A Simple Expurriment launches on Steam on 28 October

A Simple Expurriment will launch on Steam on 28 October 2026, bringing a combat-free metroidvania built around stealth, puzzles and feline abilities.¹ The game follows a mother cat whose three kittens have been abducted by an extraterrestrial and taken aboard an alien ship.

A rescue mission without combat

The central objective is straightforward: find the kittens and bring them home. The route is not. Instead of fighting enemies, players explore the ship, avoid security systems and solve environmental puzzles. The Steam listing describes a game in which parts of the map can be manipulated like pieces of a puzzle, while the cats’ abilities open up new ways through the ship.²

The mother cat can run along walls, move through spaces in unusual ways and eventually turn liquid, according to the game’s store description. Her kittens also have genetically modified abilities, making the family itself part of the toolset used to explore. That gives the rescue story a mechanical purpose: finding the kittens is not only the narrative goal, but also how the player gains new options.

The setting is stranger than a simple rescue platformer. The cats are subjects in an experiment conducted by a greedy alien corporation trying to understand their unusual influence over humans. That premise provides the game with an opportunity to shift between playful feline behaviour and a more uncomfortable story about exploitation. The developers have also said the game was made without AI tools, covering its artwork, code and writing.¹

Puzzles, stealth and two possible outcomes

A Simple Expurriment is designed around experimentation rather than combat. Players rearrange parts of the alien ship, use new abilities to reach different areas and avoid the systems protecting the vessel. The store page also points to a critical choice in the latter half that leads to one of two possible outcomes.²

That structure should make exploration feel more deliberate than simply moving from one fight to the next. The challenge will be communicating what can be manipulated without turning the ship into a collection of arbitrary switches. The cat’s unusual abilities may help there, because each one can change how familiar rooms are read.

The game is expected to take around five to six hours for a first playthrough, with another hour for players chasing the alternative ending. Collectibles and hidden pop-culture references provide additional reasons to revisit areas after the main route is clear.¹

A compact adventure with a clear identity

A Simple Expurriment has an unusually focused pitch: a cat-mom rescue mission, a puzzle-driven alien ship and no combat. It is scheduled to launch on Steam on 28 October, while a demo is also available through the platform.¹ The release timing gives players a chance to see whether its feline movement and map manipulation are as expressive in practice as they sound on paper.

Our opinion

The no-combat approach is the most promising part of A Simple Expurriment. A cat moving through an alien ship can be playful without being weightless, and the choice-driven ending suggests the story is aiming for more than a string of cute animations. Its success will depend on puzzle clarity and whether the kittens’ abilities genuinely change exploration. If those pieces fit, the game could offer a welcome alternative to metroidvanias that treat combat as the default answer to every obstacle.