The complete AMEBOOM™ guide

This guide covers the rules and what they mean in practice. For making better calls under pressure, see Tips & strategy; for the items, Power-ups.

How it works

You spawn at level 1. Eating gives you points, and points give you levels. The bigger the amoeba, the slower it swims and the more attention it draws. Levels go up to 99, but at 50 your body stops growing and stops slowing down: from there on, only your points climb.

There's more than one way to play: grow quietly, hunt anything smaller, or go straight for the crown. Just don't expect the pond to watch your rise in respectful silence.

What you can eat

• Nutrients: the specks scattered around the pond. Not worth much, but they don't run. Every fortune starts somewhere.
• Protozoa: they run when you get close, and they're worth more than nutrients.
• Algae: big, slow and loaded, 40 to 240 points each. Before you go for one, check who else is eyeing the same algae.
• Leftovers: when an amoeba dies, half its points spill across the pond. A tragedy for one, a buffet for everyone else.
• Bacteria: wild ones give no points. Five of them become a farm (more on that below).

Food tops out at 8 points per second. With a full stomach, eating more won't speed anything up. That's the choice behind every match: grow slow and safe by eating, or fast and risky by fighting.

Drain or devour

When two amoebas touch, the higher level drains the lower one: it takes points from it every second. The more points the attacker has, the harder it hits. While two amoebas are locked together, the whole pond notices, and sometimes the winner is a third amoeba.

Swallowing someone whole follows a different rule. You need both of these:

• at least 10 levels more than your target;
• at least double its level.

At level 30, you can swallow anyone at 15 or below. Someone at 16 is 14 levels down but above half your level: you can only drain them. At level 15, only level 5 or lower: level 6 is just 9 levels away. The math works against you too, and bigger amoebas do it faster.

Level 50 and up: the titans

At 50 your amoeba stops growing and stops slowing down. Levels keep going to 99, each one asking for 5% more points than the last: level 99 takes about eleven times the points of level 50.

For draining and devouring, every titan counts as level 50. So a titan at 90 can't swallow one at 60. And when two titans touch, they drain each other. Giant fights are expensive even for the winner.

From level 30 on, your amoeba also loses 0.5% to 3% of its points per minute. Sitting still and counting your points isn't a plan. It's retirement.

Where to catch your breath

• Neutral zone (blue circle): nobody can attack inside for 60 seconds. Then you're out, and the zone is locked to you for 5 minutes. It's a timeout, not a lease.
• Pond edge: you get 5 seconds of grace past the border. After that you lose 10% of your points per second. Escaping through the edge turns one problem into two.
• Rookie protection: online, players at EVO 1 or 2 spawn with a 30-second shield. Attacking or using a knife or star ends it on the spot. Bots also leave rookies below level 10 alone.

Bacteria farm

Collect 5 wild bacteria and press B. The farm grows one bacterium per minute, up to 10 at a time. Only you can eat them, and each is worth 100 points straight up, skipping the digestion limit. (Those points don't count toward EVO.)

A farm isn't a vault: anyone who sits on it for 20 seconds steals it. And on top of someone else's farm, no special items work, theirs or yours. It's passive income with a break-in risk and no insurance.

The Queen

The amoeba with the most points wears the crown. To take it, another amoeba needs 10% more points than the Queen, and the crown stays on the same head for at least 15 seconds.

Being Queen gets you visibility. In the pond, visibility is another word for target.

• Every minute of her reign, knives and stars fall in a ring around the Queen (20 to 35 meters away): ammo for whoever wants her gone.
• Every knife hit takes 2% of her points and hands them to the attacker. A star touching her takes 1.5% per second.
• Whoever takes the Queen down gets 25% of her points.
• At level 50, bots start attacking in groups. If the Queen sits still, more of them show up.

Queen Hunt

Every 15 minutes, if the Queen is level 30 or higher, she becomes the prey for 5 minutes:

• 24 knives and 24 stars rain down around her;
• every attack on her counts double;
• she gets 3 extra boosts to run, and the crown stays with her until it ends;
• whoever lands the final blow gets a 30-second star;
• farms are locked down: nobody steals a farm during the hunt.

If the Queen survives, she earns 1 gem (online, signed-up account, with other real people in the pond; up to 5 a day).

Got eaten. Now what?

Half your points become leftovers for whoever was nearby. You can respawn up to 5 times per match with half the points you had: hit RESPAWN within 15 seconds of dying (after an ad, or with no ad if you have the Pass). Or start from scratch, far from everyone who knows where you were.

EVO: an amoeba that evolves between matches

In online Free-for-All, the points you earn by eating add up on your amoeba and raise its EVO, from 1 to 7. Draining and knife hits don't count: you have to eat.

In Playground and Custom ponds, everyone plays as EVO 1. EVO can't be bought: not even the Pass speeds it up.

Game modes

• Free-for-All (online): up to 150 amoebas per pond, real people and bots. Counts for the Leaderboard and for EVO.
• Playground (solo): for practice. Doesn't count for the Leaderboard. Hold C for 3 seconds to become a cyst: your amoeba is saved, level and all, for next time.
• Custom: Pass holders create a pond and invite others with a code. You pick the size, the speed, the number of neutral zones, how many amoebas fit and how many items drop.

Controls

That's the rules. The part where someone shows up out of nowhere and ruins your plan isn't in the guide. It's called playing.

PLAYWEB VERSION