Can a video game mimic the highs and lows of life as a scientist?

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I’ve never been much of a video game person. As a kid in the ’80s in a Nintendo-free household, my only digital entertainment was a system called the Magnavox Odyssey 2 that my parents must have purchased sometime before the evolution of Permian mammals. Not only did you have to literally wire the console to the back of the TV every time you wanted to play, but the “games,” such as they were, mostly consisted of arrangements of five or six squares doing battle against arrangements of five or six other squares.

So it all felt a bit my-lane-yet-not-my-lane when I learned that someone has created and released a video game based on science careers. (That’s science careers, lower case, not Science Careers the fabulous publication.) The game, The Scientist Battles, draws from challenges, obstacles, and lessons learned during the early career of a real-life biomedical researcher named Shaun. During a period of post-Ph.D. unemployment, Shaun—who asked that I not disclose his last name—decided to teach himself to code. As a fan of gamer streaming platforms, he thought he might as well enjoy it. But his work on the game was also an opportunity to explore and process his ambivalence about pursuing a job in scientific research.

“When I first started this project, I think it was more of a fun thing,” Shaun told me. “It felt pretty cathartic.” Shaun, now a postdoctoral fellow at a large research university, worked on the game for 2 years, layering it with his own rather universal frustrations—failed research, rejected manuscripts, and colleagues who never seemed to face failed research or rejected manuscripts.

At this point, you may be wondering what in the world a video game based on lab research looks like. With Shaun’s help, I downloaded the game from Steam, where its tagline is “Science used to be your purpose, but now it is your prison.” Dammit, Shaun, I feel seen.

Those who know anything about video games might call it a narrative-driven 2D top-down side scroller with a light role-playing element. It’s kind of like The Legend of Zelda—if Link’s goal were less about saving the kingdom of Hyrule from the evil Ganon and more about academic burnout and the importance of self-care.

The game begins with our hero, in a lab coat and jeans, narrating, “I’m so exhausted. Four months of nonstop work, and nothing feels finished.” This sets the tone for the game: Although there will be standard video game–style combat, puzzles, and missions, the protagonist isn’t a mighty warrior or a fearless knight. He’s an early-career scientist, facing the difficulties many of us share. He’s you and me.

Not really knowing what I’m doing, I wander the avatar to a potted plant in the corner of the lab, mistaking it for a side quest. Nope. It’s a plant. Then I realize the game is directing me to begin an experiment on the lab bench, which makes sense, because that’s where you begin an experiment, not by wasting time with an irrelevant distraction. This already feels oddly like my actual lab experience.

I start to explore the game’s environment, which has a desk, a couple benches with pipettes, a centrifuge, and shelves of reagents. I choose a bench with what’s either a flow cytometer or a label printer, and I press “A” to interact. The narration explains that it’s now 3 days later, and “that did not work out, but what can you do.” I don’t know what I did. Or didn’t do. Which, again, feels oddly like my actual lab experience.

My next option is to “repeat the experiment.” And then again. After the third failed attempt, the character has an out-of-body experience and enters into conversation with a voice in his head, and it’s revealed (spoiler alert) that you are now trapped inside your own consciousness. Your consciousness apparently emits sounds that resemble a microwave. (Shaun told me he recorded real sounds in his postdoc lab to make the game feel more authentic.) It’s further revealed that you want to break out of your altered state. But only part of you wants to escape. Part of you wants to stay. To win the game, you need to “explore the parts of yourself that don’t want you to leave.”

This is the moment when I know, beyond a doubt, that this game was created by someone who has been to grad school.

After a bit more guided game play, I acquire a scalpel, a small chemical vial to use as a bomb, and a “pipette knife”—part pipette, part knife, 100% lab safety violation. My first lab room contains two spiderlike enemies, and when I stab them with the pipette knife, they turn into emeralds that I collect to purchase upgrades.

This part of the game feels less like my actual lab experience. I don’t recall my thesis adviser saying, “Hey, when you’re done editing that grant application, can you please stab those two spiders? And if they turn into gems, just, you know, hang onto those.”

Then, because I’m not very good at video games, another spider touches me until I die, and I become translucent and reappear at the entrance to the lab. It’s as though the spider is saying I failed my oral exam and need to repeat a year of my Ph.D. program. But maybe I’m reading too much into this.

Without giving too much away, as the game evolves, a backstory emerges. Lab equipment becoming unavailable when your time-sensitive samples are ready becomes a major plot point, and I have to say, the simplicity of that relatable holdup feels more devastating than any fatal spider bite.

Another mission requires you to collect 20 stacks of data before you can submit your publication to a scientific journal. “If only it were this easy in real life,” the game laments. Amen.

And you’ll never guess what happens after you collect 20 stacks of data. That’s right: You’re told immediately that you need to collect 40 stacks. And after you collect those? Sixty more stacks. And then your past self—a recurring grayscale figure in the thick of scientific anguish—assures you that the manuscript just needs a couple more tweaks.

I feel the spiky-haired protagonist’s pain as more past self scenes replay, such as when said manuscript is rejected by a top-tier journal, and his boss sounds so optimistic about gathering extra data to resubmit it to a second-tier journal. It’s like watching a horror movie, except instead of “Don’t go in there!” I’m yelling, “Supplemental data will delay your publication without guaranteeing the desired outcome!”

Sure enough, spoiler alert again, it does not go well. While our hero is knifing spiders, another lab publishes the same data first. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!” he screams, and man, I get it.

The game’s narration is peppered with lines that hit close to home: “It’s starting to feel like it’ll never be enough.” “Why do I feel like everyone else is soaring, while I’m just struggling?” “I just want to be … something.”

Just when I can’t imagine what challenge our hero will face next, he asks a couple colleagues how things are going in their labs, and guess what, things are going surprisingly well for colleagues A through C. The game’s enemies then switch from spiderlike thingies to shadows of faceless successful peers, and once you’ve successfully dodged enough of them, the game explains how their triumphs engender in you a feeling of constant helplessness. Which is how I actually feel at one point when I’m stuck on a particularly difficult level of the game, so I use the ultimate cheat code: I email Shaun and cajole him to tell me how to defeat it.

After a few hours of battling enemies both external (usually various iterations of the spiders, sometimes armed with spider lasers) and internal (feelings of inadequacy, impostor syndrome, and even a scientist’s most formidable foe, drowsiness), I defeat the final boss using a fun little twist that I won’t disclose. You’ll just have to spend $4.99 and play the game yourself.

Ultimately, The Scientist Battles is quite a thoughtful little game, and unlike most of the genre of science fiction, it’s clear this was produced by an actual scientist who has struggled with actual science setbacks. “I think this game was really helpful to help process these things,” Shaun told me, “and just make me feel less bad about myself.”

I think we all have those outlets, and if not, we need them. Shaun made a game. I write this column. I’ve known scientists who write poetry, draw comics, make jewelry, or perform improv comedy, all thematically related to their experiences in the lab.

If you’re experiencing the sort of angst that Shaun’s character feels, pick your favorite genre and create something. Then, if you’re bold enough, share it.

And upgrade your pipette knife early. You’ll thank me later.

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