can someone explain the story of the game?

[Nyx]

SPOILERS AHEAD, so I only watched a video of this game and didn't play it myself (was going to if it was longer) I thought maybe it's symbolizing that the father lost the baby to some rat pest control and... somehow ended his wife too? I was sort of confused at the end and when I read the "mature content description" on the steam page I was more confused because of the mention of "schizophrenia", how was it related to schizophrenia?

[Noodle]

Maybe its an hallucination. I think the character isn't shaking a rat, but beating his wife and child and hiding their bodies under the floorboards

[Ventuso]

Originally posted by Noodle.png:

Maybe its an hallucination. I think the character isn't shaking a rat, but beating his wife and child and hiding their bodies under the floorboards

O that's a good take. I was sort of thinking he was trying to forget the deeds he did and hid the body (bodies)? beneath the floorboards. But then the rats started becoming a "pest problem", eating the bodies and infesting the house. In his hallucinations/mania he probably genuinely forgot what he did and was trying to find where his wife/kid went, but only found rats. So that's why he's trying to shake the truth out of it

[Sailor Mish]

I'm probably wrong but I just finished the game and what I think happened was the man, 'Ratshaker', maybe lost his child which lead to him taking an abusive route which then lead to him murdering his wife. He then hide her body under the floor boards which lead to the huge attraction of rats then leading to him thinking he's a rat shaker to cope with the murder of his wife OR another possibility could be that the wife was pregnant and because the man was abusive (wife shaker), it lead to her having a miscarriage or possibly getting rid of the baby with rat poison. This then made him kill his wife which lead to the attraction of rats which then lead him to cope with the murder by thinking the whole issue was with rats to cover up the possible regret and guilt. I hope these make sense, I tried my hardest to write down what I was thinking. If I didn't, I'm more than happy to re-explain myself. Have a good one :)

[altanahmed81]

I think he was an alcoholic (because of the bottles around) and probably spent his time watching tv on the couch (because they explode when interacted) and the kid died of his negligence and when the wife came found out he killed her and hid them below the floorboards and the whole schizophrenia part is the part we play

[GoblinCheeksClapper]

There's a couple of interpretations but. . .

If the baby room is to believed there was a baby.

Either the baby was alive and born or it was never born.

The baby was born and rats attacked it and killed it. Thus in anger he attacked rats, he also was a rat shaker.

There are visual cues to other things like he possibly was a murderer beforehand > the hallway of dead censored bodies, the rooms that are empty.

I'm not sure what the VHS tapes are? Family memories?

I'm not sure why there is a painting of two rats/mice. It looks vaguely like the comic Maus but I'm not sure here either.

There's something to there being a lot of alcohol. Maybe the man was a drunk or became a drinker?

We know he shook his wife to death and she died of whiplash.

In the photo we can see pretty stubby fingers so its a weird angle but because of the art style I cant tell if its the babies hand reaching to her or just a weird angle. If it is a babies hand we are seeing the baby reaching for the mom.

If the dev never actually responds thats fine because its up to interpretation but at the end you really just have the facts: husband shook wife to death and was in denial for a time until he was forced to remember it for whatever reason.

[Huntokar]

Textually, what we know for certain is that the player character killed his wife. That much is confirmed by the ending. The other pieces are a bit more speculative, but I'll do my best to piece it all together.

In the beginning, you're in a new home. Soon after, we see at least the suggestion of marital trouble - the late-night TV infomercials, the pillows on the couch, the collection of beer bottles. Then the horror in the nursery. Seems that the dad has either directly or indirectly caused the death of his infant (either by way or neglect or shaking him) and things fall further apart from there, ultimately culminating in his murder of his wife and, we assume, his own suicide, either in the bathtub or blowing up the house with gas (or potentially both). What we are playing is clearly the character re-living his crimes again and again in hell -- he can't undo what he's done.

