Clawstrophobia turns a rigged claw machine into a roguelite

I’ve been to a few arcades in the 35 years of my life, and I can say, “We are not going on the claw machines,” until I’m blue in the face, yet I always end up putting money into them while getting nothing out because the system is rigged to fail 90% of the time. I can’t say I’ve ever really played them as if my life depended on it, though, but that’s the exact situation Clawstrophobia puts you in. 

Clawstrophobia is a roguelite claw machine game by Glockblock Games that forces you to play a seemingly endless crane game to pay off a debt that you don’t remember getting yourself into. If you’ve ever played a claw machine, there’s one thing that sums up how delightfully infuriating Clawstrophobia is: it’s just as frustrating and rigged as the real thing, but also just as addictive. 

How did we end up here?

Clawstrophobia begins with you waking up in what appears to be a sterile basement that’s apparently underneath a train station. You’re told that you had an “expensive night out,” and the unknown entity who put you in the basement paid off your debt, but now you have to pay them back, and you have no money. Instead, you’ll need to pay them back in increments by picking up plushies inside the claw machine. 

The amount you owe keeps increasing, so lord knows what you actually got up to the night before, but it seems you’re going to be stuck in this hole for a long while yet. I can only hope that there were witnesses to this debt-based kidnapping and someone is coming to free me. Eventually.

Admittedly, even the most rigged claw machines give you just enough hope to keep you playing, and the one in Clawstrophobia has all the usual tricks: it grabs a plush but drops it halfway through lifting it, loosens its grip just as you think you’ve hit your target, and sometimes seems to have a mind of its own. 

Boosting the numbers

While you’re trapped in the sterile, tiled pit of claw-based torture that is Clawstropobia, you can make things easier on yourself by purchasing drinks from a nearby vending machine. My first thought was that there was a survival mechanic based on thirst, but these drinks are actually your round-by-round perks that build up over time if you line them up on the edge of the machine. 

Some of the drinks boost the value of certain plushies, while others increase the likelihood of certain plushies appearing. It goes without saying that you can build up some really solid collections of perks if you manage your re-rolls and perhaps get a little lucky with what appears. If you boost how much Bears are worth and also increase how often they appear in the machine, that’s one hell of a roguelite build. 

Then different rarities seem to be completely randomised and are marked by different colored glows that surround an individual plush inside the machine. Some plushies glow green, blue, purple, or even gold, with each color representing a multiplier that applies to that plushie if you manage to grab it and drop it into the chute. 

Clawstrophobia is a roguelite that is as addictive as it is frustrating, and all of it is overseen by a kidnapper who may or may not be a humanoid rabbit. Whether we get to learn more remains to be seen in the full game when it releases on November 2, 2026, but until then, you can play the demo on Steam.