Video Game / FlyOrDie.io

The Grim Reaper on the left is what you can eventually evolve into. The Fly in a cobweb on the right is where you'll have to start off.

FlyOrDie.io is a 2018 Web Game, which combines Rising Up The Food Chain Game mechanics of Mope.io, complete with the regular evolutions into different species, with the side-view and flight mechanics of Flappy Bird.

While hitting the ground or obstacles is thankfully not lethal here, staying on one is nevertheless not recommended, as it'll leave you exposed to other players, who'll sooner or later take advantage of such vulnerable prey.

See Deeeep.io for a similar game, but with a focus on the underwater and near-water ecosystems.

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Trope or Die:

• Artistic License – Biology:
  • While the game is substantially more grounded at first than Mope.io, which features hedgehogs preying on deer and macaws eating zebras simply because they are of a higher tier, it still lets Wasps not only sting pigeons and bluebirds to death (which may have happened once, but the opposite is considered far more likely), but get XP for it, thus encouraging the numerous Wasps to swarm all over these birds if they ever approach the trees they are feeding on. The 2% poisoning damage Wasp stings inflict is also a rather loose interpretation of how it works in reality.
  • Hornets are worse. They have no natural predators (which is true), and so they are free to exploit this not only to eat berries and fruits and chase after fellow Wasps undisturbed (both true), but to attack the same pigeons and red birds, along with "red birds", parrots, bats and storks, to reward the players who'll be getting them at a whole tier 17, after 10 tiers of controlling birds. However, they lack the poison effect to balance it somewhat, even though hornets' stings are usually more dangerous than those of wasps.
  • Ravens are the highest-tier bird, placed above eagles, hawks and falcons. Neither of those can hurt each other in the game, which is semi-realistic (hawks and such prefer to avoid adult ravens due to the damage they can inflict while defending themselves.) The ability of a raven to hunt any bird of comparable size, like pigeons, ducks blue birds and red birds, is rather less realistic. At one point, it could go after pelicans, and it can still successfully attack penguins.
  • Sometimes, this happens in a way that benefits prey, too. For instance, Bats are restricted to non-player mice, even though they are some of mosquitoes' most efficient predators in real life, and wouldn't pass up on the chance to hunt flies, butterflies or dragonflies either. Ravens are also unable to eat either or dragonflies, even though the chances of that happening a lot higher than of them trying to take down a penguin.
  • Seagulls eat nothing but fish, and will ignore bread. This does make life a little easier for poor pigeons, but is anything but realistic, as any beach-goer will tell you.
  • Snowy Owls are restricted to non-player Lemmings and lemmings (which is highly questionable), but cannot eat ducks and seagulls, which is very easy for them in real life. Normal Owls cannot attack Ravens, when the Great Horned Owl is its most efficient predator.
  • Flying Pumpkins are weirdly immune to all the herbivorous creatures, both player-controlled and AI-controlled, like Pigs.
  • Mice are unable to eat any players and are purely prey for mid-level animals, even though mice are pretty good at eating insects as well. And do not think that a crocodile in the swamp will not bother with you just because you are a mosquito.
• Artistic License – Space: Stars are portrayed as just these tiny things in the sky, which can be eaten by the high-tier Cosmic Bugs, Cosmic Eyes and Cosmic Bats with absolutely no consequences for the Earth below, as opposed to undergoing life-ending changes in gravitational arrangement. In fact, they are the only thing Cosmic Bugs eat, so players have to do this at least a few times in order to keep evolving further. To add insult to the injury, all of these creatures are small, too - all smaller than either humans or pterodactyls.
• Ascended to Carnivorism: Tier 27 is Pterodactyl Child, which can only eat Starfruit. Tier 28 is a grown-up Pterodactyl, which can prey on essentially any animal larger than an insect.
  • This also happens every time the players go from a herbivorous animal to a carnivorous one, and vice versa. The most dramatic whiplash actually happens near the very end of the tier list: you'll go from a Ghostly Reaper, which can kill nearly everything in the game, to a flying Pumpkin, which can only eat other Pumpkins, and then to a Pumpkin Ghost, which is the last stage before the Grim Reaper itself, and is almost as powerful.