Okay, so far so good, but what about the VHS tapes? What about the mattress in the basement and the cages and the glowing refrigerator? What was that the rat said about the wife knowing what was happening below the floorboards of her own house?

I think there are two possible explanations.

The first, more straightforward theory is that the player character is in fact a serial killer, and he's trying to have his cake and eat it too -- he has his wife and family upstairs, but his murder operation downstairs. In this hypothesis, he's the one producing the snuff film we view on the VHS (hence the TVs that keep exploding in hellfire). The quantity of bodies attracts vermin, who then kill his child, and he kills his wife soon after when she starts to realize what's happening. This explanation is quite similar to the films The Night House and Barbarian.

I think this explanation is supported by the text, but doesn't wholly jive with the amount of guilt the player character appears to be grappling with.

Alternative, more cerebral hypothesis is that the player character's child dies of neglect and/or accidental death by baby shaking (as supported by paintings like Ivan the Terrible, which depicts a father who kills his son and then immediately regrets it). The player character, who's already presumably experienced job loss and alcoholism and marital rejection, falls down a pornography addiction rabbit hole (all of those VHS tapes!) watching more and more extreme videos and fantasies. "Ratshaking" in this interpretation is both reference to the murders but also to masturbation. Ultimately, he kills his wife, either to enact the fantasy or accidentally when she confronts him, and hides her body down in the basement. But now the house is overrun with vermin, who repeatedly taunt him with his guilt, until he ultimately tries to dispose of the evidence and kill himself (hence the gas explosion). This is more similar to The Tell-Tale Heart and Stephen King's 1922.

I think there are other valid interpretations that exist somewhere between these options, or to either side of them, but overall I think that's roughly what the game is about.

[Muddy]

Ill add that the Painting of "Saturn Eating his Child" by Francisco Goya show up several times. Known as the "Black Paintings" they were painted over and over and were a reflection of the artist manic and possibly schizophrenic state of mind. There is more to gather from the lore of the painting I think so here is a paragraph if you care to check it out. Its all up for interpretation of course.

Just Wiki: Saturn Devouring His Son was one of six works Goya painted in the dining room. It is important to note that Goya never named the works he produced at Quinta del Sordo; the names were assigned by others after his death.[6] This interpretation of the painting sees it as a reference to the Roman myth (inspired by the original Greek myth), in which Terra (Gaea) foretold that one of the sons of Saturn (Cronus) would overthrow him, just as he had overthrown his father, Caelus (Uranus). To prevent this, Saturn ate his children moments after each was born, eating the gods Vesta (Hestia), Ceres (Demeter), Juno (Hera), Pluto (Hades), and Neptune (Poseidon). His wife Ops (Rhea) eventually hid his sixth child and third son, Jupiter (Zeus), on the island of Crete, deceiving Saturn by offering a stone wrapped in swaddling in his place. Unlike the painting, the myths usually portray Saturn/Kronos swallowing his children, and later vomiting them up alive after swallowing the stone, rather than violently tearing them apart as in the painting.[a][c] Jupiter eventually supplanted his father just as the prophecy had predicted.

[StrangeAK47]

just an idea, i know there are better direct interpretations, but what if the rat is a symbol of his grown child, that ratted him out about the abuse/murder.
his desire to have control over the rat won't let it go, the rats voice changes from submissive to dominant when pushed too far. the dead child imagery could be symbolising that the child is dead to him.
there is probably more like the 3 christmas stockings with dead rats could indicate more children or the fact it looked like one stocking was missing.
just an idea that popped in my head while playing.

