What is an io game? What does io even stand for? Am I an io game? Are you an io game?

Look, definitions are tricky. Maybe it’s just me but I’m kind of an “I am not a number, don’t label me with your labels, man” kind of person. But, categories do serve a function and while they sometimes are too claustrophobic or too laissez-faire, it is safe to say that games in general and io games, in particular, can be neatly defined.

To avoid any confusion before we get started, we should be clear that an io game doesn’t need to have the .io domain at the end of its name. The .io domain is just the country code top-level domain for the British Indian Ocean. Much like how Canada uses .ca or India uses .in. The two first and biggest io games --Agar.io and Slither io-- both used .io as their domain of choice, so, it became the de facto standard for similar games and eventually morphed into the name of the genre.

Flash Games still hold a special place in the hearts of many gamers who grew up or were online during the early to mid-2000s. Anybody into the casual gaming scene could tell you that you were spoiled for choice. There were hundreds of developers, dozens of publishers and a seemingly limitless supply of new games daily. Best of all, there were no micro-transactions, no pay walls, and no downloads. As long as you had flash —which was standard back in the day— you could scroll through and play for as long as you wanted.

In this wild west world of Flash Games, it took a lot to stand out and succeed. Sometimes you had to be original, or have a cool theme, great graphics, solid mechanics or a neat twist on an old genre favorite. You also had to hustle. With so many games, so many publishers and such a low barrier to entry for both players and developers it was easy for a new title to suffocate in the deluge of content. But...