How to play buggs.io

In buggs.io you steer a bug that never stops moving. Eat to grow longer, and use your body to cut the other bugs off. Only your head can get you killed.

Controls

In the menu, pick your bug and its power-ups, type a nickname and press Play. In the arena:

The mouse, the joystick and the gamepad aim: your bug turns until it faces where you point. The keys turn your bug for as long as you hold them.

Settings ▸ Accessibility has more ways to play: invert boost (your bug boosts unless you hold boost, so holding brakes), a one-switch mode for playing with a single key, button or touch, a bigger HUD (or, on a computer, a smaller one), a color-blind-safe rarity palette and high contrast.

The goal

Your score is your mass: the bigger you are, the higher you rank. The arena's leaderboard shows the biggest bugs: the top ten on a computer, the top five on a phone. Online, your best runs also go on the daily, weekly and monthly leaderboards.

When a run ends, you see your peak mass, your kills, how long you survived, your rank and the XP the run earned. Press Play again to start a new run.

Eating and growing

There is food all over the arena:

• Grass grows everywhere and keeps growing back.
• Mushrooms grow in patches and are worth more. A patch grows back soon after you start eating it.
• What bugs leave behind. When a bug dies, most of its mass is scattered along its body as food. A boosting bug drops food behind it too.

As you grow, you get longer first and thicker later. Bigger bugs are slower and turn in wider circles, so a small bug can turn inside a big one.

Boosting

Hold boost to go almost twice as fast. Boosting burns your mass for as long as you hold it, and about two thirds of what it burns drops behind you as food, so a bug chasing you can eat it. You can't boost when you're very small.

Each bug has a Boost drain stat on the bugs page: the lower it is, the less boosting costs.

What ends a run

Only your head can get you killed:

• Another bug's body. If your head touches it, you're out, however big you are. It works both ways: a bug whose head touches your body is out.
• The wall. The arena is a big circle. Touching its edge ends your run at any size.
• Head to head. When two heads meet face to face, the bigger bug wins, and two bugs of about the same size are both out. When one head runs into the side of another, the one that ran in is out, whatever the sizes.
• Weather. Keep your head in the weather circles for too long and you're out (see Weather).
• Hazards. Two power-ups leave things behind that are deadly to other bugs' heads for a few seconds: the frozen husk of Molt Husks and the clouds of Venom Trail.

Your own body is safe. You can cross it and coil inside it.

Each time you join an arena or play again, a spawn shield protects you for 15 seconds. You pass through other bugs and they pass through you. Only the wall can kill you, and you can't fire power-ups until the shield ends.

When a bug dies

Almost three quarters of its mass is scattered along its body as food that anyone can eat. It may also drop a power-up orb, and big bugs drop them more often. The bug whose body it ran into gets the kill.

Most bugs get no mass from the kill itself (the Tarantula Hawk's and the Asian Giant Hornet's passives are the exceptions, against certain bugs): the reward is the food, so get to it before the others do. Bots come back a few seconds after they die, sometimes as a different bug.

Power-ups

Every bug carries 5 power-ups, one in each slot, and you pick them in the menu before you play. The 5 core power-ups fit every bug. The others fit only the bugs they make sense for: a spider can spin silk, an ant can't. The power-ups page says what each one does and which bugs can carry it.

• Charges. Each slot starts a run with a charge (some bugs start with more) and holds up to three. Firing a power-up uses a charge and starts its cooldown.
• Orbs. A dying bug sometimes drops a power-up orb. Eat one that matches a slot and that slot gains a charge. An orb for a power-up you don't carry is worth a little mass instead.
• Kill streaks. Every 10th kill in a run adds a charge to your emptiest slot and makes it ready at once, up to 5 times a run.
• Weather caches. During a weather event, a big orb sits at the center of each circle. If it matches a slot, it fills that slot to three charges, ready to fire.

You can't fire a power-up while you're stunned or while your spawn shield is on.

Weather

Every five minutes, a weather event hits part of the arena. Two to four circles appear and stay harmless for five seconds, so everyone can see them coming. Then, for 30 seconds, a bug whose head is inside a circle gets that weather's effect. Only the head counts: a long bug can cut straight through a circle as long as its head keeps moving.

Your head can spend 10 seconds in the circles before it's out. That time adds up over the event, and it runs back down twice as fast while your head is outside. In Play Offline, the first weather arrives after a minute and a half.

• Heatwave. Burns 1.5% of your mass a second.
• Downpour. Slippery: you turn slower.
• Blizzard. Frozen legs: you move slower.
• Thunderstorm. Lightning stuns you every few seconds.
• Gale. Gusts: hard to steer or eat.

Maps: Meadow and Haunted Hollow. A map changes only how the arena looks, never the rules.

The numbers on this page are the standard rules. An arena that plays by other rules shows their name on screen.

Ways to play

• Play Online. Join an arena with players from around the world. Bots fill every seat no player is using, so there is always someone to play against.
• Ranked. When the game offers ranked arenas, their runs go on separate ranked leaderboards, and paid boosts can't be used there.
• Party rooms. Create a room and share its six-character code, or type a friend's code to join theirs. Party games don't count on the leaderboards.
• Events. Now and then an event runs for a limited time, with rewards of its own.
• Play Offline. An arena with bots only, which runs on your own device. It's practice: offline games don't count on the leaderboards or earn online rewards.
• Clubs. Where clubs are available, start or join one, and your online games earn it points in the weekly club tournament.

Play with friends in a party room

A party room is a private arena for you and your friends. In the menu, create a room and send your friends its six-character code, or type a friend's code to join theirs. Up to 10 players fit in one room, and bots fill the seats nobody is using, so even two friends get a busy arena. Party games don't count on the leaderboards.

Play offline against bots

Play Offline starts an arena with bots only, running on your own device instead of on our servers. You choose how many bots share it in Settings: 10 to 40, or up to 120 on a computer. It's good practice for a new bug or power-up, and it still works when our servers can't be reached, though you need a connection to open the game. Offline games don't count on the leaderboards or earn online rewards.

Tips

1. Make them hit you. Get ahead of a bug and cross in front of its head. If it runs into your body, it's out.
2. Save your boost. Boosting costs mass, and the food it drops feeds whoever is behind you. Use it to escape or to cut someone off.
3. Coil around smaller bugs. Your body is a wall to everyone else, so a loop around a smaller bug closes in on it.
4. Stay off the wall. It ends your run at any size, and a big bug needs room to turn.
5. Don't nose into a head from the side. Size only counts face to face. Running into the side of a head is as deadly as running into a body.
6. Leave the circles while they form. You get five seconds of warning. To grab a cache, circle at a circle's center while it forms, take the cache when the weather starts, and leave the short way.
7. Count your kills. Every 10th kill in a run gives you a charge, ready to fire.
8. Try other bugs. Every bug has its own passive and stats. Some grow faster, some boost for less, some turn tighter.

Ready? Play buggs.io.