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The Resourceful Rat's Lair (only referred to in-game as ???) is a secret chamber in The Gungeon, accessed through a hidden passage found in the Black Powder Mine. It requires at least one key, two blanks, and the Gnawed Key to enter. As the name suggests, it is the domicile of the Resourceful Rat and as such, nearly all floor features are themed around him. This includes the map only showing an animation of him holding a piece of cheese on a fishing rod and even the loading screen when entering the chamber.

Throughout the chamber, the player will encounter numerous rats holding candles. While these rats are harmless under normal circumstances, dying instantly upon player contact and occasionally yielding money, they can be jammed if the player has any curse, which will cause them to deal contact damage.

Like Bullet Hell this floor features no shops and no chest rooms (unless one counts the reward room after beating the boss).


How to access

Reaching the Resourceful Rat's Lair requires the Gnawed Key, a key to open the trapdoor (or any key replacing items like Shelleton Key or AKEY-47), and 2-3 blanks (or an explosive item or weapon that can open secret rooms).

  • In the Black Powder Mine, a room will have 2-4 rats running on the ground, as a hint. In this room there will be a locked trapdoor hidden by dust that can be revealed by walking on the respective tile, spraying it with Goop, water from the Mega Douser, or using a blank in the room. A larger than normal dust cloud will appear when walking over the respective tile.
  • After unlocking the trapdoor with any normal key or key-replacing items, falling down it leads to a minecart on a track. Ride the minecart (or walk on the track) to the end, then use a blank to reveal a secret passage (activating a blank effect anywhere including the area before the track will reveal the room). Alternatively, if you have armor, taking damage (by falling into the pit) will reveal the first secret passage.
  • At the end of the secret passage, use another blank to reach a room with another locked hatch.
    • Alternatively, Bloodied Scarf can be used to teleport past both passages without using blanks.
    • Armor cannot be used to open the second passage unless the player has other means of damaging themselves as the first passage is considered a separate room from the one with the pit.
  • Open the hatch with the Gnawed Key and enter it.

Notes

  • The Gungeon Blueprint does not show the trapdoor's icon on the map.
  • After falling down the trapdoor, there is a ladder to get back to the Black Powder Mine
  • The rats around the hatch can be jammed, and will deal contact damage.
  • The Drill, Shelleton Key, and AKEY-47 cannot open the hatch to the Resourceful Rat's Lair that requires the Gnawed Key.
  • If the players kills the roaming rats and leave the room unattended for a long time, the rat corpses will disappear.
  • If the player has flight when entering the Resourceful Rat's Lair, the loading screen will be the default loading screen instead of the rat variant.
  • If the player teleports while falling into the trapdoor, the game will act like the player fell in a normal pit, dealing damage to the player.

Layout

Upon entering the floor, the player must fall down the hole in the room to the right to enter the maze.

Maze

The maze consists of an endless grid of square rooms filled with enemies. The player must use the clues from the six Infuriating Notes in the Ammonomicon to determine the correct sequence of directions to travel. Each note ends with a piece of cheese pointing in a specific direction, and the six directions are in order of the six notes in the Ammonomicon. If the directions are successfully followed in order, the player will reach the Resourceful Rat. However, if the player wanders too long without finding the Resourceful Rat, they will simply be taken to an elevator to the Hollow.

Since the correct sequence required to find the Rat is randomly generated, copying the route of another player is ineffective. However, once the correct route to the Rat has been found, it will stay the same for that player on all future playthroughs.

Oddly enough, it has recently been found that the maze pattern remains constant across all Nintendo Switch versions of the game, with the pattern being: Down, Right, Down, Up, Down, Up!

Fight

See Resourceful Rat.

Post-Rat

After the Resourceful Rat has been fought, the player will be taken to a room with eight pedestals with 2 keys, 1 Glass Guon Stone, 1 Blank, 1 full heart, 1 armor, 1 ammo box, and 1 spread ammo box, along with four special chests that can be opened with special Rat Keys dropped by the Resourceful Rat. These chests always contain Elimentaler, Partially-Eaten Cheese, Resourceful Sack, and Rat Boots. The room also has a secret room, where a serpent is behind two locked doors that can be opened with Rat Keys.

  • While there are two locked doors, the player only needs to use one Rat Key to feed the serpent.

After leaving the loot room, the player can either head to the Hollow or spend a Rat Key to skip to the Forge.

Notes

  • The directions to the Resourceful Rat are randomised for each player, but are the same between save files.
    • As a result, the Infuriating Notes can be skipped on different save files. Doing so causes the Rat to say "What!? How did you find me? You are either exceedingly lucky or some kind of hacker!" during the intro.
  • If the player has Mimic Tooth Necklace, a mimic with googly eyes will tell the player the Mimic Union is spread thin and can't provide mimics for the Rat Chests. Despite this, the Rat Chests can still be mimics.
  • The chests can be opened using Trusty Lockpicks.
  • The chests will drop a random A Quality Item rank gun/item if the player has that item currently in their inventory.
  • It is possible to feed the Resourceful Rat to the serpent by kicking him towards it.
  • Teleporting into a new room using the Bloodied Scarf may cause the game to softlock. (PC)
  • The room in which the serpent is held will not be open unless the player has defeated the third phase of the Rat fight during that run.
    • This can be bypassed by using the Bloodied Scarf and teleporting to the place in which the room would usually be. This causes part of the black area surrounding the room to brighten up and turn light grey where the room would usually appear.
      • The player can feed the serpent when teleporting in. However, feeding the serpent the Bloodied Scarf will result in a softlock, as the player will have no way to escape the cell.

