And so, another excellent roguelike claims a chunk of my limited life: no wonder this cute Spore-like game is one of the biggest in Steam Next Fest, with 99% positive reviews

You simply will not guess the nature of Everything is Crab: The Animal Evolution Roguelite, an upcoming game from developer Odd Dreams Digital. This, you see, is a roguelite not far off the vein of Vampire Survivors about – and this is the clever part – evolving animals, specifically your animal, the one you're directing around fields and tundras and deserts filled with other animals doomed to become your next meal. It's a lovely little Steam Next Fest find, I'll tell you that.

Everything is Crab is less bullet heaven – which I've just accepted as workable shorthand for Vampire Survivors-likes – and more biological hoarder. By hunting and eating other animals, or simply scarfing down whatever loose fruit you happen across, you can level up and gain new adaptations. Your little blobby hero changes dramatically as you evolve, gaining horns, fur, eyes, limbs, teeth, tentacles, and potentially a lot more.

My neurons activated when I began to read into the types of traits and how you can tilt the odds in your favor for buildcrafting purposes. Bigger is better in some parts of the animal kingdom, but perhaps you're better off stacking your Social stat to charm your fellow beasts. Exploring new areas of the map becomes easier when you draft heat or cold resistance. The value of mobility skyrockets when you start facing enemies that do more than just bite you and, occasionally, bite you slightly differently.

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Then, of course, there are difficulty scalars and the meta-progression of unlocking more and more and more abilities, which are the real meat hooks that roguelikes like this so regularly lodge in my brain. I just love a bowl of soup that not only refills itself automatically, but regularly becomes different, even tastier soup.

There's a melee combat focus to what I've played and seen, with fangs and claws shredding animals on short cooldowns, but opposing critters can get pretty out-there with their attacks. Before long you'll be a chimera of your own, ostracized by all species as an unnatural harbinger of death, yet rightly feared for your strength. Where you walk (or flap, or trot, or just kind of drag yourself like a slug), blood follows. Yet Everything is Crab is very cute – unnerving and Spore-like in its snowballing absurdities, but overflowing with pixel art bunnies and birdies. They'll never know what bit them.

At the time of writing, Valve says Everything is Crab is the tenth most-played demo in Steam Next Fest (in no small part, I suspect, because it's perfect for Steam Deck) and has 99% positive user reviews. You can add me to the list of folks who are looking forward to playing the full version come May 8.

This might be the fastest I've gotten sucked into a roguelike all year: building the perfect war machine in this Steam Next Fest demo is so fun it's hard to stop.