Everything is Crab — Game mechanics

Summary of core mechanics from patch notes and Discord discussions.

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Stats

Stats appear in the pause menu (ESC). Hover over each name to see the tooltip.

Stat	Brief description
Physical Damage (PD)	Damage of physical (contact) attacks. Base 10 (or 5 with the half-damage genetic).
Ability Damage (AD)	Damage of ability attacks. Used by Spit, Beak, Stinger, etc.
Cooldown	Time between attacks. Values in %; lower = better. Starts at 100%.
Attack Penalty	How much attacking reduces your movement speed. Lower = better.
Senses	Affects detection range for POIs, Alphas and bosses. At night, affects visibility (how much you can see).
Social	Number of enemies you can Charm (fight for you). Also affects how soon enemies give up chasing you.
Size	Character size. Affects attack area and area you can be hit. 100% = default.
Area Effect	Area of effect of abilities. 100% = default.
Health Regen	Health regeneration.
Dodge	Chance to dodge. Has a cap.
Plating	Armour that absorbs damage. Some evolutions pierce plating (and "farts" do too).
Heat/Cold Resistance	Damage reduction on sand (heat) and snow (cold).

Note: Sand deals less damage at night; snow deals more at night. Temperature can stack in levels (each level deals more damage); when leaving the terrain it dissipates over time (faster if you switch to the opposite terrain type).

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Affinity system

There are 5 affinities, tied to playstyles:

- Predator - Prey - Trickster - Imposing - Gregarious

Each evolution can be tied to 0, 1 or 2 affinities. Your affinity points (shown on the pause star and top-left when evolving) increase the weight of that affinity's evolutions in the roll. E.g. +20% Prey → Prey evolutions have 20% higher chance to appear.

Rarity (common/rare/legendary) and whether it's an "upgrade" or "new evolution" also affect chances. Level itself doesn't directly change each evo's chance; banning or unlocking evolutions (by taking others) changes what can appear.

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Attack system

- Primary and secondary attack share a cooldown system: when you use one attack, all go on cooldown for a short time (global) and the one you used has a longer local cooldown. - Ultimate has a different icon and colour on the HUD and cooldown bar; it can't be equipped in primary/secondary slots (and vice versa). - Indicator below the character shows remaining cooldown for attack and dash. - Bullseye (Genetic): all attacks use the higher of PD and AD.

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Genetics

These are "starting characters" with modifiers. You choose 1 genetic per run (or 2 in special conditions, including "splice").

Examples from patch notes / community:

Genetic	Brief effect
Standard	Base.
Simple	Restricts options (e.g. fewer evolution choices in some situations). Unlock requirements changed in patches.
Pioneer	Movement/exploration (e.g. Nomadic).
Pacifist	Less damage, EXP/progress bonus. Unlocked by opening Steam and/or Discord.
Bullseye	Attacks use the higher of PD and AD.
Challenger	More Alphas, more damage vs Alphas.
Lycanthrope	Team favourite; removed from list in newer versions (something special planned).
Patient	Can show only 2 options instead of 3 for evolutions; affects "minimum rarity" when skipping boss evolution choice.
Spawn of Chaos	Random starting stats (better and worse). No longer affects feeding speed/distance in recent versions.
Independent	Added in a recent patch (0.10.1).

Unlocks are done by meeting conditions (e.g. win at a certain difficulty, defeat certain enemies X times). The game shows the highest difficulty beaten with each genetic.

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POIs (Points of Interest)

- Special map points you can interact with for bonuses (evolutions, mutations, etc.). - Senses increases the range at which POIs (and Alphas/bosses) appear on radar/detection. - Map content is persistent when you return to the same area (trees, POIs don't disappear when you leave and come back). - There is a Pity timer for POIs and for HP food.

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Charm

- Social sets the cap on how many enemies can be Charmed at once. - Evolutions like Courting (Ultimate) and Toe Beans enable Charm. - Tail Wag periodically tries to charm enemies in your area of effect. - Charmed enemies fight for you; in some cases you can command the attack target (Courting). - Blobfish and Snowhare, when charmed, follow you instead of attacking.

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Night and day

- Night reduces your visibility based on the Senses stat (more Senses = see more in the dark). - Enemies can behave differently at night (e.g. HatBirbs don't wander as far from their hole). - Sand deals no damage at night; snow deals more at night.

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Bosses

- Boss health bar appears on the HUD when the boss is active. - Bramble: walls that close the arena; time does not advance while the bramble is up (in current versions). - If the boss timer runs out, the walls drop and the boss loses aggro — you can win by just surviving (useful for Pacifist runs). - Boss fruit (special boss drop): drops on kill or timeout; unlocks special evolutions; has an on-screen tracker; is not removed from the map; in recent versions heals when eaten. - Beating the final boss: in current versions, surviving 2 minutes against the final boss also counts as a win (not just killing it).

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Progression between runs

- The game saves data between runs (e.g. highest difficulty unlocked). Saves may be reset during development. - Steam Cloud is supported. - End-of-run screen shows statistics (damage dealt/taken, top contributor, etc.) and Capture GIF of your creature and stats screen. - Codex (planned/in progress) will show records, stats and bestiary.

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Additional controls (QoL)

- Gamepad: aim cursor; X shortcut to Continue on evolution picker; B to close Settings. DualShock (PS4/PS5) is not fully supported in some versions. - Left-handed support: numpad (1,2,3,5 + NumPad Enter for Dash) in recent versions. - VSync available in settings (off by default). FPS capped at 120 in-game and menus in some versions.

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Based on patch notes and Discord discussions. Details may change with updates.