I ate "Russia", who was trying to eat "Putin". Then "Putin" ate me. This is so wrong but extremely addicting. http://i.imgur.com/oS7Ayl2.png
While looking at the js source code and modifying it a bit I was able to program keys W A S D to move my cell around. But it doesn't work after a bit. The protocol is send the position of the mouse (which corresponds to the cell) to the server and then it calculates change over time to get a velocity. So if I move too much it starts going forever in one direction. Although this is using a quad tree implementation for collision detection the actual detection seems to be done on the server side and not the client. There is no websocket message to tell the server if you collided with another cell or if you "ate" some of the material that makes the cell grow. This is actually my goal in "hacking" the game was to pop to different locations to get as big as possible.
Also like everyone else I get connection errors. It's actually quite interesting. It appears this game is load balanced between three or four servers. The script makes a request to http://m.agar.io/?_=<timestamp> which returns the IP of a server used to initiate a websocket. It changes each time you refresh it.
I wonder if modeling this as a complex system with self interested agents and randomly appearing nodes could show some interesting emergent properties. At least it would be a worthwhile simulation. Does anyone know who is the creator of this game and whether the code is open source?
A cool feature would be skirmish games: Generate a link for you to share with your friends and play together.
A list of custom bubblies "poland;usa;china;russia;canada;australia;spain;brazil;germany;ukraine;france;sweden;north korea;south korea;japan"
After the MMO Asteroids incident [1], I had to switch off my network connection to reassure myself that it isn't fake.
If you're looking for a more in-depth experience, check out Osmos [2], the single-player game that probably inspired this.
While having a quick look at the sources, I learned about the quadtree: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadtree. agar.io is using this implementation: https://github.com/silflow/quadtree-javascript to optimize collision detection performance.
This is a really fun game. BTW you can use the space bar to shoot and divide yourself to _attack_ other cells.
Wow, this is really fun.
Feature request:
* minimap
* visible world borders
So I've played this game a few hours yesterday, and more on the day it came out here.
I logged in this morning again for a quick game, and it appears you've considerably shrank the "worlds" into smaller spaces. The game has changed completely for me, as it's about 50/50 that I will survive the first 20 seconds. It's gotten extremely tight in there and there's no more room to maneuver. If you're a big cell, it's almost impossible to die, as there is now always a stream of little guys that get trapped, then sucked in.
I really had a lot of fun "exploring" the worlds and occasionally bumping into another cell, or just crossing paths yesterday. I could go on long chases that would last a few minutes, which was a lot of fun. As of now (I tried the 4 regions), it's basically a reflex game. Splitting in half to "attack" I think is the cornerstone of this game (if you want to get big, you have to risk a bit), but it's so crowded now that it's prohibitively expensive/risky to do so, which sucks.
A small thing to consider for user retention: if I've carefully built up my cell to a respectable size, I will try to play smart and not leave my computer, grab water, go to the washroom, because I'm invested. If I die every 3 minutes, it's easy for me to drop it, forget about it and move on. I spent 60-90 minutes in a single game yesterday, and didn't want to "lose my work", if you see what I mean.
Awesome work (I think the small upgrades on the theme, names, etc. is awesome), keep iterating - but I think I'm going to get back to productive stuff now, because the game has lost most of its appeal to me.
I was trying to think of an analogy between the game and how startups/big-companies work in real life.
Start-ups are small in size, more agile and can navigate/pivot more easily. Big companies generally take time to pivot and ignore smaller opportunities to grow unlike the small companies. They also have the potential to gobble down small companies.
I wonder what's the most appropriate analog for the spiky cells.
Not sure what's going on, but on every server there are huge blobs freezing my computer, is there a bug or glitch or hack happening?
I was USA and I was the king of the world, until a chick from Tinder took my attention away and Tumbler ate me up :/
What exactly triggers re-absorption of your smaller cells after you divide? Sometimes a size differencr is not enough.
Looks like osmos
What is the tech stack of this game?
The dev streamed the development of this game on Twitch, pretty cool to watch: http://www.twitch.tv/m280/profile/past_broadcasts
I really admired the selflessness of "dick feed" and "A Helper Cell". In a game where it seems that only being the biggest counts, these guys were helping the biggest get bigger at their detriment. Kudos.
Nice, it reminds me of Osmos.
I'd be nice to be a parasite if you've been eaten up a lot... right about now, this game is getting just so one sided. Even with the stationary parasite you can feed to make a new one, which rarely happens... all there is just every cell is focused on eating each other.
Why can't there be more types of dangers? Like, being big or ginormous for too long would attract viruses, it could be a spawned player who will become one, and you have to divide yourself to smaller cells, so that the infection wouldn't be too quick.
There were some really fun competitive plays I saw. This is a lot of fun. In the end it was lag that killed me - high levels of interactions lead to screen freezing and then being dead after.
Had fun playing this game, keyboard navigation will be awesome though.
Well, that's far too much fun for 8:20 on a workday.
OT but how can I see what's sent in the Binary Frame when inspecting the socket in Chrome DevTools? Normally with WebSockets you see the data in clear text.
Hope this come to Steam with leaderboards and such. You could make some money as a free to play game with paid (or even custom) skins and such.
Taunts would be nice, too.
Addictive! Would be great to have some other success metrics, like oldest cell (rather than largest), or cell that has been through most splits.
