consume, grow, divide, consume again
April 30, 2015 2:59 AM   Subscribe

agar.io. You are a cell. Move with your mouse, eat things to get bigger, don't get eaten. Press space to split.
Warnings: Requires flash or something. Involves other people and has free-form name entry, with predictable results.

(via neogaf)
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks (59 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
This looks neat.
I haven't fully explored, since I'm at work, but what's to stop the biggest cell from not dividing and just eating everything and everyone?
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 3:20 AM on April 30, 2015


Involves other people and

. . . band together for protection and evolve into a sponge?
 
posted by Herodios at 3:36 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


I haven't fully explored, since I'm at work, but what's to stop the biggest cell from not dividing and just eating everything and everyone?

The spiky circles, I think running into one does some sort of mandatory divide.
posted by Dr Dracator at 3:48 AM on April 30, 2015


... and Voar.io is back, too! Huzzah!
posted by Auden at 3:54 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


I saw MeFite get devoured a few times.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:15 AM on April 30, 2015


Did anyone else see a cell called Russia in the flag's colours chasing Ukraine?

Also dividing never seems to do me any good because I move as slow as if I was one big cell and inevitably get eaten, what are the advantages?
posted by stillnocturnal at 5:02 AM on April 30, 2015


Look, we all develop our own evolutionary strategies. You do you.
posted by Clueless in Crocodilopolis at 5:02 AM on April 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


If you're moving when you split, the new cells get thrown out ahead of you, allowing you to take a shot at catching some of those smaller, faster cells.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:25 AM on April 30, 2015


I wonder why it gives you a flag background when you enter a country name as your cell name.

Maybe it was originally meant to be polandball-themed instead of cell-themed.
posted by Phssthpok at 5:46 AM on April 30, 2015


Is there a way to get past the "Connecting" screen?
posted by a lungful of dragon at 6:14 AM on April 30, 2015


Is there a way to get past the "Connecting" screen?

Doesn't seem it plays well with ad-blockers, if you have one switched on.
posted by Happy Dave at 6:18 AM on April 30, 2015


I got eaten by Japan. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 6:54 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


That was pretty fun. In the end I was devoured by France, but I got to eat a whole string of small purple cells labeled "hitler". Felt good.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:00 AM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


I was able to hide behind the green spikes when small.
posted by maryr at 7:10 AM on April 30, 2015


. . band together for protection and evolve into a sponge?

Evolution doesn't work that way. Many a time I have linked hands with friends, but we have yet to form voltron.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:42 AM on April 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


what's to stop the biggest cell from not dividing and just eating everything and everyone

You know who else overcame division and tried to consume everything around him?

I got to eat a whole string of small purple cells labeled "hitler"

Oh.

Ok.

Never mind then.
posted by CynicalKnight at 8:12 AM on April 30, 2015 [7 favorites]


He wanted lebesraum. We gave him access to our proteasomes instead.
posted by Slackermagee at 8:30 AM on April 30, 2015


Maybe it was originally meant to be polandball-themed instead of cell-themed.

After reading your comment, I tried using the name "Poland" and it did in fact turn me into a Poland ball. Eyes and everything.

I think you may be on to something.
posted by mayonnaises at 9:08 AM on April 30, 2015


I don't have an adblocker switched on nor do I have flash block installed. And yet :(
posted by symbioid at 9:55 AM on April 30, 2015


FWIW, I do have AdBlockPlus and FlashControl and a somewhat paranoid corporate firewall/blocker/thing and didn't have a problem getting in.
posted by Foosnark at 10:06 AM on April 30, 2015


I was chased around by a cell called Butt Stuff until I died.


Slime molds are isolated single cells until they're under stress, then they band together to form a macro-organism.

Just saying.
posted by The Whelk at 10:17 AM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]


Had to turn off my AV, apparently.

