The New Face of Gaming: Agar.io

For casual fans of science and online/app gaming, a 2015 game may scratch the oddly specific itch: Agar.io. Designed by Matheus Valadares, Agar.io is a massively multiplayer action strategy game that follows player-controlled cells swimming about in a petri dish. The goal of the game is to grow as large as possible by feasting on smaller cells (both computer-controlled and player-controlled. The game does not rely on intense graphics or complicated story, but on bright colors and easy-to-learn mechanics. Players do not have to spend hours learning how to play: the controls are simple and easy to learn, letting gameplay begin immediately. Players can access a variety of ‘rooms’ and go up against challengers worldwide or play against their friends and family. They can also customize their cell with specific names, which unlock special skins (more on agario skins later). Agar.io is both simple and fun, a rarity in this day and age of gaming.

Story

Agar.io does not have a complicated story. In fact, players can only learn about the premise of the game by researching it—the game itself gives nothing away, provides no answers. Only when players do some digging will they discover the story behind Agar.io: you are a simple cell in a lab’s petri dish, floating about with the goal of eating smaller cells so that you may grow large and powerful. While the simple story may seem odd, its lack of presence allows players to fully focus on gameplay and better enjoy the experience without worrying about triggering key plot points or following specific quests. Agar.io’s relatively non-existent story lets gamers focus on the most important part of gaming: actually playing the game.

Mechanics

Like Agar.io’s story, its mechanics are relatively simple. Players move by either moving their mouse or by using their keyboard’s control pad. The player’s character follows commands to swim about the petri dish. By swimming about, players can target smaller cells and ‘eat’ them in order to grow larger and able to eat larger cells. Players can also use their space bar (or attack button) to launch out small missiles from the body of their cell, dissuading larger cells from eating them. Be wary of this ‘attack’ function, however: each missile is actually a small part of the player’s cell body and using too many missiles will shrink the player’s cell back to their starting size.

Modes

Agar.io only has one mode and that is multiplayer. However, players can join a variety of ‘rooms’ to face different players and different challenges.

Skins

The default skin of the player’s cell is a randomly selected color, but special keywords entered as the cell name allow players to use special agario skins. There is a skin for the meme “Doge agario skin”, a skin for reddit.com, and a variety of agario flags skins and agario faces skins skins. By entering different keywords, players can find different skins and customize their gaming experience beyond the default colored cell skins. Apart from the official agar.io skins, there are also available other themes called Agario Mods Skins which can be used if you are using agar.io mods available here. Here’s a tutorial on how to use them:

Verdict

Bottom line: if you enjoy simple, addictive games, Agario is the choice for you. Launch the game through your web browser or download for your mobile device (iOS, android) today to start playing.