Mope.io, also informally abbreviated as Mope, is a survival-of-the-fittest type .io game, where players play as an animal to evolve overtime. Players can make their way up the food chain by consuming certain types of food, or other players. Various biomes, with each having their own unique terrain, aid the leveling up process, but can affect different animals in different ways. Abilities and gameplay effects further pose a challenge to different species.
Mope.io was officially launched as a browser-exclusive game on October 4, 2016,[1] under the ownership of Stan Tatarnykov, with Mobile options being made available in November 2016. On August 12, 2020, Mope.io was purchased and acquired by Addicting Games (officially on September 12, 2020),[2] who currently oversee development of the game.
General Information[]
Controls[]
- Move around: Use the cursor to direct your animal.
- Boost: Press or hold the
Spacebar orleft-click. - Shoot water or lava: Press
S.[note 1] - Use Special Abilities: Press or hold (depends on the ability)
Worright-click.
Beginning to Play[]
The Home Screen of Mope.io, which appears when first entering the game
When clicking the Play button on the Home Screen, an upgrade menu will appear, presenting multiple different choices of Animals to choose. Whichever box is clicked on, is the animal that the player will be. While playing as an animal, eating food sources or other animals will allow players to progress to higher Tiers.
While survival is the primary short-term goal, animals that are high on the food chain normally have power over tiers below it. Eating food and filling up the XP bar is not a necessity for surviving, but each animal will have either a water bar or a lava bar that must be maintained by constantly drinking water or lava;[note 1] if empty, the animal will lose their health in brief intervals until they eventually die. Fortunately, spots containing water are a regular appearance across the whole map; less so for lava, as they can only be found at the Volcano and in the Desert biome.
To survive, animals must keep all health as they will die if their health bar is reduced to nothing. The amount of health that an animal has is recorded in a green bar that appears above each players' head when it is not full; health bars are invisible when they are at 100% capacity. They can be decreased if a player is attacked by any creature that is a higher tier than it, if prey bites a player's tail, or by coming into contact with certain Terrain/food sources (e.g. cacti will reduce health when touched). Overall, as long as the player's health bar and water/lava/energy bar is kept full, it is possible to survive for extended periods of time.
Different Biomes[]
The minimap, as of February 1, 2022. Displays biomes, terrain, and food sources. The white dot represents the player beacon.
- Main article: Biomes
In Mope.io, there are different Biomes that offer a range of varying landscapes that have their own distinct terrain, food and more, all of which contribute differently to progressing on to the next tier. Biomes are different areas in which animals are able to level up, and they can be viewed on the Minimap. As of March 3, 2020, the four main biomes that currently exist are Land, Ocean, Arctic and Desert, with the Volcano and Timberland being sub-biomes. Each biome has its own unique aspects, such as food, certain terrain forms, etc. With the exception of the Ocean, all biomes are based on dry-land, with areas of water being available to fill up on.
To put animals at a disadvantage and prevent them from freely wondering from biome-to-biome, debuffs cause side-effects to particular species when entering another habitat. For instance, if a Mammoth exits the Arctic, it will periodically be burnt for a few seconds and lose some health. There are also more subtle debuffs; most animals tend to suffer decreased movement speed outside of their native biome due to the diverse terrain being unsuitable for them. As such, nearly all animals have the best chance of surviving in the biome that they spawn in. However, sometimes moving to a different biome may be necessary in order to level up faster.
Types of Animals[]
The Upgrade Menu being presented to a Vulture that has reached the next tier. Each animal in their respective box lives in a different biome, and has a unique special ability.
- Main article: Animals
Animals have the option to peacefully graze food, eat prey/tail-bite other players to gain their XP points, or a combination of both; all playable animals are omnivores. Each animal, when selected on the upgrade menu, will initially spawn in a particular biome. For instance, at tier 1, the Mouse will spawn in the Land biome, the Shrimp in the Ocean biome, etc. The biome that each individual animal spawns in is their most easily adaptable habitat, and straying outside of it will cause most animals will be disadvantaged in other biomes, either being physically slowed down, or by losing health.
Abilities[]
- Main articles: Special Abilities and Passive Abilities
The "Fly with Prey" ability of the Bald Eagle being activated on an Octopus.
