Play Rats! (en,es) Online

I picked up Rats! for the Game Boy Color back when it came out. It was a 2000 release from developer/publisher Midas Interactive Entertainment, a title that fit right in with the platform's library of quirky, smaller scale adventures. It didn't try to be the next big thing; it was just a solid game to have in your collection.

You control a little exterminator tasked with clearing out rats from a series of houses. Your main goal is straightforward: eliminate all the rats on each single screen level before you can move on to the next. The core mechanics involve placing traps and using a limited supply of poison to catch the rodents as they scurry around the rooms. You have to be strategic about where you put your traps, anticipating the rats' paths while also avoiding their bites, which cost you a life. The pacing is quick, and the difficulty ramps up as the rats get faster and more numerous, demanding quicker reflexes and smarter trap placement. It feels like a tense, methodical puzzle where one wrong move can send a whole swarm your way.