Pls add skin "ХРЕНОРОГ" https://pp.vk.me/c622124/v622124852/595e/wIjZ-AmfutY.jpg https://vk.com/pony_life1488 russian group 12k people :C
Hi Can you please add skin "pikabu"? Your game is very popular among it's users. It should be a cake - like this one http://www.ipoding.ru/wp-content/gallery/reviews/pikabu-5.jp... Thanks in advance :)
I would really like to see something like 'round time' and global leaderboard.
Round time would explain blob resets for everyone, like: this round duration is 2 hours. After the round ends, player's score is then added to the global leaderboard.
Right now, I cant play because on Europe theres a HUGE russian blob that even freezes my i7 16GB RAM for being so big.
Will you be able to pay for your server costs with those tiny ads? I guess if you need to run 12 servers, you're probably seeing a huge number of ad impressions.
Either way, I think it would be cool to let people donate something like $2 to remove ads and make your cell move a bit faster.
Also, please get in touch if you want some help porting this to iOS.
Awesome game, it's the next minecraft!
People are asking you to add features to the game that make it more fun or more easy to play.
Please don't make the game easier, by adding borders/powerups/double speed/ etc.
However please do make it more fun by adding chat/inviting friends/score on leaderboard/more colors etc.
So brilliant, fun, and frustrating. Everyone seems to be Russian. Probably because I'm playing at 2:30 AM.
I would love to see this with orbital mechanics. As your mass increases, So does your gravitational pull.
Fun game, I hated the controls though.
Thanks for waiting till Friday.
finally, something cool on hackernews.
Thank you I don't remember the last time I laughed so much.
Quick question I can not get the web browser to load. After I click what server i wan it sits at a flashing screen and does not do anything else. Any solutions?
Cool game! I like the customization and graphics, though sometimes the server glitches a bit. This reminds me of sysach.com/circle-game :)
Was loving it until I built up to a decent size then died because I accidentally moved the mouse to a screen corner that locked the screen.
Add please Pikabu.ru skin, its dat site : http://pikabu.ru/
Cool, it's quite fun to play. I wouldn't mind a short intro on how to play it besides the controls or is this intentional?
Very addictive. Love the new features. What is the max size? I seem to recall i could not get over 1863 or something like that.
Well... that was insanely fun.
Came up with a similar game a while back that also had a CTF-type element to it. Great job!
Amazing game. Can lag to death though which isn't fun.
Also are there plans to allow for choosing colors?
Why do I keep reconnecting to another room each 5 minutes ?? It's annoying as hell.
Now just add in app purchases for speed mods, mass increasers, tractor beams, etc. JK
ProTip: Eat cells smaller than half your size by splitting while chasing.
Very fun. Love getting the little ones trapped in a corner! Thank you
Not working for me. Getting Access Control Allow Origin Error.
Custom cell images for programming languages would be fun.
This has wrecked my day.
And my nerves.
How many servers does this run on? How does this scale?
Hi, please add "google" skin.Thank you
Chat is a feature that would be really good.
DEEZ NUTS 21 Lebron James MY NAME JEFF HEFE
This is what being a fish must feel like...
Reminds me of the Mortal Engines series!
How do you not get eaten by other cells
The funnest game I've ever played.
what happened to agar.io it is not up it says can not find server i am an addict to this game plz fix
This webpage is not available
ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED
That's pretty damn cool.
So cool.
hacked? some impossibly oversized circles have taken over lol
list of names that have images? are you updating with more?
Sort of works on Android. I can move the blob - but I have no space bar to hit.
add battle.net and google chrome skin pls
This is awesome
Connecting....
dev email me at sneakeracc@gmail.com
Hug of Death.
The first word I bumped into was an n-bomb...
chat function for leaders please
Nice
what happened to agar.io?
Well that was incredibly fun
nice!!
I like how being huge vs the split strategy relates to the innovator problem
a great hit!!!
hefe
m111111
so much fun
fun!
XMLHttpRequest cannot load http://m.agar.io/?_=1430388662333. No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource. Origin 'http://agar.io' is therefore not allowed access. The response had HTTP status code 520.
Creative adblock warning: http://agar.io/blocker.png
Science has proven: cells that block ads are less likely to survive.I'd be nice to be a parasite if you've been eaten up a lot... right about now, this game is getting just so one sided. Even with the stationary parasite you can feed to make a new one, which rarely happens... all there is just every cell is focused on eating each other.
Why can't there be more types of dangers? Like, being big or ginormous for too long would attract viruses, it could be a spawned player who will become one, and you have to divide yourself to smaller cells, so that the infection wouldn't be too quick.
Hi Can you please add skin "pikabu"? Your game is very popular among it's users. It should be a cake - like this one http://www.ipoding.ru/wp-content/gallery/reviews/pikabu-5.jp... Thanks in advance :)
-Do you have any plans for porting this game to more platforms?
There would be so interesting if you tell us your future plans and add-ons for the game.
Nice job dude, mis dieses (+10).
FC
This is an amazingly fun game. This reminds me of the first (and only fun) stage of spore.
Pls add new skin "ХРЕНОРОГ" https://pp.vk.me/c622124/v622124852/595e/wIjZ-AmfutY.jpg grop:https://vk.com/pony_life1488 12k people
Capitalism?
Without a full description of rules and options this is incredibly frustrating and unfair to new players.
Also it freezes a lot for me. Locking the mouse would be nice.
And we wonder why we don't have more women, girls and queer folk in technology. Just plain offensive.
- edit To be clear, the ridiculous names people are using are offensive. Game was fun until the children showed up.
Dev here, feel free to ask me questions.