I'm a little confused on how these things separate into multiple smaller copies of themselves. I'm sure I'll find out soon enough. Also - I'm gonna kick N**rs ass.
posted by symbioid at 10:24 AM on April 30, 2015


Faint of Butt: "That was pretty fun. In the end I was devoured by France, but I got to eat a whole string of small purple cells labeled "hitler". Felt good."

What a great way to Celebrate the 70th anniversary of Hitler's suicide!!!

(Facebook event for those FB oriented)
posted by symbioid at 10:25 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm a little confused on how these things separate into multiple smaller copies of themselves.

You have to get big enough first, but there are two ways: hit the space bar, or run through a green spiky ball.

The advantages of this are speed and maneuverability, and being able to shoot blobs of yourself either at a smaller enemy or away from a bigger enemy. Risks, obviously, are that it makes you more edible.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:32 AM on April 30, 2015


PS this game is fucking hard
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:32 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


1) Wonder how they're making images (I've seen "Earth" and "Brazil" with globe and brazilian flag). Just throwing a URL in of some kind that contains the image. I've also noticed different fonts. I think the username must accept html, or some form of markdown-like syntax.

2) Wonder if people are teaming up.

3) Wonder if someone can create a DOM inspector tool (like maybe with Firefox) in order to get coordinate info

... then create a map of at least their location if not the entire field and help coordinate with others over the entire map (see point number 2)
posted by symbioid at 10:40 AM on April 30, 2015


I was dominating the field for longer than I had hoped (since I'm at work and there's no way to pause) when I got disconnected and sent fresh to another map. Ah well.
posted by Foosnark at 11:24 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Apparently most amoebas just love to eat /hamburger.
posted by delfin at 11:42 AM on April 30, 2015


To get one of the country balls, you just have to take on that name. "poland", for example, yields the polandball.

As for other fonts, I'm pretty sure you're just seeing weird parts of Unicode.
posted by timdiggerm at 12:15 PM on April 30, 2015


We're probably training the AIs for drones that will kill us all some day.
posted by XMLicious at 12:53 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Things I did:

- named myself "follow me" and had fun luring big bullies to even bigger bullies.
- named myself Vatican (to see if it has a countryball) and spent a while chasing somone called 666.
posted by daniel_charms at 12:59 PM on April 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


How do you manage to get yourself to merge again is the real question.
posted by Carillon at 1:13 PM on April 30, 2015


What a great way to Celebrate the 70th anniversary of Hitler's suicide!!!

You remembered!
posted by Hitler at 1:21 PM on April 30, 2015 [8 favorites]


Well, that was fun. Made it (briefly) to the top spot twice - once as "Feed With Me", and once as a hamster emoji. (🐹)
posted by sysinfo at 1:39 PM on April 30, 2015


Merging again: apparently it's just "hang out until you merge again."

The strategy that's gotten me to the leader board a couple of times (as "syriza" -- name yourself "podemos" and I promise I won't eat you... intentionally...) is
  1. Cautiously grow to middle-size. If a perfect opportunity to split and pounce on someone happens, take it, otherwise,
  2. Don't split. Focus on hanging out near extremely large blobs that are fighting with each other. This inevitably leads to easily eaten blobpieces everywhere.
  3. Win a couple of scrambles for blobpieces, and you find yourself on the leaderboard...
  4. Where you are (for values of "you" equal to "me") immediately devoured by the real power players.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:40 PM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm also the behemoth "Nick" on the West US server. This one is getting a little ridiculous in size/lack of speed.
posted by sysinfo at 2:47 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


TOO ADDICTIVE. SWEARING OFF FOREVER.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 3:14 PM on April 30, 2015


As soon as I named myself something MeFi related I got consumed at a much higher frequency.

You're all jerks.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 6:03 PM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


GET OUT GET OUT NOW. PEOPLE EATING YOU ARE DOING YOU A FAVOR.

Like Katamari, this is a game about eating everything in the universe, wherein you're just gleefully incorporating everything you can find into yourself, hoping for that miraculous moment when you actually manage to eat everything (or, in this case, reach the top of the leaderboard). The thing is, once you actually achieve that end, there's no exhilaration whatsoever. Instead, you're left feeling bored and empty and more than a little sick about what you've done. "Why am I here? Why am I here in this empty world? Why have I made this hell for myself?" you ask. But you receive no answer.

