The Mosquito Gang pits four blood-sucking insect players against a human who just wants to do the dishes

Every year, the fruit flies and mosquitoes return to my kitchen, drawn to the illicit aroma of unlidded pasta sauce and the rank embroidery of carbonised toast around my cooker. Every year, I attempt to remove them non-violently by building intricate traps out of vinegar bottles, or performing slow-motion kung fu punches with a jug.

My inability to keep the winged hoodlums at bay has alienated me from my so-called friends, but on the plus side, it has also equipped me to play The Mosquito Gang, an asymmetrical multiplayer affair in which one, regular-sized human player attempts to carry out various domestic tasks while four, tiny mosquito players attempt to suck their blood.

The Mosquito Gang is my favourite usage of the term “extraction” game in a while. As one of the mosq, you must obviously try to land on the human player without attracting their attention. Any mammalian essence extracted in that time can be spent at a blood bank to unlock random new abilities and modifiers. The blood bank mechanic is not a faithful representation of mosquito feeding habits, but does create a useful interval between extracting blood and profiting from it.

I’m not sure what the abilities are, exactly, but one of the screenshots shows a mosquito driving a toy car. The mosquitoes also appear to get side objectives, like unplugging fumigators and turning on a music player. Again, this doesn’t feel especially grounded in the real-life doings of mosquitoes. A mosquito does not have the muscle power to operate a steering wheel. You’d need to be a horse fly or larger.

The human player, meanwhile, has to carry out chores that range from the ordinary – taking out the trash, preparing a meal – to the Madly Scientific – operating a DNA scanner, mixing a cocktail for a robot. You earn cash for completing jobs, which can be spent on useful implements such as bug swatters. There doesn’t appear to be a pacifist mode, but I would love the option to trap the mosq in a jar and stand next to it for 20 minutes doing the floss. As for mosq objectives, perhaps they could add one where you maintain a just-audible presence near the ceiling, then suddenly whine right by the human’s ear as they’re falling asleep. Always a hit round these parts.

I’m a fan of Big vs Little in multiplayer games, and while this doesn’t seem quite as high octane as, say, Evolve or Titanfall, I can imagine it being a holler. Perhaps it’ll teach me the real trick to staving off the annual kitchen invasion. People have suggested doing the washing-up more often but that feels pretty extreme, very much a last resort. The Mosquito Gang is slated to launch sometime this year. Read more on Steam.