Excluding Tier 1 animals and the Jellyfish, all animals in the game have Special Abilities unique to the other animals, and some animals have Passive Abilities. Special Abilities can be activated by either pressing or holding the W key (this differs for each animal), and will activate an offensive or defensive effect. For instance, the Rabbit has the defensive ability to Dig a small Hiding Hole, and the Eagle has the offensive ability of being able to grab and Fly with Prey. The higher up on the food chain an animal is, typically the stronger its Special Ability will be.
Passive Abilities, on the other hand, do not have a cooldown and are dependent on the environment the player is in. Most Passive Abilities provide animals with advantages in particular terrain forms. The Crab, for example, is able to Climb on hills and rocks, as well as Survive on dry land, while most Ocean animals are unable to do the latter.
Food Chain[]
The food chain in Mope.io consists of tiers; there are currently 17 tiers, and as players move up to higher tiers, they are able to eat animals below them(However, animals that are a really low tier animals cannot be eaten by very high tier animals). Vice versa, animals that are higher a tier than you count as your predators. However, in order to maintain balance, some players can be inedible due to being too far away or too high up on the food chain to consume/be preyed on by you. For instance, an Elephant and Mouse would be unable to harm each other, as they are tier 14 and tier 1, respectively. Though the two can physically affect each other, they cannot directly reduce the other's Health Bar.
With the exception of the final tier (17), each level in Mope.io consists of a number of different animals that belong to different biomes. For more information on how animals in biomes contrast, see the above section.
This Cobra is a predator as seen by its red outline. However, its tail (the area with a bright green outline) can be bitten by prey.
To represent whether an animal is predator, prey, or peaceful, its outline will be a certain color. Predators will have a red outline, prey will have a bright green outline and peaceful creatures will have a dark green outline. Anything that has a bright green outline can be eaten, while creatures with a red outline are able to harm you (note that food sources and any inanimate objects do not have this outline system). However, it is possible for prey to harm predators under some circumstances.
Namely, through the use of Abilities, depending on which ability is used and its mechanics, prey can harm their predators by exerting abilities on them. However, a key game mechanic that all animals can use is tail-biting. As seen in the image to the right, predators have a weak spot — their tail, which is located at every animal's rear end and has a green outline. All animals have a tail except for the Crab, tier 1 and tier 2 animals. While tail-biting is normally only able to be done by prey to predators, tiers 15, 16 and 17 are able to tail-bite animals of the same tier. For more on this, refer to the 1v1 article.
Game Modes[]
- A list of Game Modes that have been removed can be found here.
Game Modes are forms of the game whose mechanics are slightly modified, or it has distinct features that change the goal of the game. Since the discontinuation of the Viral Pandemic mode in May 2020, there are currently only two primary game modes, and two sub-game modes:
- FFA: Free-For-All, in which every player plays for themselves and tries to rech the first place on the Leaderboard.
- 1v1 and 1v1 Redemption: Two sub-games mode within FFA, which allows players of tier 15 level and above to battle in an enclosed arena to the death by biting each other's tails until one of the players dies from depleted health.
- Team Mode: similar to FFA, except players are divided into one of three teams (Yellow, Cyan or Purple), with multiple extra features added to help teams compete for server dominance.
- Beta: This mode is simply FFA, except it exhibits features that have not yet been implemented into the latter game mode. Often, Unreleased Features will be accessible on Beta shortly before their mainstream release.
Gallery[]
History[]
Developer Team[]
- Main article: Developers
The logo of Addicting Games, the current owner of Mope.io.
In the initial stages of the game, Stan Tatarnykov owned and solely developed Mope.io. Also in October 2016, Pike joined the designer team, creating multiple new and more complex skins for animals. Many other designers would join and leave the designer team, with Pike among the latter in 2017.
Stan sold the game to Addicting Games (AG) on August 12, 2020, transferring ownership to them whilst still retaining a position on the developing team. The acquisition was made official on September 12, by which point Stan officially stepped down to the role of developer alone. During November that year, Stan decided to quit Mope.io completely and King of Agario (KOA) took over as lead developer.
