from Hacker News

Agar.io

by primigenus on 4/30/15, 2:16 AM with 219 comments

  • by Matheus28 on 4/30/15, 2:32 PM

    Dev here, feel free to ask me questions.

  • by egeozcan on 4/30/15, 8:43 AM

    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

  • by xana on 4/30/15, 11:51 AM

    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.

  • by avyfain on 4/30/15, 8:57 AM

    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?

  • by neic on 4/30/15, 10:39 AM

    A cool feature would be skirmish games: Generate a link for you to share with your friends and play together.

  • by hamhamed on 4/30/15, 7:26 AM

    A list of custom bubblies "poland;usa;china;russia;canada;australia;spain;brazil;germany;ukraine;france;sweden;north korea;south korea;japan"

  • by mintplant on 4/30/15, 9:10 AM

    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.

    [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=378475

    [2] http://www.osmos-game.com/

  • by raffomania on 4/30/15, 10:58 AM

    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.

  • by lobo_tuerto on 4/30/15, 5:44 AM

    This is a really fun game. BTW you can use the space bar to shoot and divide yourself to _attack_ other cells.

  • by zongitsrinzler on 4/30/15, 7:33 AM

    Wow, this is really fun.

    Feature request:

    * minimap

    * visible world borders

  • by euphemize on 5/2/15, 2:59 PM

    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.

  • by impish19 on 4/30/15, 5:45 PM

    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.

  • by redredtiger on 5/2/15, 12:45 PM

    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?

  • by phaed on 4/30/15, 9:39 AM

    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 :/

  • by nsajko on 4/30/15, 10:14 AM

    What exactly triggers re-absorption of your smaller cells after you divide? Sometimes a size differencr is not enough.

  • by wnevets on 4/30/15, 4:42 PM

  • by emvein on 4/30/15, 8:09 AM

    What is the tech stack of this game?

  • by iza on 4/30/15, 10:50 PM

    The dev streamed the development of this game on Twitch, pretty cool to watch: http://www.twitch.tv/m280/profile/past_broadcasts

  • by metabren on 4/30/15, 10:48 AM

    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.

  • by Rafert on 4/30/15, 6:49 AM

    Nice, it reminds me of Osmos.

  • by Kientero on 5/9/15, 1:19 PM

    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.

  • by loceng on 4/30/15, 2:23 PM

    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.

  • by v512 on 4/30/15, 8:10 AM

    Had fun playing this game, keyboard navigation will be awesome though.

  • by regularfry on 4/30/15, 7:21 AM

    Well, that's far too much fun for 8:20 on a workday.

  • by Kiro on 4/30/15, 9:48 AM

    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.

  • by tharri on 5/2/15, 6:53 AM

    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.

  • by leojfc on 5/1/15, 11:16 AM

    Addictive! Would be great to have some other success metrics, like oldest cell (rather than largest), or cell that has been through most splits.

  • by Barsik007 on 5/2/15, 11:23 PM

    Pls add skin "ХРЕНОРОГ" https://pp.vk.me/c622124/v622124852/595e/wIjZ-AmfutY.jpg https://vk.com/pony_life1488 russian group 12k people :C

  • by xai3luGi on 5/8/15, 1:21 PM

    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 :)

  • by vicmota on 5/2/15, 12:35 PM

    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.

  • by nathan_f77 on 5/2/15, 4:43 PM

    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.

  • by zazaalaza on 5/1/15, 11:16 PM

    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.

  • by lopatin on 4/30/15, 9:36 AM

    So brilliant, fun, and frustrating. Everyone seems to be Russian. Probably because I'm playing at 2:30 AM.

  • by tylerdavis on 4/30/15, 7:09 PM

    I would love to see this with orbital mechanics. As your mass increases, So does your gravitational pull.

  • by mullsork on 4/30/15, 7:19 AM

    Fun game, I hated the controls though.

  • by 0xdeadbeefbabe on 4/30/15, 4:03 PM

    Thanks for waiting till Friday.

  • by radiodario on 4/30/15, 8:46 AM

    finally, something cool on hackernews.

  • by mavdi on 4/30/15, 9:35 AM

    Thank you I don't remember the last time I laughed so much.

  • by InvidiousTurtle on 5/4/15, 11:57 PM

    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?

  • by nanepiwo on 5/14/15, 10:21 PM

    Cool game! I like the customization and graphics, though sometimes the server glitches a bit. This reminds me of sysach.com/circle-game :)

  • by lgas on 4/30/15, 7:42 AM

    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.

  • by ManOfMom on 5/12/15, 12:20 AM

    Add please Pikabu.ru skin, its dat site : http://pikabu.ru/

  • by willyyr on 4/30/15, 7:19 AM

    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?

