The Mad Rat's Lab

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Andreu has started to play the most famous dungeon-building VRMMORPG: Dungeon Masters Arena. He picked the most difficult faction and decided to roleplay as a Mad Scientist, creating monsters by using units from other factions. Yeah… What could go wrong? Follow Andreu in his eccentricities, weird monster creations and the despair that everything gives to the players that invade his dungeon.This is the story of the creation ofThe Mad Rat's Lab, the most dreaded and famous dungeon in Dungeon Masters Arena! This is aComedy. Don’t expect the characters to make the ideal or perfect decisions. The characters are humans and make mistakes. Releases: Monday, Friday

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2022
Author: Radosh

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.0/ 5.0
Followers: 921
Views: 1,137,174

What readers say about The Mad Rat's Lab

“I’m going to start with the most important: this isn’t a story for everyone. The Mad Rat’s Lab is about a vr game where players create dungeons and invade other players’ dungeons, and the mc plays as a faction that uses other monsters to create his own: hyb…”
VadortekRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“I have read further in the story (ch 27) from scribble hub so i can make a concrete review that isn't just first impressions I will first explain the star ratings and then go into the setting so If you aren't interested in reading the full review just read…”
Lord RuneRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

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Community Reviews(10)

VadortekRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I’m going to start with the most important: this isn’t a story for everyone.
The Mad Rat’s Lab is about a vr game where players create dungeons and invade other players’ dungeons, and the mc plays as a faction that uses other monsters to create his own: hybrids, chimeras, and the like. If you are into funny stories with lots of monsters and like imagining new combinations, I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading it, as I did. There’s also the bonus of seeing other players suffering from those monsters when they invade the mc’s dungeon.
Now for the bad parts. If you expect this story to have deep character interactions and incredibly believable reactions, you better don’t waste your time here. Descriptions are also all over the place: sometimes there’s no description at all about how a character looks and sometimes there’s a very detailed description of a place, object, or monster.
The reason I like so much about The Mad Rat’s Lab is the weird monster creations and the funny reactions and despairing situations from the other players. I pretty much disregard everything else because it’s what I come here to read.
Style
The story flows nicely and one event naturally leads to the next. There are even small snippets in each chapter to show aspects of the game or world you can’t see in the normal story.
Be warned though: there’s a lot of laughing. It’s better in later chapters, but it can be offputting at the beginning. This is one of the things that can give you more trouble as a reader, but for me, it wasn’t out of place.
Story
Interesting and original ideas that lead to funny situations. The main point of this story is the monster creation and the invasion of other players’ dungeons which I haven’t seen in any other story so far.
Grammar
This isn’t my strong point because I’m not a native speaker, but I haven’t seen any big grammar errors. The author accepts suggestions and makes changes when readers point out errors.
Characters
They could be better but are decent enough for the
Lord RuneRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I have read further in the story (ch 27) from scribble hub so i can make a concrete review that isn't just first impressions
I will first explain the star ratings and then go into the setting so If you aren't interested in reading the full review just read about the setting as that is the main reason as to why i like this story
Grammar: in all the chapters i didn't notice any Grammar mistakes thought im not the best so im not the best judge for native speakers 5 stars
Style: it flows nicely i like the way that real life problems aren't just ignored, but are instead intergated into the story without any consequences to the pacing. I haven't yet had any chapters that felt like filler or boring as even the stat/skill sheets make you think about future unit combination's which is a huge+ for me.
Characters: they are unique with fleshed out personalities, ts enjoyable to watch them interact although as of now the mc has only talked to a few people and There was one plot point that would've made me rate it at 4 stars but its been fixed and instead turned into a funny convo between friends so i will instead put it at 4.5 due to this mishap and that sometimes there aren't descriptions of peoples appearance
Story: i took half a star as we currently lack real agency (except a rivalry) but i dont put it lower because of HOW DAMN FUN the setting is which makes it not really matter for me.
