By staff writer Brenden Dalipe

The .io games are online games that have their own website and the games where the web addresses end in .io. There are several .io games in the “series” including: Agar.io (the original), Slither.io (coming after Agar.io), Wings.io (coming after Slither.io) and Diep.io (the most recent, following Wings.io). However, since there are so many, I’ll be talking about the four here that are listed.

Agar.io is about becoming the biggest cell in a small petri dish. You start off pretty small, eating smaller cells (who aren’t actually real people, because there’s no way to get smaller than your spawning cell). You can create an Agar.io account with your Facebook account, Google+ account, etc. in order to save your progress and buy skins. If you’re a guest, you can create your own nickname for people to know who just ate them whole. Once you start getting big enough, you can actually eat real players, playing as smaller cells than you are. If your cell’s mass gets really big, you can make it onto the leaderboard, listing the top 10 players with the most mass. However, if you get eaten, you have to start all the way at the bottom with the lowest mass possible: 0. If you use Chrome, there are mods and extensions you can find on the Chrome Web Store, like the Agar.io bot. The Agar.io bot automatically plays the game for you, figuring out players’ tactics, learning their moves and adapting to them by leveling up. If you need to escape or need to eat someone, press space or the W key to split or shoot mass somewhere! Quite convenient.

Slither.io’s goal is to become the biggest, longest snake in your server. You start by naming your snake, and when you get into the real game, you have a snake with the default length of 10, and you can make your snake longer by eating small dots, like Agar.io. Unlike Agar.io, the only way you can get rid of other snakes and eat the dots that make up their length is by having them smash their head into your body. You die yourself when the vice versa happens. There is also a leaderboard, showing the top 10 players with the most length, and a quote from the player who had the most length that day. Feeling trapped? Like you can’t get away from this snake? Or that you need to catch this snake? No worries? Hold the space bar for a boost, but it does take away your length.

Wings.io, also known as Wings, the game about shooting down other planes with your own plane and crazy weapons! At the moment, the game is still in beta, or still in development. Once you’re in the menu of the game, you can name yourself, and customize the color and decals of your plane. The crazy arsenal in the game include a Brofist (Which is what I would call it. Once you get it, press the “fire” button, which is the space bar or the mouse/mousepad, and you’ll go Sonic fast with a purple fist flame that will instakill anyone!), the homing missiles (You need to wait approximately 3 seconds in sight of your target – the missiles will do the rest. Once the missiles are locked, press “fire”.), the sniper (instakill), and the… long-range shotgun? Yup, a long-range shotgun. Anyways, you earn points by collecting dots (Again? Really?) or shooting planes until they explode. If you’re killed, you lose approximately half of your points earned, and the points go to the player who killed you. If you do get killed by someone, a revenge system has recently been added, so you know exactly which plane to show who’s boss! Again, there is a leaderboard, listing the top 10 planes who have earned the most points. The person at number 1 is known as the “King”. If you are “King”, you earn twice as much health, meaning you get killed by two missiles, or two sniper shots, or two Brofists… you get the idea. Unlike Agar.io and Slither.io, Wings.io has a very small arena. Keep going right for at least approximately 30 seconds or a bit more in Agar.io, you reach the boundaries. Go right in Wings.io for 10, you reach the boundaries. Also, there’s not just boundaries on the sides of your arena… you’ve got water. Probably one of the worst enemies of anything that electricity is a factor of… like planes. You take a dip in the water, you lose health (Because yeah, you have a health bar, and not a one hit you’re dead haha system in Slither.io. However, there are health packs you can find in Wings.) and the game automatically sends you back up to the surface. For some reason, you can’t die by dipping yourself in it, but if you’re shot down or crash into someone and you crash land into the water, you’re dead. Even if you’re down far far away in a place called 18th place, there’s still hope. No, you don’t shoot at everything that moves. You find the Super Weapon! Once anybody gets it, it’s all over. They’re almost guaranteed a spot on the leaderboard – it’s really hard to take them down. I mean, REALLY HARD. Anyways…

Diep.io’s point is that you’re a blue circle shooting other blue circles, red triangles, and yellow squares. Every once in a while, you can level up and get a new skill. You can level up your max health (because again, you have a health bar), your bullet speed, your total body damage, etc. It’s actually really hard to stay alive for at least a minute or two as a level 1 Tank or any other class because there are already level 20 people surrounding you. Before you know it, you’ll have to type in your nickname again. There’s not too much to the game, really.

There are actually SO MANY different .io games, I can’t even list all of them… which is why you can go check all of them out here!

Since there are 4 of the many .io games listed here, I’ve gotta give them different ratings, right? You know, I’ve got a bit of mixed feelings for these games. Some of the recent updates made them better than they were before, or made them worse. So… Here goes.

Agar.io is quite the unique game. I like the concept that was pitched for it, but I feel that the amount of players per server should be changed, due to the amount of lag created on slower computers. I’d give this a 7.5 out of 10.

Slither.io at first seemed like a rip-off of Agar.io, but later on I realized they were very different. The way you’re able to take out people seems annoying, though, and the graphics are not as good as they could be. 6.5 out of 10.

Wings.io is extremely addicting and one of those games where you play on and on and on, rather than Agar.io or Slither.io when you just start over. The graphics are sleek and the sound quality is crisp and nice, even when this is just the beta! This game would be close to perfect, but not quite. 9 out of 10.

Diep.io’s concept seemed a bit weird, being a circ– oh, wait. Yeah… Anyways, there’s no sound to it, but the graphics are pretty good. I’d say… 7 out of 10.

Well, those were the .io games. All very interesting, but still had flaws. I can’t wait to see what happens to Wings, because it IS still in the beta.

Pew! Pew pew! Yes!

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