It’s been a couple years since the insanely popular Agar.io released, spawning a dozen other .io games for desktop and mobile players around the world. While each .io game follows a similar “survival of the fittest” format, each iteration brings its own unique challenges and features.
While I definitely wasted my fair share of hours playing Agar.io, Slither.io and Diep.io, it’s been a minute since I ran into an .io game one that inspired me to waste all my free time on it. This week, however, I happened upon Guns.io and since playing it, it’s definitely been added to my collection of mobile distractions.
Gameplay for Guns.io is pretty simple. When you open the app and press play, your character is dropped into a random map with a simple gun as a weapon. Movement in the game involves navigating around the world with a virtual joystick and shooting at other players with your weapon. As you move around the world there are a couple types of items you can pick up. The blue diamonds count as experience points and the white squares are health kits that restore health points when you’ve been injured.
When you pick up enough blue diamonds, your character will level up. Leveling up presents you with three possible upgrades for you character. The upgrades are random so you never know which ones will be available when you level up. Upgrades include things like health increases, weapon enhancements and armor. Gathering these upgrades is actually one of my favorite parts of the game because they are so diverse. In the weapons upgrades, for example, you got everything from lasers to killer drones, sticky goops that slow opponents down or the ability to shoot through walls. With the wide array of upgrades available and the random order at which you can acquire them, the game feels different every time.
As your roam through the Guns.io map you’ll obviously encounter other players. At the lower levels you’ll mostly want to avoid any confrontations and keep yourself well away from the king player, but as you acquire more upgrades, you’ll want to start testing your equipment out on fellow players. If you manage to kill an opponent a coin will drop in the place where he was standing and you can pick it up. When you collect enough coins you can use them to purchase boxes that contain new character skins. You’ll also obtain new skins by unlocking trophies when you beat your highest kills record.
With its varied maps, upgrades and character unlocks, Guns.io can be a ton of fun. If you’re a fan of the .io game format, this one is well worth checking out. It is available now to download for free in both the Google Play and Apple App store.
