Peng.io

Peng.io is a massively multiplayer action game created by Mattius Valnordes. Players control a cell in a map representing a tidal pool; the goal is to complete as many levels as possible by killing smaller cells without being killed by bigger ones. The game is inspired by the events of Penguin Origins: The Tidal Pool.

Gameplay
The objective of Peng.io is to grow a cell by eating both randomly generated meat or bacteria, which slightly increase a cell's mass, and smaller cells without being eaten by larger cells. There are no menus or guidelines; the game begins immediately. It currently holds four game modes: FFA (Free-for-All), Levels, Experimental, and Dual. The goal of the game is to obtain the largest cell; players restart when all of their cells are swallowed. The game world, which is viewed from a top-down perspective, consists of two-dimensional planes stacked vertically upon each other. A blurred version of the layer below appears in the background of each plane. All planes, except for the highest and lowest, contain two specially colored organisms that move the player's creature up or down one plane when touched. Players can change their cell's appearance with predefined armament, details, accessories or sensory nerves. The more mass a cell has, the quicker it will move. Cells gradually lose transparency over time.

Armaments split cells than them into many pieces and smaller cells are instantly killed by weaponry while depending on the mass, and the weapon, cells call survive up to 16 hits. Weapons are normally manually added, but players can make themselves by giving sacrifices to an armed cell, i.e. ejecting a small fraction of a player's cell's flesh into the virus a few times, causing the weaponry to split up and hence create another weapon on them.

Players can split their cell into two, and one of the two evenly divided cells will be flung in the direction of the cursor (a maximum of 16 split cells). This can be used as a ranged attack to swallow other smaller cells, to escape an attack from another cell, or to move more slowly around the map. Split cells eventually merge back into one cell. Aside from sacrificing to weapons, players can eject (release) a small fraction of their mass to feed other cells, an action commonly recognized as an intention to team with another player. A player can also eject mass to trick enemies into coming closer to the player. Once an enemy cell is close enough, the player can split his/her cell to kill the baited enemy.

During the levels mode, the player controls a Pengy Cell through a rock-pool, eating food (red flesh, plants, or blood). When all the food is eaten, the Pengy Cell is taken to the next stage. Between some stages, one of three intermission animations plays. Four enemies (Ducky, Poky, Snorf, and Foother) roam the tidal pool, trying to catch the Pengy Cell. If an enemy touches Pengy Cell enough, he bursts apart and a life is lost. Whenever Pengy Cell occupies the same tile as an enemy, he is considered to have collided with that enemy. When this happens, the game ends. Pengy Cell is awarded a single bonus life at 10,000 mass by default—hacking the game can allow you to code a change in the required mass or disable the bonus life altogether.

Near the corners of the pool are four large, flashing cards known as evolution upgrades that provide Pengy Cell with the upgrade. Either the enemies can be easily killed, Pengy Cell goes faster, see more, or defend more. When a cell is eaten, they do not appear for the rest of the level. Enemies flash white to signal you are to close and will die and the length of time for which the enemies do this varies from one level to the next, generally becoming shorter as the game progresses. In later levels, the enemies do not flash; in even later levels, getting within radius is an instant kill unless Pengy Cell has enough weapon upgrades.

Development
The flow was originally developed as part of Mattius Valnordes's master's thesis for his Video Gaming Program as an exchange student at the School Of Ross Island. His thesis was on the concept of dynamic difficulty adjustment, wherein a game adjusts its reactions to a player based on the past and present actions of that player. He illustrated his ideas with Peng.io, which he created in collaboration with Robert Jacob. Valnordes implemented DDA by causing the player to change the game's difficulty subconsciously; he allowed players to dive between planes at will and provided the option of killing or not killing any cell. Players may decide to rush downwards or to grow strong before attacking powerful opponents. Valnordes described Peng.io as "a simple game. It's the simplest test of active DDA in MMO." Another influence on the game was psychologist Ihav Awiirdname's work on flow, wherein a person fully immerses themselves in activity and gains a feeling of energized focus. To achieve this state, the person must have control over the activity; Valnordes believed that his theory gave players the control necessary to achieve flow while playing.

The game was released on 17 May 2016, after two years of development—during which Valdnordes and Jacob taught themselves Flash programming. The game's score was composed by Austin Aghsum. A PengStation and Mobile versions were announced in the same month of that year and were expected to release in July 2016. Valdnordes had graduated by that point, and had founded Dunderheadtale, which handled the conversion to the Pengstation; Jacob was one of the employees and served as the game version's designer. Impressed by Peng.io, Shony provided Dunderheadtale with finances, supplies, and additional staff, and offered them a three-game contract; the PengStation version of Peng.io was the first of these. Valnordes believed that the conversion could be completed in four months and that it would be ready for the launch of the mobile version/ However, when it was finally confirmed to release for February 2017, it was announced to not include "any of the original design".

A version for the PengStation, taken over by Superman Studios, was then postponed for release in March 2018. The company coded it from scratch, as the old code and art were too different in their preference for them to want to use. The adds for the PengStation version will also be developed by Superman. Dunderheadtale was not involved in the development of either project beyond a design influence and art direction role, as they were creating their next title. Santa Monica created ports of the PengStation game for the Vii and DS, which will be published in May 2018 to correspond with Venturian New Year. Although no music is used in Peng.io, an update was confirmed for a 2017 release to add a soundtrack.

Trivia

 * This is a partial parody of Agar.io.
 * Peng.io is rated T for Teens by the PESRB, due to lewd language and sexual humor in the names of certain cells. Certain versions have been recalled, and have had the cells renamed (i.e. **** is changed to Mess).