We all have games that we love despite their issues, and for me one such game was Spore. This Maxis game had all the hype in the world, and seemed destined for greatness. For most lofty expectations were not met in reality, mainly thanks to many parts of the game being a bit simple and a little dull. Despite its flaws though I love this weird game of evolution, especially the very beginning where you fight your way through other micro organisms to grow into a weird little guy. Everything is Crab: The Animal Evolution Roguelike feels just like the start of Spore, albeit with all the Roguelike bells and whistles I could ever want.
You’ll start a run of Everything is Crab with nothing but a pathetic short range attack, and you’ll need to level up to become ready for the big wild world. You do this by eating, and there are plenty of options for tasty treats littering the land. A lot of these are in the form of other hostile creatures, who you’ll eat and then chow down on. You can find more peaceful ways to fill your belly too, like fruit scattered around a fruit tree or carcasses abandoned mid feast. Once you eat enough you’ll gain a level, and be able to pick from three different evolutions and can start growing.
Which evolution to pick is often a tough choice to make. Maybe you want a shell to protect from enemy attacks, or perhaps you’d rather give yourself a big beak to peck any enemies. You’re able to equip a couple of attacks at a time and because of different cooldowns it’s beneficial to grab one quickly, and if you’re lucky you might even get a ranged attack to keep you healthy from various angry crustaceans.
The aim of each run of Everything is Crab is to survive through a few days and night cycles, and defeat crab based bosses that come at regular intervals. You’re free to stick to one area or explore the world while you wait, with all sorts of locations to discover that offer you buffs for finding them. At night things get suitably more violent and surviving is tougher, and I had plenty of runs where the desperation for daytime was pretty damn significant.
Above everything else in the game, what I really enjoyed in Everything is Crab: The Animal Evolution Roguelike was creating the perfect mutated animal to take on the world. Gaining different traits unlocks certain other ones, and as you play you’ll learn to unlock arms or legs first before aiming for a specific build. Outside of the gameplay side though it’s just fun to watch your little critter evolve into something utterly bizarre, and I must admit I made a few runs harder than I needed to by choosing fashion over function.
Not all of the various parts of Everything is Crab were available in this preview build, but I was able to see quite how many different starting options and increasingly difficult modes will be available when the game releases in full. There was the potential for dozens of hours of replayability in this build alone, and that’ll likely only increase massively as development on this compelling Roguelike continues.
Everything is Crab: The Animal Evolution Roguelike takes elements from Spore and Survivors style games to create a hugely compelling experience. This preview build of the game kept me hooked for many hours, and I’m sure the main game will do the same. If you’re a fan of Spore, animals or Roguelikes then this is a game to keep firmly on your radar, and not just because of the copious amounts of crabs.
Everything is Crab is coming to PC in 2026.
