XKCD said it best, the most powerful gaming systems in the world can’t compete with the addictiveness of flash games. Normally my reviews are about games that are significantly more substantial than the game I’m going to talk about. However I’ve enjoyed playing this so much, that I decided I wanted to write about it. The game is called Agar.io, and you’ll be sinking lots of time into it if you’re not careful. You can find it here if you want to play it for yourself. A word of warning, while the game itself isn’t offensive, other players who play it definitely are.
Rooster Teeth recently released a hilarious (and NSFW) let’s play of Agar.io, which is how I was introduced to it. It’s been out for a while and you’ll see plenty of videos online of people playing it. Essentially you play a circle that absorbs smaller objects, causing you to grow. The name comes from agar, a substance used in petri dishes to grow microorganisms. Fitting really. The goal is to get as big as possible by moving around to absorb other items. The twist is that there are other players in the game also trying to absorb everything, including you. In fact a game is always on, you never start a new game when you join. This is what makes it so much fun, trying to eat other players to get to the top of the leaderboard. Even if only for a few seconds. There is also team play where you’re assigned a colour and try to gain the majority of the space (arena?) with your teammates. It is especially satisfying if they’ve named themselves something offensive or something you don’t like. Although my personal favourite will still probably be “Ur not my dad!”.
Using the mouse and keyboard makes controlling your blob incredibly easy. The challenge apart from the other players is as you grow, you get significantly slower. You can shed mass or split yourself up to extend your absorbing range, but that sometimes can be turned against you.
It’s free to play and great way to kill time. It’s nice to know that even with all the games out there, nothing is more fun than a browser game to burn all your free time.
