A jelly cube game about capturing land

In Butter.io you play as a jelly cube. Steer it out of your land, draw a trail, and loop back to capture the area inside. Five cubes share each map, one cut trail is enough to burst a cube, and whoever holds the most land after 3 minutes wins.

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Three jelly cubes on a Butter.io map: blue Toast and green Muffin drawing trails out of their land, and red Jam on its large red territory.
Toast and Muffin are out drawing trails while Jam sits safe on its land.

Meet the cubes

Every player is a cube in their own colour: red, blue, green, purple, orange and more. They're made of jelly, and they act like it. While a room waits for its match, the cubes hop, flip and twirl. Once it starts, they squash and lean as they turn, and a cube that's knocked out bursts into droplets of its colour.

The bots that fill empty seats are cubes too. They're named after things that go with butter: Toast, Waffle, Crumpet, Muffin, Bagel, Scone, Croissant, Pancake and a few more.

The yellow Butter.io jelly cube, with rounded edges and a shine on top.
The Butter.io cube, as it waits on the home page.

How area capture works

  1. Your land is home. It's the raised ground in your colour. While you're on it, you have no trail, so there's nothing for anyone to cut.
  2. Leaving it draws a trail. The trail is as wide as your cube and stays on the map until you get home.
  3. Getting home closes the loop. Everything inside the loop becomes yours, including ground that belonged to other players.
  4. Cutting a land in two leaves one piece. If your loop splits someone's land, they keep the piece they're standing on, or the one their trail set out from. The rest goes back to being unclaimed.
  5. A cut trail burns. If any cube crosses your trail, including you, it starts burning from that point, faster than a cube can move. If the burn reaches you first, you're out. If you reach home first, you survive, but the broken loop claims nothing.
  6. Land is life. You have one life a match. A cube that's knocked out, or loses all of its land, is out, and its land goes with it.
Before: the red cube Jam has drawn a pink trail out of its red land and is heading back. After: the loop is closed, and the area Jam's trail surrounded has turned red.
Before and after: Jam brings its trail home, and the area inside the loop turns red.

The rankings in the top corner show each cube's share of the map as it changes. When the 3 minutes are up, or only one cube is left, the cube with the most land wins.

Tips for capturing more area

  1. Square-ish loops claim the most area for the trail you risk. Long, thin ones leave a lot of trail out for very little land.
  2. Loop through other cubes' land. A capture takes their ground as well as empty ground.
  3. If a cube heads for your trail, turn for home. Getting back first always saves you.
  4. Keep an eye on the clock. A safe loop in the last seconds can move you up the rankings.

Looking for a different jelly game?

A lot of jelly games are puzzles: matching, merging or sliding blocks. Butter.io isn't one of those. It's a live multiplayer game, played against other people in your browser, and each match is over in 3 minutes. If that sounds like your kind of thing, it takes one click to start.

Questions

Is Butter.io a cube io game?

Yes. Every player is a cube, and like other io games it's quick, online and played in the browser, against real people with bots in any empty seats.

Do I need to download anything?

No. It runs in your browser on a computer or a phone, with no account.

How do I steer my cube?

With a mouse, the cube follows your pointer. On a touch screen, touch anywhere and drag the joystick that comes up under your thumb.

Can I play with friends?

Yes. Open a private room and send the link. Bots take any seats your friends don't, and the room stays together for a rematch.

Play Butter.io