Dating in Pittsburgh can be rough — unless you’re a hot rat trying to choose between 21 eligible rat singles all competing for your rat hand in marriage.
Such is the premise of The Ratchelor, a free online game that takes a rodent spin on the long-running hit ABC dating reality show. For its latest season, the game, designed by a team of new media artists out of Carnegie Mellon University, takes its rat contestants to some of Pittsburgh’s most notable landmarks.
First launched by Algorat on Valentine’s Day in 2021, The Ratchelor has generated a fanbase charmed by its crudely animated rat characters and absurd sense of humor. Players create their own “ratchelor” with limited customizations, then hand out roses to the contestants with whom they’re most compatible, leading to a big final proposal.
Algorat members Connie Ye, Tatyana Mustakos, Char Stiles, and Caroline Hermans tell Pittsburgh City Paper that the idea for The Ratchelor came about while the team was making “lots of rat-based games.” At the time, Hermans started hosting watch parties for The Bachelor and “had the idea to make a game inspired by it.”
In the recently released third season of The Ratchelor — subtitled Rats in the City — dates occur at familiar Pittsburgh sites, including the Duquesne Incline, Phipps Conservatory, and Heinz Chapel. The Algorat team even pays tribute to its alma mater with a date at the bus stop in front of CMU’s towering “Walking to the Sky” sculpture.
While the Algorat members no longer reside in Pittsburgh, they wanted to pay tribute to the city and college where they first connected.
“We knew we wanted to change the environment for the latest season of The Ratchelor and brainstormed doing a city environment, and thought we’d pay homage to the city where we all met,” Algorat says in a joint statement.
They add that while brainstorming which landmarks to showcase, they chose ones that would “translate well to being recognized as a background.”
Algorat was founded at Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, a CMU College of Fine Arts department that intentionally marries (pun intended) technology and engineering with the humanities. The studio has facilitated and funded projects similar to The Ratchelor, including a game by local multidisciplinary artist Angela Washko that delves into the misogynistic world of pick-up artists.
“We actually all met through the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry,” says Algorat. “We were super grateful to have met there and the director at the time, Golan Levin, was an invaluable resource for providing feedback on our minigames and advice on how to proceed as an artist collective.”
The Ratchelor joins the ranks of other offbeat dating sims that take a more bizarre approach to finding love. Like Algorat’s creation, the Japanese game Hatoful Boyfriend: A School of Hope and White Wings lets you play as a sentient teen pigeon finding young love at an elite school for birds. Other sims allow players to pursue terrifying creatures (Cryptid Crush and Monster Prom), or, in the case of Dream Daddy, other men, in which you play as a dad trying to meet other hot dads.
Online dating sims have grown in popularity to the extent that, in 2019, KFC launched a game where you can romance a sexy version of its founder, Colonel Sanders.
Algorat calls the reception for The Ratchelor “surprisingly positive,” adding that “some people even enjoy it enough to play through multiple times for all the endings.” Those visiting the Algorat social media channels will find fan-submitted comments, play-through videos, and art of the game’s various rats (crowd favorites include Eggsalad and Martine from season two, and Philoxena from season three).
Algorat offers even more ways to interact with The Ratchelor. Users visiting the algorat.club website will find Ratchelor-themed holiday e-cards that can be sent to “someone special” and opportunities to create rat clothing or a whole new rat character.
Algorat keeps the games free by collecting donations through the crowdfunding website Ko-fi.
As for the future of The Ratchelor, fans can expect an expansion for the third game “with a little more content.” Algorat also plans on making new games that are “a little different” than The Ratchelor.
“We usually make games for ourselves, so we’re honored that others think our games are fun, too,” says Algorat.
This article appears in Dec 25-31, 2024.