Boss

Boss Resourceful Rat
Resourceful Rat

Enemies

Icon Name Description
Chance Kin Chance Kin Runs away from the player and disappears if not killed. Turns into a !-cube which drops a random pickup upon death.
Red Shotgun Kin Red Shotgun Kin Slowly walks towards the player, occasionally firing a tight spread of 5 bullets. Has a chance to fire 6 bullets in all directions upon death.
Blue Shotgun Kin Blue Shotgun Kin Slowly walks towards the player, occasionally firing a wide spread of 5 bullets quickly followed by a wide spread of 4 bullets. Has a chance to fire 6 bullets in all directions upon death.
Veteran Shotgun Kin Veteran Shotgun Kin Slowly walks towards the player, occasionally firing a V-shaped spread of 5 bullets and predicting the player's movements. Fires many bullets in all directions upon death.
Mutant Shotgun Kin Mutant Shotgun Kin Slowly walks towards the player, firing tight spreads of 5 fast-moving bullets. Fires 6 bullets in all directions upon death.
Ashen Shotgun Kin Ashen Shotgun Kin Slowly walks towards the player, firing tight spreads of 5 fast-moving bullets.
Skullet Skullet Slowly walks towards the player, occasionally firing two spreads of triangular bullets.
Spent Spent Walks towards the player and attempts to deal contact damage.
Creech Creech Walks towards the player, periodically releasing bouncing bullets in all directions.
Pinhead Pinhead Walks towards the player and explodes upon death. If the player gets too close, it will leap towards the player and explode.
Cubulon Cubulon Frequently fires bullets in all directions in a diamond shape.
Chancebulon Chancebulon Fires random attacks from other Blobulon enemies, along with groups of bullets that look like dice. Has a chance to fire multiple attacks at the same time, and has a chance to die instead of attacking.
Ammomancer Ammomancer Attempts to summon Shelletons. They will cancel their summoning ritual and run away if the player is too close or they take too much damage. If the Ammonancer is killed while their Shelleton is still alive, then the Shelleton will collapse.
Jammomancer Jammomancer Jams an enemy in the room, increasing their health, speed, and damage.
Jamerlengo Jamerlengo Jams all enemies in the room, increasing their health, speed, and damage.
Shotgat Shotgat Launches two projectiles in a V shape at the player, dying in the process.
Dead Blow Dead Blow Pounds the ground, leaving a patch of fire and sending fire bullets in all directions. Cannot be killed, and disappears when the room is completed. In some rooms, the Dead Blow will follow the player.
Lead Maiden Lead Maiden Hops around, then opens up and fires three rings of triangular bullets that stick to walls, then fire towards the player. Cannot be damaged while closed. Explodes upon death.
Misfire Beast Misfire Beast Camouflages itself and creates projections that attack the player with bullet whips.
Phaser Spider Phaser Spider Fires large web-shaped sprays of bullets at the player that leave slowing cobwebs on the floor. Frequently burrows into the ground and reappears elsewhere in the room.
Killithid Killithid Summons portals around the room that fire bullets towards the player. Occasionally splits into three copies of itself, two of which are illusions.
Shelleton Shelleton Slowly walks towards the player, frequently firing two wide bursts of bullets at the player. Occasionally fires a laser at the player. Collapses upon death, and will revive if not destroyed after a short period of time.
Gunreaper Gunreaper Swings its scythe, sending a homing arc of bullets towards the player. Cannot be killed, and disappears upon completing the room.
  • In addition, the skeletal rat-like minions summoned in the Resourceful Rat Boss Fight can appear in large quantities.

Rooms

Most rooms in the lair share the same square-like shape with an exit tunnelling on each side. The contents of these rooms are as follows:

  • 2 random Shotgun Kin variants and 1 Mutant Shotgun Kin (all 3 being jammed) guarding an Ammomancer.
  • 2 Lead Maidens.
  • 2 Chance Kin accompanied by a player-seeking Dead Blow.
  • 1 of each Shotgun Kin variant (excluding Executioners and Shotgrubs), a Shotgat and a Creech. Following this either when all enemies are slain or nearly all, a Jamerlengo appears.
  • A jammed Chancebulon. This wave is followed by another jammed Chancebulon together with 2 regular Chancebulons.
  • An on-spawning army of Rat minions.
  • A horde of Spents together with a Gunreaper. After a fair few are slain, 2 Skullets and a Jammomancer join the fight.
  • An empty room.
  • 2 Shelletons.
  • 2 Phaser Spiders.
  • 2 Chancebulons and a Misfire Beast.
  • 2 Pinhead, 1 Killithid and 1 Cubulon.

Every room has TNT, Tables, Coffins and Phaser Spider webs strewn about randomly.

See also

The Gungeon
The Breach Keep of the Lead Lord Gungeon Proper Black Powder Mine Hollow Forge
Secret Chambers
Oubliette Abbey of the True Gun Resourceful Rat's Lair R&G Dept. Bullet Hell
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