KOA stepped down from his role in February 2024, leading the AG team as the sole developers of Mope.io.
Community Terminology[]
- Main article: List of Community Terminology
Over the course of the years after Mope.io was release, the in-game chat feature and Social Media platforms allowed the community to coin abbreviations and specific terms related to the game. For instance "BD" is the abbreviation for the Black Dragon, "KD" for King Dragon, and "Apex" or "Apex tier" can refer to either tier 15 animals exclusively or tiers 15 to 17. For a list of terms used commonly by players, click here.
Year-by-year[]
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- Main article: Changelog
The minimap representing the landscape of Mope.io, in effect until the addition of the Ocean November 21, 2016.
Mope.io was formally released in its browser form on October 4, 2016. At this point, the game was fairly simplistic, with the sprites for animals being circles and the whole map consisting only of the Land biome. During October, the core features of Mope.io, such as lakes, hills, the minimap and chat features, Hiding Holes, etc. were added across many updates; 25 to be exact. On October 29 and October 30, new, more detailed animal graphics (which would in time become known as the Classic skins) were added, making it easier for players to discern which animal was which.
A Cheetah and Trout in the Ocean, dated December 25, 2016. Before March 14, 2017, the Ocean was a light aqua color and had islands.
In early November, the iOS and Android options for Mope.io were released, along with many new in-game servers due to the boost in popularity that the game was receiving. On November 21, the Ocean biome was implemented, comprising of two separate areas of the map rather than being located in one area alone. Aquatic animals were introduced in subsequent updates from late November to December.
The Upgrade Menu became a new feature on December 12, which allowed players to choose which animal they wanted to upgrade to upon reaching the next tier rather than it being automatically selected. Additionally, the optional Winter skins and Arctic biome were introduced on December 21 and December 26, respectively. The final update of 2016 expanded the Arctic and added more animals to the Arctic food chain.
In January 2017, Special Abilities were gradually applied to many animals; previously, very few animals had one. Additionally, more development of the Arctic biome took place. In particular, the Arctic was given distinctive terrain forms and food sources, while it previously borrowed many entities from Land.
The re-design of the Ocean, occurring from March 14 – March 24.
A notable change was the re-design of the Ocean on March 14. While previously the Ocean was a light aqua color, it was re-colored to appear dark blue and have beaches dividing the Ocean from the Land biome. New food sources were also added to the Ocean. Then, on March 24, rivers were added, connecting the two oceans to each other and allowing aquatic animals to cross oceans naturally.
The Black Dragon in the Volcano, hovering over a lava pool.
On April 9, a third big change occurred; the Volcano biome – or Lava biome as it is called – was added, along with the Black Dragon and Healing Stones, introducing a final tier and method of regaining health, respectively. Since the addition of the King Dragon in 2019, no new animals have been added to the last achievable tier in the game.
However, after the April 24 update, there was a lack of in-game updates until September 23, when poison and poisonous animals were added. To date, this period (April 25 – September 22) was the longest period in which Mope.io did not receive a changelog update.
- More Coming Soon
Trivia[]
- The Mouse animal is a signature icon representing Mope.io. It is used as the loading logo in the game, and is also the profile-icon for many official Social Media accounts and platforms.
- Stan allegedly sold Mope.io to Addicting Games for a seven-figure sum.[2]
- Prior to October 29 and October 30, 2016, most animals did not have very detailed skins and were essentially colorful circles. Due to this, Mope.io was often compared to agar.io at the time.
- When Mope.io was first released, the Lion was at the top of the food chain and all animals hunger bar, which could only be maintained by eating other players, and if the bar became empty would cause the player to die of starvation.[1]
External links[]
Footnotes[]
Notes[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Pterodactyl and Sea Monster are the only animals in the game to not run on water or lava; the Pterodactyl has an energy bar, which is replenished by consuming food or other players. The Sea Monster has an Air bar that can be replenished when it is in a water source and not diving.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://www.reddit.com/r/Agario/comments/55s4d8/hey_guys_i_made_my_own_survival_agario_mmo/ (October 4, 2016). Retrieved on August 3, 2022
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-09-11-addicting-games-acquires-mope-io-game (September 11, 2020). Retrieved on September 14, 2020