• Big Eater: While pigeons are in the unenviable position of being a quick snack for pretty much every predator, they do get to instantly devour food like pieces of bread of acorns, though it cannot be done more often than every 20 seconds.
  • Blue Birds can also immediately consume Acorns under any conditions. Parrots have a 25% chance of instantly eating fruit, which is great, because their normal eating speed is very low.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: There's a Yeti in the Arctic biome, standing guard next to a room full of bread and meat in the Ice Castle.
• Cats Are Mean: Averted. Since they can't fly, cats are only present as non-playable animals who spend all their time sleeping. This is very convenient for mosquitoes, who'll need to feed off of them (or pigs) to evolve to their next stage. (Though the pigs are preferable because they hate their nemesis, dragonflies, and will outright eat them if they can.) It's even more convenient for Eagles, Hawks or even something as high-tier as a Cosmic Bat, who may just fancy a morsel that always stays in place.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Like in Mope.io, the things you can eat get a green outline, whereas your predators are outlined with red.
• Continuing is Painful: Downplayed, as you get to keep a decent chunk of your experience when you die, and so players who have advanced a fair bit into the game will not be knocked all the way back to Flies.
• Death by Gluttony: This is the ultimate fate of the Cosmic Bat - you are an extremely powerful predator that has to eat a lot of stuff to evolve into your next stage. Said next stage is Overfed Cosmic Bat, which looks the same, but is bright pink instead of yellow, is completely immobile and will lost HP every second. However, your death will immediately turn you into a Ghost, who is immune to everything and will soon become a Ghostly Reaper, so it's all good.
• Eat Dirt, Cheap: The first "abstract" creature you get to play as is the Stone Eater, which can only eat stones, or the fellow Stone Eaters, since it is just a winged chunk of stone itself.
• Endless Game: How else would any player even stand a chance of ascending all the way to the 38th tier to become Grim Reaper, and then get to enjoy all that power?
• Evolutionary Levels: Obviously played straight: however, there are a few wrinkles. For instance, while the game generally goes along the lines of insects < birds < demon creatures < alien creatures < undead creatures, a Hornet suddenly shows up at tier 17, along with the stronger birds. This is because it has no natural predators, and playing it is the safest you'll be up until you finally manage to reach the Grim Reaper.
  • On the other hand, moving from tier 5 (dragonfly) to tier 6 (pigeon) can be a difficulty spike, as you are forced to trade the 2nd strongest insect, the nemesis of Tier 1-3 players and their flies, butterflies and mosquitoes, to a pigeon, which cannot eat any other players at all, but is vulnerable to the largest list of creatures in the game - from lowly Wasps and Ravens, to Eagles, Falcons and even the upper-tier Cosmic Bats and Pumpkin Ghosts.
• Grapple Move: Dragonflies get grab their prey for 4 seconds, which is usually enough to finish them off. However, flies may still survive it with the "Beginner's Luck" 50% dodge chance.
• The Grim Reaper: The ultimate, 38th evolution. Players who got to such a stage can just cackle in glee and kill everything else with abandon.
  • Ghostly Reapers and Pumpkin Ghosts are the junior versions of the Grim Reaper. The only things all three of them are vulnerable to is each other, and those other two actually have a chance of defeating the Grim Reaper, though odds are obviously not in their favour.
• Invincible Minor Minion: After you reached tier 16, and evolved from a Seagull to a Blackbird, you may be surprised that your next evolution is a Hornet, since you controlled nothing but birds from Tier 6 onwards, and a Wasp is a mere Tier 4. However, while Hornet may be a severe downgrade in terms of damage and aerodynamics, it compensates for that by being completely invincible to anyone but the very top of the pile, the Tier 38 Grim Reaper, who may only bother with a Hornet out of spite. Meanwhile, it can go after a whole lot of birds unimpeded: pigeons, blue birds, "red birds", parrots, bats and storks. The chances of it actually bringing one down on its own are thankfully low, unless the other player was already wounded, or got cornered.
