Stayin' Alive is a survival-strategy ecosystem game where players inhabit the role of an endangered kangaroo rat and navigate the changing seasons with predators and scarce resources in the Southern California shrublands. Players explore, collect materials, build and manage dens, recruit worker rats, and maintain a sustainable food system for themselves and their colony.

At its core, the game is a dynamic system: grasses grow and spread, predators hunt, seasons shift resource availability, and player choices shape emergent outcomes.