Running a successful company usually involves things like hiring good staff, managing resources, and keeping the workplace running smoothly. At Galaxy Critter Co., it also involves surviving a nightly cockroach invasion.
Rat2 Studio launches its cute but chaotic roguelike tower defense game today, putting a crew of adorable critters in charge of defending their home from a Swarm that has no respect for office hours. By day, you build. By night, you fight. Keep that up for somewhere between eight and 15 days, survive the boss waiting at the end, and congratulations, the company lives to see another quarter.
Day Shift: Build Something That May Actually Survive
Sunlight means preparation time. You’re free to place buildings, set up turrets, sort out weapons, and decide how you want your defenses to work before night rolls around and tests every decision you just made.
There are more than 80 buildings, turrets, and weapons in the full game, so you’re not locked into one obvious setup. Different combinations can push a run in very different directions, especially once the passive items start piling up. There are more than 100 of those too, giving you plenty of room to chase the kind of synergies that start sensible and end with the entire screen doing something ridiculous.
Night Shift: Here Come the Bugs
Once night falls, planning time is over. The Swarm arrives and suddenly all those neat little defenses have a job to do.
Galaxy Critter Co. mixes tower defense with top-down shooting, so you’re not sitting back and watching your turrets handle everything. You control your hero directly while the rest of the setup goes to work around you, which means there’s always something demanding attention when the bugs start pushing through.
Survive the night and you get another day to fix whatever nearly went horribly wrong. Then you do it again, and again, until either the boss goes down or your carefully managed critter operation becomes an all-you-can-eat buffet for cockroaches.
Nine Critters, Nine Ways to Run the Company
The full version comes with nine heroes and employee types, each built around a different playstyle. That changes more than who you’re looking at while everything goes wrong.
Your choice affects how you fight, what kind of setup makes sense, and which buildings or weapons are likely to work best with the rest of your build. Add the huge passive pool on top and there’s plenty of room for one run to head somewhere completely different from the last.
There’s a story underneath all the bug squashing too. Completing a critter’s Level 5 mission reveals more about the wider galactic history, which Rat2 Studio describes as equal parts adorable, absurd, and mysterious. Earlier demo updates also added character bios and storybook entries for several members of the crew.
Made by Two Rats
There’s one final detail that feels too perfect not to mention. Rat2 Studio is a two-person, part-time indie team, or, as the developers themselves put it, the game is “proudly presented by two rats.”
The free demo helped introduce players to the build-by-day, survive-by-night loop earlier this year, including an appearance during Steam Next Fest, while feedback helped shape progression, balance, new buildings, and the eventual full version.
There’s also a 15% introductory discount running until October 7th for anyone ready to clock in. Just remember, mornings are for construction, nights are for pest control.