• Monstrous Cannibalism: Rock Eaters are themselves sentient rocks, and so they can eat each other.
  • The only food that the high-tier flying Pumpkins can eat are normal Pumpkins. As soon as they evolve into Pumpkin Ghosts, they'll immediately become capable of consuming the flying Pumpkins, and getting XP for it.
• Mummy: Present deep below the Pyramid, where they are obviously a hazard to any player who hasn't yet become a Grim Reaper.
• No Focus on Humans: While there's a clearly human-built city, castle and the Pyramids, you are not going to see any actual humans.
• One-Hit Kill: Averted; few animals are strong enough to instantly kill others. Even a Fly will require a couple of pecks from one of the birds trying to eat it (and it has a 50% chance to dodge, too). This also makes counter-attack mechanics like Mosquito's Infection actually matter.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Here, you have a plain transparent ghost is immune to everything (even the Grim Reaper), and its only purpose is to lay a zombie to rest so that it can evolve into a Ghostly Reaper with a scythe, which can kill nearly everything else in the game. After that, you become a Pumpkin for a while and can only eat normal Pumpkins, but then you'll turn into a Pumpkin Ghost, and then become the Grim Reaper itself.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Here, they wander beneath the Swamp. Most players shouldn't try running into them, but Ghosts will evolve into a Ghostly Reaper as soon as they lay one to rest.
• Oxygen Meter: Present for all animals, and is important both when they are diving, and if they manage to fly high enough to reach upper layers of the atmosphere. Being aquatic birds, ducks, seagulls and pelicans consume much less oxygen underwater than anyone else, and so they can trap overconfident player predators by diving so deep into the ocean that the other player will have to bail, or end up running out of oxygen and drowning.
• Percent Damage Attack: Bee's Sting does 2% damage a second. Any predator that bites a Mosquito has a 20% chance of becoming infected, and losing 1% HP per second. up until they drink some water.
• Pumpkin Person: The Pumpkin Ghost, which is the penultimate stage one can reach. The preceding stage is just flying Pumpkin heads.
• Rising Up The Food Chain Game: You start off as a Fly, which has to literally eat dung [note]unless you stumble upon a Dead Fish, which is little better[/note] to evolve into a Butterfly. If you manage to last through the entire chain of evolutions, you'll end up as a Grim Reaper, who is totally invulnerable to others (though may still get dehydrated and despawn.)
• Sinister Scythe: The weapon of the Ghostly Reapers, Pumpkin Ghost and the Grim Reaper.
• Threatening Shark: Sharks are essentially the only thing that players controlling ducks, pelicans and seagulls have to be afraid of as they dive into the ocean, where any player-predator is at a great disadvantage. Notably, all of them are the great whites, with no room for the far more common shark species.
• Tree Cover: Going into a bush will completely hide you, and make your nametag and health bar disappear for as long as you are completely inside it. Same thing happens if you fly into a cloud and stay there.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Demonic Egg Eaters are completely immune to fire, and drink lava instead of water, so can theoretically stay in the lava pools forever...except that they still need to breathe, unlike the Cosmic creatures.
  • Cosmic Bug is a creature that eats entire stars. However, it still needs to drink water, somehow, and so it can be ambushed by the higher-tier cosmic and ghostly predators on Earth, when it inevitably gets tired of its stellar rampage and descends towards the water sources.
  • Moreover, even the very top of the list, represented by Pumpkin Ghost and the Grim Reaper, will still despawn if they avoid drinking regularly.
• Wicked Wasps: Wasps are the only playable animal that can attack and kill players of a higher tier, as they are allowed to sting pigeons and blue birds to death. Granted, it is pretty difficult for them on their own, but this just leads into whole swarms going after any pigeon that dares to approach their tree. Their poison and the 2% damage it inflicts every second is also pretty wicked.

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