Everything is Crab: The Animal Evolution Roguelite

Potentially more addicting than Balatro, amazing game! On the downside it feels like no matter what you sometimes just wont ever get the right upgrade and the fact there seems to be no upside to not splice except for getting the trait want. also I hope the Shellofant gets its spines slowly ripped out one by one.

Very interesting take on the genre of roam and gather to get stronger, which unfortunately decreases in quality and fun as it gets more difficult, by unfortunate design choices of how the difficulty increases, player's choice and how the player's skills are tested. I overall had my fun at the start of few hours, but my opinion swung as time went on, its very pretty and fun game on lower difficulties, has very wonderful sprite work and clever design of the ways you can slam your little body at the enemies, climbing the evolution ladder. But the more you play the more opressive the difficulty becomes regarding evolution options. They all sound fine on paper, but together they just make certain evolution paths very much not viable nor helpful. The damage of everything, except yours, increases; the health, damage reduction you get and health regeneration you get become less useful all across the board. Few thing remains useful and those are speed, dodge and lack of your size, maybe even charm if you feeling particularly interested. The defensive options become king, because suprising revelation is that when they are not picked apart by balance, they stay strong and rather the go to playstyle for most. At time of writing this review if you look up the guide for highest difficulty it is reccomended to just build for speed, dodge and decrease of size and defensive ability of creating burrows which basically make enemy ignore you for a good while and makes you not take any tick damage which pop up more and more on higher difficulty. This is not to say you cant win with other options, that would be silly, but it is to say the other playstyles just unfortunately feel overall more frustrating to get going in and built for since the difficulty aims to reduce their usefulness, which I just find not fun, I think the game excels when you play around with evolutions and get the build going once you pass the struggle and hit the mark, but as it stands now the game feels opressively lenient on kite and dodge the enemey until they let you be for most of the higher end runs. I think as it stands the difficulty would be more fun if it played around with something else than the numbers of the player or enemies and introduced other dangers or things for consideration, less restriction on the player's part and adapting as things are. On that topic of player being restricted in choice, other unfun to me design decision is how the run starts. When you unlcok a decent amount of starting genetics, you can splice two together and have run with that. Unfortunately the way how the game is built makes it so you are locked into picking first three random and then second one is also random out of three. And on top of that if your run ended too quickly it gives you the same choices as before. Now I just think this design is not friendly to player at all, because the assuumption on its part it will make players more likely to pick evolutions they haven't played around as much, yet what it does just makes me do so less since I can't really experiment safely and freely with combinations of them and just forced to hope I get to pick that one combo I want to have, rather than randomly get ones at start and hope that maybe there is more fun there, which is less so cause I feel restricted in my option and just feel like I am picking only really one genetic and second throwaway which wont throw wrench into the build I am thinking of trying. Overall, while this review is negative, I do still think the start and first half of the difficulty is okay and managable of not making the player realise how restrictive it gets and there is some fun to be had in first few runs and some more if you do not plan to climb high and challenges, outside of main game, are interesting too. But otherwise be mindful if you do plan to play this game you might find later difficulties not challenge you in a fun way and more so feel sluggish in overall experience

it is fun and i would recommend it to you if you like pixelated animal games.

Mwah. It's an okay game with a charming premise and art direction, but it's let down by a lack of variety and extremely slow rate of progression combined with rough difficulty spikes. This is a very crowed genre and this just isn't up there with the top contenders.

非常无聊，构筑深度一眼望得到头，可以说每一把都只有两种选择:玩特别肉但是没输出的、玩输出特别高的 很难想象一个肉鸽居然能让我在玩了四五局之后就觉得有点腻了

Everything is Crab is one of those games that's incredibly easy to jump into. The gameplay loop is simple, satisfying, and immediately understandable, making it ideal for picking up for a quick run without much commitment. Despite its simplicity, there's enough variety in how you can build your little evolutionary monstrosity to keep runs feeling distinct. The customisation options for Darwin are surprisingly diverse, with upgrades supporting a range of different archetypes. Whether you're focusing on poison, speed, ranged combat, ability damage, physical attacks, shrinking yourself down, becoming an enormous tank, or even attempting pacifist and herbivore runs, there are plenty of viable directions to experiment with. Each build changes the way you approach encounters, and it was fun seeing how different combinations came together over multiple runs. Unfortunately, this is also where one of the game's biggest balance issues appears. The level-up system includes several upgrades that increase experience gained from specific food sources such as meat, fish, and fruit. Early on, this feels like an interesting incentive to specialise in a particular diet. However, after experimenting more, I discovered the Omnivore upgrade, which grants a blanket experience bonus regardless of food type. When paired with another upgrade that further boosts experience gains at the cost of movement speed, progression accelerates dramatically. The result is that these upgrades begin to feel less like interesting choices and more like mandatory picks if you want your build to come online before the run ends. That's a shame, because it reduces some of the experimentation the rest of the upgrade system encourages. Instead of choosing upgrades purely to support your intended playstyle, you're often incentivised to prioritise experience scaling first. Visually, the game leans into a cute, colourful, and minimalist art style that fits perfectly with its light-hearted premise. One feature I particularly enjoyed was seeing Darwin physically evolve as different upgrades were selected. It gives your decisions a satisfying sense of permanence rather than simply watching numbers increase. My favourite transformation was committing fully to carcinization, collecting every crab-themed evolution possible. Given the game's title, it almost feels like the developers intended every player to experience a full crab build at least once, and it's easily one of the highlights. The soundtrack, however, doesn't quite hold up over longer sessions. While it suits the game's relaxed atmosphere initially, it becomes repetitive after only a few hours and starts blending into background noise. Boss fights are similarly serviceable rather than memorable. At least on the difficulties I've completed so far, they're fairly straightforward encounters with clearly telegraphed attacks that are easy to predict. Success rarely comes from mastering complex mechanics, instead boiling down to using your abilities whenever they're available and dodging the obvious attacks. I've yet to tackle every higher difficulty, so it's possible this improves later on, but the early and mid-game bosses don't offer much of a challenge. Reading back over this review, it probably sounds more negative than I actually feel about the game. The reality is that I genuinely enjoyed my time with Everything is Crab. Its flaws are noticeable, particularly with the experience balancing, but the core gameplay loop is entertaining enough that I can absolutely see myself returning to complete the harder difficulties and experiment with more challenge runs. Ultimately, Everything is Crab is at its best in short bursts. It's not a game I'd personally spend an entire weekend playing, but it's perfect when I want something simple, relaxing, and mechanically satisfying for half an hour or so before moving on to something else.

Amazing game. I hope there will be a pvp update