THE SETTING: its of course a dungeon vr story but its still very unique in the way the system works and surprisingly balanced as it ends up the author is a game designer so he knows far more about how to make a good system than most authors.
The mc uses a faction which fuses other factions units(makes chimeras hybrids ect). Now this doesn't in itself sound good as it should make all units broken and hence the story unfun. But its again Balanced so they arent necessarily stronger than other units in their price range. What makes this faction so fun are the gimmicky units you can make.
Its hi
Just_existingRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
It's a very interesting theme,
Characters are very fresh and his life is explored properly, side characters are given proper space
His monologue are interesting plus his mobs are very well planed and it's not a overpowered main character it shows his struggles and difficulty.
Main currency part is also very interesting.
I liked it very much .
No mistakes in grammar.
Enjoying it very much
Keep posting
GamekingfeddeRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Its a really good vr novel about a mad rat.
The novel is about building a dungeon and fighting other dungeons.
The mc uses Frankenstein like monsters in his dungeon.
Overal a really good novel.
. . . . Z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z
The Monotone PuppetRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
I'm really enjoying the story so far, but I want to give some constructive criticism.
Something that I think is hard for many writers (including myself, so if you want to offer constructive criticism, I am all for it. I always want to improve myself and having the advice of a fellow writer is indispensable, so feel free to check "Charisma" out) is distinguishing the "voices" of each character, making them different from the other. I noticed that the orc is a bit too close to our main character's internal perspective, and he has a similar speech pattern as well. Maybe you could change the laughter to something more derisive, or boisterous, for the orc? Like "HAH HAH HAH HAH!" instead "Huhuhuhuhu" or "GERONIMO" instead of "WAAAAAAHH". Even just describing it instead of doing onomatopoeia all the time for different characters, such as 'he gutturally laughed with a deep victorious timbre.' I think he needs to be less mad scientist/evil, like our main character. There is other stuff that makes the MC and the orc too similar, they both have a similar flair/drama/manic intensity to their speech and thought process.
Another is making the praise more subtle and sparse. I think you have done fairly well on most of the chapters with this, but there is making the character appropriately awesome, and then there is making them too awesome/unique at the cost of the others becoming cannon/story fodder meant to solely highlight the awesomeness of the Dungeon.
I did think that the his sexual focus during his dungeon battle with Laura was... odd. He seemed genuinely angry that she called herself Lil when she wasn't. It seemed... creep-ish.
Onto the compliments though, I genuinely love the drama, the roleplay, that dear Mad Rat switches into for his audience. His little quirks are amusing to read and chuckle at. The grammar is pretty high-quality. I have not really seen any grammar mistakes I can think of.
Not only that, but the gaming system, at least to me, is quite unique and I enjo
junkbearRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
Like the title says, the book is good for what's in the synopsis: a mad scientist roleplayer creating a dungeon full of demented monsters, tricks, and traps designed to torment invaders in entertaining ways. If I were to give a rating solely on those parts, it'd be 4.5.
The other parts unfortunately aren't as good. The characters seemed like caricatures to me, and I didn't particularly like any of them (with the exception of the MC while he's doing his mad scientist roleplaying). I also felt that the story could use a significant amount of pruning, as there were many sections that either dragged on too long or just didn't really add anything of value.
For what it's worth, I did have quite a bit of fun reading it, but I didn't get invested so it didn't continue to hold my interest.
Jason()Royal Road
★★★★ 3.5
The concept of the story is really good. I enjoy the video game elements and how unique the dungeon aspect is. The monster ideas are interesting and not really seen. Dungeon battles are interesting when not ruined by whole chapters of random dialogue. My biggest issue are the characters. The dialogue and the way they act ruin a lot of the experience. Almost every character acts crazy for no reason and you can spend whole chapters with them just talking about nonsense which has no impact on the story. I don’t really understand why the MC’s dungeons is so popular though since it seems like people can easily beat his dungeon. He has good ideas and powerful monsters but at the same time he keeps most of his monsters at very low levels where it’s not a challenge and is more of an annoyance than anything. Also his traps never seem to really work because everyone ends up being immune to the mushrooms and none of the other traps do much. Hopefully that changes as the story progresses. I do like the randomness of the dungeon but wish there were some normal aspects to it as well. I’d like to see an actual boss fight instead of making it where people just run from them
ThirdSwordSageRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
Alright. Review time.
So let's start with the good. First the story premise is something I haven't seen before. Sure game world is an seen that did this sorta deal but a vs dungeon raid game seems pretty cool and something that I imagne would succeed in real life. The Mc character in game fits rather well and I imagne the role play would be quite fun. Especially with how unique the races and abilities are in contrast to each other. The Orc character that shows other players attempts to raid the mc's dungeon is pretty cool as are the little tidbits about the thoughs of players on the game and the mc's dungeon.
The issue though.... for all that the game and story itself are very solid. The characters are not. The Mc is a odd mix of his insane character and a typical Japanese style protag aka both extremely naive and passive with a dash of perversion. All the other characters are super tropes. The sister who is two faced and super into her brother Mc (creepy), the female friend who also is into the Mc, and the butt of the joke best friend who should be competent but isn't. This might have been fine if the story wasn't so unique in concept. Really feels like it spits in the face of the world building.
Still though I'm going to give it a above 3 star because of the dungeon parts of the story which are sadly dragged down by the characters.
hilburnRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
Overall I'd say it's worth checking out - but in the end I couldn't stay engaged with it.
Style
Overall the flow of each chapter and little sub-arc of the story is pretty good, and the little forum entries are fun bits of context around the chapters. That said, and as petty as it might sound, one of the things I like least is the... 17 different methods the author uses to represent laughter. This might not sound like a big issue - but there's an uncomfortable amount of laughter (more on that later) and the sheer inconsistency for any character is oddly off putting for me.
Story
The story is great fun. It's a really nice concept for a VR pvp dungeon keeper style of play. Only thing I think is a bit weird is the idea of a game this deep to not have a tutorial or demo mission right at the start.
Grammar
The grammar isn't perfect and there are a few common typos, but nothing that really took me out of the story
Characters
This was the real killer for me. Our main pov character is, to put it nicely, a petulant weirdo. Throwing tantrums after losing a match in a game they've played for a week, bursting out loud into maniacal laughter in real life based on internal monologue, literally drooling uncontrollably onto food that's being cooked. Like.. Unless there's some upcoming twist that the game is fucking with people's heads and causing them to act like their in-game avatar there's not really any reason for a human being to act this way. Even then, while that might explain it, they're still someone I'd cross the road to avoid walking near, rather than someone I want to listen to their thoughts.
The 2 friends in comparison are merely annoying, but are both reasonably detached from reality themselves.
The other characters are all pretty 1D and uninteresting to hear about (except for the one guy who managed to stumble into every bad thing in the MCs dungeon on accident, he was pretty fun) but that may just be a result of the MC's relations and thoughts about them.
Comotose_TrinityRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
I love the Idea of this novel.
The world it interesting, the game is cool.
Yet the characters are trash.
MC: Is I guess suppose to be weird and lovable, and to a degree he is. I can see that the writer tried to make him fun but he is too weird, mind's everywhere, has a poor taste in friends, and has no real pride in anything he does.
The novel makes him throw fits and try to improve upon his dungeon and RP as if he cares but it is half hearted, his friends make a mockery constantly of his efforts and he doesn't really seam to truly care and gets pushed around like a limp-diHi B!tch. For me this isn't even the worst part about the MC, throughout the novel you get to see his thought process when he is debating or commenting on skills in the game, his and others. Every single comment is forced logic bull-... sorry. The MC doesn't know what he is talking about at all but the novel forces his opinion on skills down your throat at every turn. Then you have other players calling him a mad genius saying how diabolical and clever his dungeon is. Everything he does for hi dungeon in the beginning is borderline basic design. Nothing mind blowing but every nobody in the novel will treat it that way.
friends: The MC has two friends that are rather one dimensional and they never support him in anything only pranking and shit talking him witch gets quickly annoying. There is nothing else worth talking about when it comes to them, they are that empty of characters.
Over all - This novel is worth a read to try it out but if your like me you'll quickly end up dropping it due to (In my personal opinion) dry, sh!tty, side characters.