[Laurlo]

I found the game extremely similar (almost like a tribute) to the old 2014 PS4 Silent Hill demo P. T. that never got finished. Mainly the act of constantly going around a house where each go around is slightly different from the last. Also, the whole point of the game surrounding what looks to be a husband who murders both child and wife possibly, who also seemed to be heavily drinking, similar to the protagonist of PT. Other aspects I found similar were the wife returning vengefully at some point, the bathtub filling with water (and seeming to be a place of murder or body storage), and the multiple fetuses that pop up in game. the rat itself reminded me of the talking bag/radio in PT that constantly hints and reminds you of the crimes you committed on your family and providing backstory to the game. also the whole premise of interacting with something in each iteration to obtain a piece of a picture (of said wife) to progress in the game. Even more so there where repeating motifs like refrigerators (the one sometimes hanging in the foyer in PT) and overall disarray of the house (also apparent in PT) all in all 10/10, scared me ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at the end (just like PT lol)

[SpicyBrownMstrd]

rugRAT=baby
shaken baby syndrome = dead baby
Person who snitches = Rat.
wife = rat
wife = dead
ratshaker=?????

[ᴺᵉᶜʳᵒᵐᵒʳᵗᶦ]

So, in the game we are surrounded by many elements. Also by many hints as we sink deeper and deeper into the game. But let's start from the very beginning. I will be spilling a lot, so please be aware.

Well, once you gain the ability to walk in the game and you try to walk away from the corn field in opposite direction, you always end up in the white blur. Whenever further in the game you come across the oven and you try to turn it on, rat is indicating that you're trying to ran away from your actions - which leads later on to explosion and re-spawn.

All the gurgling voice is saying at the beginning, is that you seek the answers through the rat. Rat itself by commentary is giving you hints once in a while. Based on that itself it looks like you did many things which lead to horrible consequences. Yet, the house you explore never had existed according to the rat. The only real building was barn, so anything related to home-live or family-live is rather a fiction.

We know that further we end up in the game, at the meaty-chamber stage, there is some virus you are passing through, due to certain gas-poisonous-looking-like colour animation appearing on the screen. This would make more sense due to beginning of the house exploration and also explain a lot that oven causing explosion every single time it is turned on, appearance of fridges or plastic barrels containing toxic liquids and body parts inside of them. All paintings changing into some sort of "devil dance" poses and everything indicating the mixture of creatures with humans, serve as the signposts of getting deeper into exploring our true nature [as this particular character] and what exactly has been happening.

At the beginning we can see family photographs. After few shifts and game environment changes we just see our ML single picture exposed and all indicators of family life being removed. Remember that the house is a "fiction" which means he was leading double-life and treating family factors as a facade for true nature. All dead bodies, all of the torture-chamber-like spaces are representing what is more truthful for the ML and what seems to be more real the further we explore the game. Last space, where everything imitates a church - which is like a redemption right? at leas for some people - is nothing more than an altar sacrifice space, filled up with a lot of icons - not of saints but people that went missing, died, probably tortured by us - filled up with ritual circles and blood, just to reveal one last body, that apparently was our ML wife.

Blood paintings all along our way are showing that something is always watching us, reaching to us, same goes for that voice telling us what to do, with our rat. Is it because the ML is possessed by some forces? Is it some form of a split personality issue? Not sure about that. In any case, I will assume that entity/force of unknown kind is leading us all along back to ourselves. I assume that we start the game at the point where ML got insane or had some sort of an amnesia, as that is quite common problem in some murder cases IRL.

I would make here an assumption, that ML has been poisoned by something on his land or is poisoned on a regular basis, started due to that having hallucinations and went on his killing spree, which lead him to having a double-life standard, acknowledging slowly that some other-personality is growing up within his mind, leading him to getting rid of his family and then completely forgetting about all of that due to the mechanism of rejecting disturbing type of memories for a human being.

I will also assume here, that there is old-fashioned bunker underneath of the house, or house on purpose was made on top of some old-style underground facility, that is mixed with the hallucinations of ML which creates such an absurdity in the room composition and why so many bodies and bloody-cells-structures appear everywhere. Due to the nature of poisoned-mind the ML started participating in practices similar to occult matter of ceremonial magic or something like LHP thing, or other Crowley-style sh*t, when disembodying the bodies, their components, etc.