Because you've eaten everyone. Good for you.

And then you think of what you could have done with the hours, literally hours, frantically pushing a dot around a screen in order to make it the biggest, boringest dot in the whole universe. And then you sort of want to die a little. Is the sickening (though, admittedly, perversely aesthetically pleasing) lurch you experience when you realize that the brass ring you've been chasing is not just meaningless but in fact actively awful at all worth the actual waste of time required to experience it? Couldn't you have had the "it's a beautiful day out there, I should go outside and garden" revelation hours previously, before the sun went down? But, no, you were chasing dots (half of them with racial slurs printed over them, the other half with ASCII penises) around a glowing rectangle instead. And it seemed so important!

I think maybe "Shadow of the Colossus" fits into this genre too. The "congratulations, asshole, you just won. asshole. Enjoy living in your terrible world, asshole." genre.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 6:54 PM on April 30, 2015 [6 favorites]


It usually leads to losing pretty quickly, but I've been having more fun splitting into a swarm of little blobs and racing around the bigger, slower guys.
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:58 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah my most successful strategy (for my definition of ‘success’) has been to remain tiny and zoom around at super-speed playing dodge-food. Just have to stay out of corners!
posted by traveler_ at 12:02 AM on May 1, 2015


A current list of skin names from the code is poland;usa;china;russia;canada;australia;spain;brazil;germany;ukraine;france;sweden;north korea;south korea;japan;united kingdom;earth;greece;latvia;lithuania;estonia;finland;norway;cia;maldivas;austria;nigeria;reddit;yaranaika;confederate;9gag;indiana;4chan;italy;ussr;pewdiepie;bulgaria;tumblr
posted by XMLicious at 12:30 AM on May 1, 2015 [3 favorites]


I was playing by naming myself in relation to other players and trying to join them.

So when there was an Earth player I would be called "Land on Earth" and I would zoom around and try to merge.

For a long time there was a player called "God" so I named myself "Praise God" and tried to merge. It got a bit awkward when I was significantly bigger and accidentally ate god instead.
(Which is probably a metaphor for organised religion somehow)
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 1:54 AM on May 1, 2015 [7 favorites]


You can name yourself emojis, so I rolled around for awhile as 💩.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:41 AM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


You Can't Tip a Buick: ""Why am I here? Why am I here in this empty world? Why have I made this hell for myself?" you ask. But you receive no answer."

I really loved the last two episodes of Neon Genesis, too.
posted by symbioid at 2:55 PM on May 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


Around 11:15 GMT whoever's in charge increased the starting cell size by about 250× and now it's just a crazy browser-crashing pinball game since most of the players starting either immediately explode or get gobbled up.

plus new skins 2ch.hk;hong kong;portugal;jamaica;german empire;mexico;sanik;switzerland;croatia;chile;indonesia;bangladesh;thailand;iran;iraq;peru;moon
posted by XMLicious at 5:11 AM on May 2, 2015


I was playing as Moon, crossed the Roche Limit and got swallowed by Earth.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 5:43 AM on May 3, 2015


I love how the - um, green peanut butter cup-shaped things - provide shelter and then obstacles as you grow.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:32 PM on May 3, 2015


They're still updating the game. Now your cell indicates its size, it tracks your largest size, you can spread yourself around more, and eject little bits to increase your speed. I hope they don't try to add too much, though. It's a pretty cool little game as is. (And I'm glad to read they don't want to add a "chat" - there's no way that adds anything good to the game.)

It's a nice balance. It's especially fun when someone just a little bigger tries to overtake you, and nothing happens. But as they chase you, you get bigger because you absorb cells first, and if they don't clue in you become big enough to absorb them.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 2:58 PM on May 3, 2015


"Show mass per cell" moved to Settings, to the right of the play button. And right after I found out you could eject mass into the viruses, they removed eject.
posted by Pronoiac at 6:56 PM on May 3, 2015


They put eject back, just changed the direction (it doesn't give you a boost anymore).

