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I'm the guy that made Agar.io, and I personally hate that term, but I don't think we'll ever win the war of getting people to stop calling those browser MMO gam

I'm the guy that made Agar.io, and I personally hate that term, but I don't think we'll ever win the war of getting people to stop calling those browser MMO games "io games"

crusso 9y ago
Agar.io cost me a lot of productive waking hours. I'm not sure if I should thank you or curse you.. :)
smaddox 9y ago
Great game. Was it a side project, or were you a full time game dev? And what about now after its success? Did it provide enough income to pursue whatever you want full time?
- jnaddef 9y ago
  Depends if you consider several millions US$ as 'enough income'
  - smaddox 9y ago
    Source?
brjacobs 9y ago
I taught at a summer camp that had a curriculum focused on playing and modding Minecraft. One of the biggest challenges we faced was getting the kids to stop playing Agar.io for long enough to play Minecraft.
cr0sh 9y ago
I love that game! Never was super good at it, but it's a nice diversion all the same...
nathan_f77 9y ago
Have you written any development posts like this? I'm sure everyone on HN would be really interested to hear your thoughts about this post, and how it compares to the development of agar.io. Did you sort of just get lucky with the game mechanic, or was it something that you put a lot of thought into? Was agar.io originally supposed to be a different game?
- Matheus28 9y ago
  There was a post with some technical details on Agar.io a while ago back when it was released (>2 years ago). A year after Agar.io I made Diep.io, which is also fairly successful (but not nearly as crazy as agar.io), so that points to it not being completely based on luck :) I just make what feels fun. For a perspective on development cycle: the initial version of Agar.io took 1 week, while Diep.io took less than a month too (it was released a lot more polished than agar.io). Of course, they continued receiving updates for months, but the initial version was already fun. While the initial version for both games was coded fairly quick, there were months of thinking about them before I even started coding, and from beginning of development to first version the gameplay plans didn't change.
  - hyperpallium 9y ago
    > initial version of Agar.io took 1 week The protoype of my successful (non-game) software took 2 hours (though it percolated a while). But I still haven't finshed a prototype of my recent ideas, after years of research and development. Could it be that successful ideas are simple enough to prototype quickly? But what about complex games, like Horizon Zero Dawn, or Zelda: Breath of the Wild? It turns out they did prototype BotW... and not the beautiful 3d graphics or physics, just a 2d top-down version.
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    I was just playing Diep, great game, thanks for making it! Glad you finally fixed the bug that was making the game crash my whole machine on OSX!
  - bmsleight_ 9y ago
hyperpallium 9y ago
At least you're better off than those guys who created the "pc" market category, only to have those two letters come to mean their competitor, and not them.

I'm the guy that made Agar.io, and I personally hate that term, but I don't think we'll ever win the war of getting people to stop calling those browser MMO games "io games"

crusso 9y ago

Agar.io cost me a lot of productive waking hours. I'm not sure if I should thank you or curse you.. :)

smaddox 9y ago

Great game. Was it a side project, or were you a full time game dev? And what about now after its success? Did it provide enough income to pursue whatever you want full time?

jnaddef 9y ago
Depends if you consider several millions US$ as 'enough income'
- smaddox 9y ago
  Source?

brjacobs 9y ago

I taught at a summer camp that had a curriculum focused on playing and modding Minecraft. One of the biggest challenges we faced was getting the kids to stop playing Agar.io for long enough to play Minecraft.

cr0sh 9y ago

I love that game! Never was super good at it, but it's a nice diversion all the same...

nathan_f77 9y ago

Have you written any development posts like this? I'm sure everyone on HN would be really interested to hear your thoughts about this post, and how it compares to the development of agar.io. Did you sort of just get lucky with the game mechanic, or was it something that you put a lot of thought into? Was agar.io originally supposed to be a different game?

Matheus28 9y ago
There was a post with some technical details on Agar.io a while ago back when it was released (>2 years ago). A year after Agar.io I made Diep.io, which is also fairly successful (but not nearly as crazy as agar.io), so that points to it not being completely based on luck :) I just make what feels fun. For a perspective on development cycle: the initial version of Agar.io took 1 week, while Diep.io took less than a month too (it was released a lot more polished than agar.io). Of course, they continued receiving updates for months, but the initial version was already fun. While the initial version for both games was coded fairly quick, there were months of thinking about them before I even started coding, and from beginning of development to first version the gameplay plans didn't change.
- hyperpallium 9y ago
  > initial version of Agar.io took 1 week The protoype of my successful (non-game) software took 2 hours (though it percolated a while). But I still haven't finshed a prototype of my recent ideas, after years of research and development. Could it be that successful ideas are simple enough to prototype quickly? But what about complex games, like Horizon Zero Dawn, or Zelda: Breath of the Wild? It turns out they did prototype BotW... and not the beautiful 3d graphics or physics, just a 2d top-down version.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  I was just playing Diep, great game, thanks for making it! Glad you finally fixed the bug that was making the game crash my whole machine on OSX!
- bmsleight_ 9y ago

hyperpallium 9y ago

At least you're better off than those guys who created the "pc" market category, only to have those two letters come to mean their competitor, and not them.