Is it like the Chrome dinosaur game?

Yes, same idea: jump and duck to keep running, like the dinosaur that appears in Chrome when you are offline (chrome://dino). Rat Race adds 65 cities with their landmarks, a cross-border commuter level, a daily course that is the same for everyone, and it also works offline once loaded.

Yes, entirely, with no ads and no in-app purchase. The euros in the game are only points.

Does it work offline?

Yes. Once the page has loaded once, the game is cached in your browser and starts without a connection, in the train tunnel included.

Any city you have reached, or bought with your collected euros, can be picked from the level chooser. Luxembourg is always open.

Why Constantinople and not Istanbul?

The city keeps its historic name in the game, a choice of the author.

French, English, German and Luxembourgish, switchable in Settings on the start screen.

Do I need an account?

No, everything can be played without one. Signing in with Google is optional: it keeps your streak, records, cities and flags in sync across your devices. The leaderboard needs no account: a nickname is enough. Two-step verification is available in your account.

Is there a leaderboard?

Yes, on the website: every game over shows the best players of that mode (today's Daily commute, this week's world tour, each Commuter destination at your difficulty) and where your run would land. To join, tap "Add my name" after a run: a nickname is enough, no account. The Chrome extension stays offline, without a leaderboard.

What can the fox and the lion do?

Both eat birds, so a bird at head height no longer ends the run. The lion also gets a double jump, ready again 100 m after each use. Anyone can hold one more double jump by grabbing a coffee on the road.

How do I play on a phone?

Tap anywhere to jump, hold the ⬇ zone bottom-left or swipe down to duck. Two thumbs work at the same time.

What is the Daily commute?

A single course per day, identical for everyone: 900 m from home to the office of the day, then an overtime stretch that gets faster until you drop. You get three counted attempts, your best one goes into a short result strip you can paste anywhere, playing every day builds a streak, and once the three are spent you can keep practising the same course as much as you like, uncounted. The direct link is ratrace.sitraka.lu/?daily.

Rat Racefree browser game · made in Luxembourg

Rat Race: the T-Rex runner, worker edition

Rat Race is a small free game for the train or the gap between two meetings: a man, a woman or a rat in its ball runs to the office, and you jump over whatever the city throws at you. One city per level, 65 cities in all, each drawn with its real landmarks in retro pixel art.

It starts in Luxembourg, under the Pont Rouge and the Gëlle Fra, and goes on to Paris, London, Brussels, Frankfurt, Zurich, Dubai, New York or Tokyo. A special Frontalier level sends a cross-border commuter home to Arlon, Thionville, Trier, Metz or Nancy.

Every day there is also the Daily commute: the same 900 m course for everyone, from home to the office of the day (Kirchberg, La Défense, Canary Wharf…), three attempts, and a three-line strip to paste for your colleagues.

Play Rat Race ↗

Free, no ads, no account needed. Works on phone and computer, and offline once it has loaded.

Rat Race: level 1 in Luxembourg, the rat in its ball runs under the Pont Rouge, next to the Gëlle Fra, with the pixel score and HI record — Level 1, Luxembourg

Why a game about the rat race

The rat race is the race nobody wins: the wheel, the maze, the commute that starts again every morning. In Luxembourg, where a large part of the workforce crosses a border every working day, the metaphor writes itself.

The game is a wink, not a lecture: two minutes of pixel art, a score to share, a city to unlock. It was built as a side project in September 2026 and lives on this site.

How to play

Three controls and nothing else to learn.

Jump: tap anywhere on the screen, or press Space. Hold to jump higher.
Duck: swipe down, press the down arrow, or hold the ⬇ zone at the bottom-left of a phone screen. Birds fly at head height.
Collect the euros and catch the flag of each city you cross: 8 flags in the same run double your score.
Choose your runner on the start screen: a man, a woman or the rat in its ball, then two to unlock by running: the red fox after 50 m in one run, and the red lion of Luxembourg, the Roude Léiw with its crown and forked tail, after 1,678 m. Each has a superpower: the fox eats birds instead of crashing into them, and the lion eats them too and gets a double jump every 100 m.
Grab a coffee on the road and you can jump a second time in mid-air: one double jump in reserve at most, for every runner.
Pick your difficulty in Settings: Easy ×0.7, Normal, Hard ×1.4, Extreme ×2 on the score.
The score reads like the Chrome dino's: five digits, with your record (HI) next to it, all in pixel art down to the fonts.
The sky follows your clock: night runs at night, dawn at dawn. Esc or P pauses the run, and the B key shows a fake spreadsheet if the boss walks by.
Daily commute: one city per day, the same course for every player, 900 m to the office then overtime until you drop. Three attempts, a streak, and a spoiler-free result strip to share.
The Alzette mission follows the river from its source in Thil, in France, to Ettelbruck: 20 towns, each with a landmark in pixel art (the Belval blast furnaces, the Bock cliff, Mersch's Saint Michael's Tower, Berg Castle, the Patton memorial), the same course for everyone and its own leaderboard. Finish it to unlock the cycling commuter, who rides over cones.
Share your result as a picture with a challenge link: whoever opens it races against your score. Collect 12 achievements, and switch on the synthwave soundtrack in Settings if you like.
At the end of every run, the leaderboard shows the best players of that mode: today's Daily commute, this week's world tour, each Commuter destination. To appear on it, tap "Add my name" after a run: a nickname is enough, no account.

