Community:Game Mechanics

Everything is Crab — Game mechanics

Summary of core mechanics from patch notes and Discord discussions.

---

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).

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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).

---

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.

---

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.

---

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