More reports on stupid things I've done: I've been playing on the European server as Addiction. At some point, I noticed another blob called Depression, so when I inevitably got devoured by someone, I changed my name to Prozac and started wandering around to find Depression, thinking that I would just charge straight at it for giggles. While searching for Depression without any luck, I unexpectedly managed to eat the fragments of a huge blob, hitting top 5. Meanwhile, Depression had also hit the scoreboard, so for a while, it was a game of trying to stay ahead of Depression. Eventually, I became bored, so I went and found Depression and ejected mass at it until I was small enough to devour.
posted by daniel_charms at 4:24 AM on May 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


Been on a bout of re-reading Pratchett, so I've been going by "Death" on different servers. So if you see a big floating ball of Death, that's probably me. I generally have an easy time making the top 10 list, then amuse myself by targeting others based on their names, especially the offensive ones whenever possible.

Ejecting mass into a spiked cell to force the creation of a new cell is an interesting strategy against the bigger cells. My favourite tactic is to find a big cell split into three parts, and going after the smallest one. The victim doesn't see me as a threat, because he has two cells bigger than me, but they're slower moving than me so if I angle it right I can grab the small cell and grow large enough to absorb the next largest cell and then the largest cell.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 5:51 AM on May 5, 2015


In one game I played today, there was a huge blob called Friends? <3 It was the biggest, meanest thing in the room, and it just sat there, occasionally ejecting mass at anyone who passed by. And it somehow kept growing - I contributed a huge chunk myself by suiciding into the blob when I had to step away from the computer; others must have done so as well.
posted by daniel_charms at 12:01 PM on May 5, 2015


Wow, my 6 year old computer reeeealy does not like this game anymore. It only seems to be able to handle things if there are fewer than like 1000 players per room...

Oh well, back to only playing it while shirking at work
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:03 PM on May 5, 2015


People really don't like it when you shoot spiked cells at them and then steal all their stuff. To the point that some of them will attack you on sight, no matter how many times you've died in the mean time. Who knew, right?
posted by daniel_charms at 9:33 PM on May 5, 2015 [3 favorites]


It's also fun to grow so huge that you literally don't give a rat's ass about the spikes anymore, as anyone that dares come close enough to you to try and eat you is instantly devoured.

In the game I just played, I got in a close-quarters power struggle with some really huge blobs: we were all in top three, but the other two were both nearly twice my size. Initially. There was some spiking and counter-spiking involved, which resulted in me coming out on top, basically the size of a planet (I had a score of nearly 23,000). I floated around for a while, not giving a damn, until I hit a spike, creating a chain reaction and the game crashing under the load.
posted by daniel_charms at 4:23 AM on May 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


Last night I flipped the script and just started feeding people at random for quite a while. I started off seeking out people with non-offensive names (which was sometimes a challenge) and underdogs, then got very mellow and just started sharing with everybody, thinking maybe a little non-judgemental hippie love might reform Adolf Shitler and FUK YOU BRAZIL.

I was amused by how many people would immediately run away from a tiny blob trying its best to feed them.

And then I noticed a couple of other people doing the same. Not a lot -- not enough to make a clickbaity "the day the internet gave up competitiveness for kindness" Buzzfeed article -- but it made me grin.

After that, I started doing acrobatics around the really big blobs, and teasing people and luring them to their doom. That's fun too.
posted by Foosnark at 6:26 AM on May 8, 2015


1) Looks like the countryball skins are gone. Or mostly broken. Either is fine by me - I was really getting tired of all this nationalist/xenophobic bullshit.

2) There's now two game modes: free for all and team play.
posted by daniel_charms at 11:42 AM on May 12, 2015


I suspect most people will not get my TAG joke.
posted by maryr at 9:33 PM on May 12, 2015


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