Bathtub Rage Game Rolls Onto Xbox, But the Small Print Is Missing
A wheeled bathtub, a steep hill and a coffee-break joke have become a real Xbox release - though the official post is oddly thin on the basics.
What’s actually been announced
Xbox Wire has published a developer diary from Elegant Horse Studios, the small outfit behind a physics-based rage game in which players steer a bathtub on wheels up brutally steep off-road slopes. According to the studio’s own account, the concept began as a throwaway joke between co-founders Laurynas Jatužis and Liudas “Hangeris” while they were still working day jobs, long before Elegant Horse Studios existed as a proper company. A third co-founder, Tautvydas, was reportedly elsewhere at the time and only found out about the idea later. The three had previously worked together on a game called Sheep Sweep.
The post describes the finished result as a “Foddian” title - industry shorthand for a Getting Over It-style climbing game built around deliberately awkward controls and the promise of rage-quitting. Xbox Wire states plainly that it is “Out Now on Xbox,” released through the ID@Xbox self-publishing programme that Microsoft runs for independent developers.
What we don’t actually know yet
Here’s the catch: beyond “out now on Xbox,” the official post doesn’t specify a release date, a price, or which Xbox hardware it runs on. There’s no confirmation of whether it’s playable on Xbox Series X|S specifically, whether it’s backward-compatible-friendly on older consoles, or whether it’s arriving on PC or Game Pass alongside the console version. It’s also not clear from this post whether this is a fresh launch or a re-announcement of something that quietly appeared earlier. None of that is unusual for a small ID@Xbox title getting a dev-diary write-up rather than a full press release, but it does mean readers shouldn’t assume more certainty than the source actually offers.
Who this is actually for
If you enjoy deliberately punishing “rage games” - think Jump King, QWOP or Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy - this is squarely aimed at you. It is not a mainstream racer or a driving sim despite the pun in the headline; the “driving” here is really about fighting unwieldy physics to haul a bathtub up a hill, not lap times or car handling. Fans of quirky indie physics games, and anyone who followed Elegant Horse Studios’ earlier work on Sheep Sweep, are the obvious audience. Casual players hoping for a relaxing drive will likely find it frustrating by design - that’s the entire joke the studio built the game around.
What to do about it
If the premise appeals, the sensible move is to check the Xbox Store listing directly for the actual price, confirmed platforms and system requirements before buying, since Xbox Wire’s own diary post doesn’t spell those out. Given it’s an ID@Xbox indie release rather than a first-party Microsoft title, expect a modest price tag and a short, focused experience rather than a sprawling production.
The takeaway
A studio in-joke has genuinely turned into a shipped Xbox game - that part checks out. What hasn’t been confirmed yet, at least in this announcement, is the price, the full platform list, or the exact release date, so it’s worth a quick look at the store page before you decide whether wrestling a bathtub up a hill is how you want to spend your evening.