: Definitely making people laugh! When a person sits down to complete a puzzle game they are prepared to think deeply and solve problems – they are in the correct mindset for that. Thought-provoking commentary is generally a welcome addition to that experience. However, comedy is unexpected, very difficult to do well, and different kinds of humor appeal to different people. Seriously – comedy is hard.

Corey: There’s a really clever rhythm to how puzzles unfold in Lab Rat. What was your approach to pacing the difficulty curve?

Gwen: There are two ways I like to keep puzzle players engaged: discovery and mastery. Discovery is when you encounter something new and figure out how it works; mastery is using that understanding to solve a tougher challenge. I try to introduce something new every few puzzles to keep things fresh, and I aim for solutions that feel earned—clear enough to grasp with some thought, but never obvious.

Block-pushing games come with a unique problem: it’s easy to end up in an unwinnable state without realizing it. That kind of thing kills motivation. So in Lab Rat, we let you undo moves, pull blocks off walls—basically give you room to experiment without fear of getting stuck. It makes the game more accessible, especially for players new to the genre, without making it any less satisfying.

Corey: Working on a game in a small team means wearing a lot of hats—designer, writer, programmer. Which part of that process felt most natural to you, and which one surprised you the most?

Gwen: Programming, art, and animation all came very naturally to me. These are things I’ve done for years, and I’m working in the Unreal engine, which I’ve used my entire career, so there was nothing new to learn. By far the most surprising thing I had to learn for this project was voice acting. I am not a performer and I have never done voice work before Lab Rat. It was quite challenging.

Corey:  We’ve been fortunate enough to have played through the game, so we’ve seen the end credits.  Exactly how many characters did you personally voice in the game? Have you counted?

Gwen: This question made me laugh. My programmer put my name in the credits about 100 times as a sort of joke. I might change that before launch… but it is true that I voiced every character in Lab Rat. There was one line where we absolutely needed a male voice and my husband stepped up to the mic for it, but other than that all the characters were voiced by me personally. I spent a lot of time recording arguments with myself, and then made extensive use of sound effects in the engine to make each character sound unique.

Corey: If you could sit next to someone playing Lab Rat on Xbox for the first time— without spoiling it, is there a particular moment you would be waiting for them to reach?

Gwen: There are many, many moments I hope they reach! I wanted every 30 minutes of Lab Rat to feel more interesting and unexpected than the previous 30 minutes. I’m excited to see if we achieved this.

Corey: Huge thanks to you, Gwen, for taking the time to chat about Lab Rat, indie game development, and what it’s like to argue with yourself in a recording booth!

Lab Rat is available now on Xbox One optimized for Xbox Series X|S.

Lab Rat

Klei Publishing

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

$19.99

Get it now

Congratulations!

You have been chosen to participate in a special test that will help refine a brand new kind of game!

Lab Rat was generated by the world’s most advanced machine learning algorithm – me. I have been meticulously trained on the best interactive entertainment available today and my data indicates you will be completely satisfied with the result. However, your valuable human feedback is required to help me further adjust and develop this experience.

Key Features:
Maneuver objects, divert lasers, and manipulate electricity to overcome over a hundred surprising genre-bending puzzles.
Outwit a metrics-obsessed machine intent on heckling you for your humanity.
Participate in satirical in-game analytics that are updated in real time with real player data.

The Game:
Lab Rat is a hand-crafted narrative puzzler masquerading as a machine-generated video game. This satirical adventure stars a metrics-obsessed AI who will monitor, profile, and guide you as you solve over a hundred unique spatial problems. Over time this AI will develop a hilariously-misguided understanding of humanity based on your performance and survey response data.

The Team:
While Lab Rat pokes fun at the absurdity of algorithmically-generated interactions, this game is lovingly hand-crafted by a team of expert human developers. Lab Rat is directed by Gwen Frey (creator of Kine & co-creator of The Flame in the Flood). It features environment art by Mike Snight (Lead World Builder, Bioshock Infinite), writing and programming by Ian Bond (Programmer/Developer, Bioshock 1), and puzzles by Lucas Le Slo (beloved experimental puzzle designer).

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