  • by laredo312 on 5/3/15, 9:26 PM

    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.

  • by robotnoises on 4/30/15, 5:46 PM

    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!

  • by Chowmow on 5/2/15, 7:24 PM

    Amazing game. Can lag to death though which isn't fun.

    Also are there plans to allow for choosing colors?

  • by Fabiot on 5/13/15, 3:29 PM

    Why do I keep reconnecting to another room each 5 minutes ?? It's annoying as hell.

  • by mrinterweb on 4/30/15, 5:45 PM

    Now just add in app purchases for speed mods, mass increasers, tractor beams, etc. JK

  • by phaed on 4/30/15, 8:31 AM

    ProTip: Eat cells smaller than half your size by splitting while chasing.

  • by fudgy73 on 4/30/15, 5:10 PM

    Very fun. Love getting the little ones trapped in a corner! Thank you

  • by prcoder on 4/30/15, 9:27 AM

    Not working for me. Getting Access Control Allow Origin Error.

  • by Ninn on 4/30/15, 9:05 AM

  • by rvikmanis on 4/30/15, 10:57 PM

    Custom cell images for programming languages would be fun.

  • by thebouv on 4/30/15, 4:44 PM

    This has wrecked my day.

    And my nerves.

  • by amelius on 4/30/15, 9:59 AM

    How many servers does this run on? How does this scale?

  • by Bermund on 5/8/15, 5:24 PM

    Hi, please add "google" skin.Thank you

  • by loceng on 4/30/15, 2:39 PM

    Chat is a feature that would be really good.

  • by deeznuts69 on 5/13/15, 7:38 PM

    DEEZ NUTS 21 Lebron James MY NAME JEFF HEFE

  • by aerialcombat on 4/30/15, 6:33 PM

    This is what being a fish must feel like...

  • by sleepychu on 4/30/15, 3:51 PM

    Reminds me of the Mortal Engines series!

  • by HelloMOD11 on 5/11/15, 10:45 PM

    How do you not get eaten by other cells

  • by loceng on 4/30/15, 3:20 PM

    The funnest game I've ever played.

  • by gronk527 on 5/12/15, 11:49 PM

    what happened to agar.io it is not up it says can not find server i am an addict to this game plz fix

  • by Perkiner on 5/13/15, 12:36 AM

    This webpage is not available

    ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED

  • by profinger on 4/30/15, 1:50 PM

    That's pretty damn cool.

  • by jv22222 on 4/30/15, 6:15 PM

    So cool.

  • by deeteecee on 5/2/15, 1:50 PM

    hacked? some impossibly oversized circles have taken over lol

  • by bananaf4p on 5/5/15, 6:47 PM

    list of names that have images? are you updating with more?

  • by edent on 4/30/15, 11:22 AM

    Sort of works on Android. I can move the blob - but I have no space bar to hit.

  • by divinedirt on 5/8/15, 10:53 AM

    add battle.net and google chrome skin pls

  • by shmoop on 4/30/15, 7:39 AM

    This is awesome

  • by tkubacki on 4/30/15, 10:09 AM

    Connecting....

  • by nikevp on 5/13/15, 1:20 AM

    dev email me at sneakeracc@gmail.com

  • by kurokikaze on 4/30/15, 9:51 AM

    Hug of Death.

  • by ryanelfman on 4/30/15, 4:37 PM

    The first word I bumped into was an n-bomb...

  • by test12355 on 5/12/15, 1:00 PM

    chat function for leaders please

  • by Bizman on 5/8/15, 12:34 AM

    Nice

  • by pirate7thief on 5/12/15, 6:41 PM

    what happened to agar.io?

  • by phaed on 4/30/15, 8:21 AM

    Well that was incredibly fun

  • by _lce0 on 4/30/15, 2:44 PM

    nice!!

    I like how being huge vs the split strategy relates to the innovator problem

  • by lucaspottersky on 4/30/15, 11:42 AM

    a great hit!!!

  • by deeznuts69 on 5/13/15, 7:38 PM

    hefe

  • by mami on 5/1/15, 4:24 AM

    m111111

  • by tvz on 4/30/15, 9:23 AM

    so much fun

  • by azinman2 on 4/30/15, 7:28 AM

    fun!

  • by alexcroox on 4/30/15, 10:11 AM

    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.

  • by tomkwok on 4/30/15, 10:14 AM

    Creative adblock warning: http://agar.io/blocker.png

      Science has proven: cells that block ads are less likely to survive.

  • by hnrem on 4/30/15, 11:38 AM

    Capitalism?

  • by anc84 on 4/30/15, 2:15 PM

    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.

  • by mortonpe on 4/30/15, 3:05 AM

    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.