One city per level

Reach a city to unlock it, or buy it with the euros you collected. The level chooser lets you start from any city you have unlocked, and keeps the 65 cities folded in three tiers that you open when you want.

Tier 1: Luxembourg, Paris, London, Brussels, Frankfurt, Zurich, Dubai, Los Angeles, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, then the world cities: New York, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, Toronto, Chicago, Madrid, Amsterdam, Melbourne, San Francisco, Berlin, Boston.

Tier 2: the other NATO capitals, from Ottawa to Helsinki. Tier 3: the megacities, from Cairo and Lagos to Constantinople, with their food and animal clichés as obstacles.

Every city has its own landmarks drawn pixel by pixel, 212 in all, ten for Luxembourg alone: Pont Adolphe, Gëlle Fra, the cathedral, the Grand Ducal Palace, the Casemates, the Philharmonie, Mudam and the Dräi Eechelen, the Court of Justice, the Pont Rouge and Vianden castle.

The Frontalier level

A cross-border commuter leaves Luxembourg after work and runs home. Broken-down cars and stalled trains are platforms you run on; traffic-jam monsters and customs drones are not. The further the home, the harder the run. Every euro you grab takes 0.25 s off your time, so you choose between speed and coins, and each difficulty keeps its own best time.

Home	Distance	Difficulty
Arlon	1,200 m	★
Thionville	1,400 m	★
Trier	1,800 m	★
Metz	2,400 m	★★
Nancy	3,600 m	★★★

Screenshots

Rat Race: the Paris level, the Eiffel Tower drawn in pixel art — Paris

Rat Race: the Frontalier level, the commuter passes the Belgian border sign on the way to Arlon — Frontalier level, to Arlon

Rat Race: the start screen with the Daily commute, and the end of a run: taken out by an umbrella, with the optional Google sign-in — Start screen and end of a run

Explore the cities before you run

Every city and every commuter destination has its own page on the game site, with the landmarks drawn in pixel art, the obstacles that get you and how to unlock it.

On your phone, on your computer

Open ratrace.sitraka.lu in any browser. On a phone, add it to your home screen (Share, then Add to Home Screen on iPhone; the install prompt on Android): it then opens full screen and works offline.

A zero-permission Chrome extension is packaged, with the game in a popup for the coffee break. It will be linked here once the store listing is public.

Play Rat Race ↗

Privacy

No account is needed. Without one, your progress, unlocked cities and best scores live in your browser only.

If you want your streak and records on several devices, you can sign in with Google, the same account as on sitraka.lu. A copy of your progress, without your device settings, is then kept in a database hosted in the European Union, and you can turn on two-step verification with an authenticator app. You can delete that copy from the game at any time.

Appearing on the leaderboard is a separate choice, with no account: after a run you tap "Add my name" and keep the suggested nickname or type your own (never your real name or email). Only the nickname, the runner you used, the scores (your day streak included), their dates and the rank are public, and "Remove my name from the board" deletes them at once. Without joining, the game only reads the board.

The site counts visits with Vercel Web Analytics, which uses no cookies. Sharing your score is a text you paste yourself; nothing is posted for you.

ratrace.sitraka.lu/privacy.html ↗

Questions

Is it like the Chrome dinosaur game?: Yes, same idea: jump and duck to keep running, like the dinosaur that appears in Chrome when you are offline (chrome://dino). Rat Race adds 65 cities with their landmarks, a cross-border commuter level, a daily course that is the same for everyone, and it also works offline once loaded.
Is Rat Race free?: Yes, entirely, with no ads and no in-app purchase. The euros in the game are only points.
Does it work offline?: Yes. Once the page has loaded once, the game is cached in your browser and starts without a connection, in the train tunnel included.
Can I pick any city?: Any city you have reached, or bought with your collected euros, can be picked from the level chooser. Luxembourg is always open.
Why Constantinople and not Istanbul?: The city keeps its historic name in the game, a choice of the author.
Which languages?: French, English, German and Luxembourgish, switchable in Settings on the start screen.
Do I need an account?: No, everything can be played without one. Signing in with Google is optional: it keeps your streak, records, cities and flags in sync across your devices. The leaderboard needs no account: a nickname is enough. Two-step verification is available in your account.
Is there a leaderboard?: Yes, on the website: every game over shows the best players of that mode (today's Daily commute, this week's world tour, each Commuter destination at your difficulty) and where your run would land. To join, tap "Add my name" after a run: a nickname is enough, no account. The Chrome extension stays offline, without a leaderboard.
What can the fox and the lion do?: Both eat birds, so a bird at head height no longer ends the run. The lion also gets a double jump, ready again 100 m after each use. Anyone can hold one more double jump by grabbing a coffee on the road.
How do I play on a phone?: Tap anywhere to jump, hold the ⬇ zone bottom-left or swipe down to duck. Two thumbs work at the same time.
What is the Daily commute?: A single course per day, identical for everyone: 900 m from home to the office of the day, then an overtime stretch that gets faster until you drop. You get three counted attempts, your best one goes into a short result strip you can paste anywhere, playing every day builds a streak, and once the three are spent you can keep practising the same course as much as you like, uncounted. The direct link is ratrace.sitraka.lu/?daily.

Rat Race is a personal side project by Sitraka Forler. City landmarks are stylised in pixel art; no trademark or official logo is used.