Pill me, Buy me, Sell me
Super Auto Pets (often abbreviated as SAP by players) is a free-to-play auto battler by Team Wood Games about teams of cute animals coming together... for a smackdown 'til one side's left standing.
The premise is simple; You form and prep a team of pets to then battle against someone's own gang of critters. You have a chance to adjust your party before each battle, spending coins at the shop to purchase units and Food (power-ups). Strategy and luck both play a factor in a successful run. It's all highly addicting - You have been warned.
The game currently has two modes:
- Arena Mode: Once your party is ready to go, the game matches you up with anyone with a similar (if not the exact same) run ratio of battles / wins / remaining lives. Victory is achieved at 10 wins.
- Versus Mode: Here, you match up against the same player(s) in a player-created lobby. The game rules are dictated by whatever the lobby creator had set.
The game was initially released as a browser game on itch.io and Newgrounds (now removed) on April 14, 2021, and is currently available on SteamOS, Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS.
Provides Examples Of:
- 100% Completion: Medals are rewarded for getting a pet species to Level 3, while Ribbons are rewarded for completing an Arena run with a Level 3 of a given species. This can be tough, as some pets don't reap much benefit from leveling up and some can only be acquired by forcing certain pets to faint outside of battle.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Leveling up your account rewards cosmetics, from silly lil' hats for your pets to backgrounds.
- Angry, Angry Hippos: The Hippo gains attack and HP after defeating an enemy, so there is a good chance a Hippo can get out of control if it opposes a lot of weak pets and recovers HP back to survive the next pet's attack, especially if it levels up.
- Angry Guard Dog: The Doberman seems to be this, gaining massive stats and a Coconut at the start of each battle if the Ability check passes.
- Art Evolution: The original, vanilla roster of pets have their artwork based off of Google Emojis, a simple, cutesy art style with Black Bead Eyes. Eventually, pet packs necessitated having to create brand new, fully original art for species not depicted in Emoji, the result being comparatively more detailed. The original species' sprites are to be replaced with new art as well. For fans of the original artwork, the devs provide the option to change between the old and new styles.
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: Some pets' Abilities benefit from attacking directly over and over again. One notable example is the Hippo, who temporarily gains stats from defeating enemies. While this heavily punishes teams that rely on summoning, even a well-placed Melon, Pepper or Peanut can be enough to stop a Hippo cold.
- Bears Are Bad News: While actually subverted for the other two bears (the Bear and Polar Bear), the Grizzly Bear deals relatively heavy damage to 2 random enemies every five friendly attacks.
- Boring, but Practical:
- The Swan gives extra Gold at the start of each turn, is accessible very early in runs, and has relatively decent stats to boot. Naturally it's not the most exciting of units, but it's incredibly useful as one of the few ways to consistently gain extra income.
- The Mosquito can randomly attack enemy units for 1 damage. While the damage itself is quickly outpaced, its true value lies in lategame where Melons become more commonplace.
- Changing Gameplay Priorities: Certain items such as fall off later on due to the -2 damage taken being strong early when units may only have an attack of like five while food buffs often become stronger as you start losing other things to spend money on and get more pets that benefit from eating food.
- Crutch Character: The Caterpillar is valuable in the mid game because it's easy to get and basically duplicates your strongest unit as a Butterfly, but it has no ability and can't really use a constant food buff either. As such, when the T5 and T6 units start appearing and scaling up it starts becoming a liability.
- Damage Reduction: There are a variety of food Perks that that reduces damage the pet takes, such as the Garlic Perk reduces damage taken by 2 for the entire battle, the Melon Perk reduces damage taken by 20 once per battle, and the Potato Perk reduces damage taken from pet's abilities by 10 twice per battle.
- Ditto Fighter: The Parrot copies the in-battle abilities of the animal ahead.
- Full-Boar Action: The Boar gains attack and HP before it attacks, so it can easily get out of control if it faces a lot of weak pets and recovers HP to survive the next pet's attack.
- Gameplay Automation: Once the game starts, the player has absolutely no control. Justified, as combat would be very predictable if not for certain RNG factors.
- Gathering Steam: The Shark is fairly weak for a tier 5 unit, but gets stronger the more friends faint in combat.
- Glass Cannon: What do you do with your support friends with horrible stats? Slap the Steak, a Tier 6 food onto them! This automatically gives the first attack per battle an additional 20 damage, hopefully enough to kill one minion before it faints itself.
- Joke Character: The Sloth is the rarest pet in the game, with only a small chance (1/10000 per roll, or 0.01%) to appear in the shop. It also has the lowest base stats and functionally no Ability. However, as Medals and Ribbons are awarded for running each species, taking the Sloth when it appears is an absolute no-brainer for 100% completion.
- Keystone Army: Some late game builds rely on spawning tokens buffed by a Turkey. The Turkey itself is usually not very strong, and a lucky snipe that takes it out can turn a powerful team into a pushover.
- Kill Streak: The Hippo gain attack and HP for each opposing pet it defeats.
- Last Chance Hit Point: The Pepper Perk allows the pet to survive with at least 1 HP from a single attack, even from those with the Peanut Perk. The downside is that the Pepper wears out after one attack, even from pets that don't faint it in one attack.
- Late Character Syndrome: Tier 6 Pets can fall victim to this, as their late appearance in Shops means their stats are quite low compared to a unit with several turns' worth of stat investment.
- Magikarp Power: The lowly Caterpillar is a 1/3 Tier 3 friend with no battle ability, but it will automatically level up with each battle. Once the Caterpillar reaches level 3, at the start of each battle it will transform into a Butterfly and then copy the stats of your highest friend. Also true of the Tier 6 Octopus, who begins as an 8/8 friend with no ability, but as it levels up, it quickly gains stats and a potential game breaking ability to damage the entire team with each attack.
- More Dakka: A battle can quickly escalate into this if there are several units that can damage random enemies (i.e., the Woodpecker, the Blowfish, the Snake, the Octopus).
- Never Say "Die": Units don't die - they faint. A unit getting knocked out for the rest of the battle and a unit vanishing permanently after eating a Sleeping Pill both count as fainting (which you can use to your advantage).
- One-Hit Kill: Pets with the Peanut Perk knock out enemies instantly, making the Peanut pet's HP the only concern.
- One-Hit Polykill: A Rhino can decimate an entire team with just one attack. See Rhino Rampage below.
- Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat: Units with Abilities that activate upon fainting (like the Flamingo) will visibly sweat if the player picks up the Sleeping Pill.
- Poisonous Person: The Scorpion, a lowly 1/1 Tier 5 unit, is the only friend in the game that has the Poisonous ability. Any unit that it deals damage to immediately faints. This is represented by a Peanut and acts as a food item instead of an innate ability. This is unique to all other inherent abilities from all other friends, as it can be overwritten by another food item (presumably for balance).
- Pokémon Speak: Interestingly, the Giraffe's sound effect is a woman saying, well, "Giraffe".
- Power Up Mount: The Horse is this to an extent. It gives a slight attack buff to every unit summoned for the next battle.
- Random Number God: Several friends rely on RNG to decide where a damaging hit will land, but the most infamous is the Mosquito. Since it's a Tier 1 unit that deals 1 damage randomly before battle, and there are some Tier 1 units with just 1 health, a Mosquito hit can remove an enemy friend before the attacks even begin. This can be valuable late game as well for removing Melon Armor, but by then, there are usually better strategies.
- Rascally Raccoon: Before attacking, the Raccoon steals the enemies' food (stealing more per turn as it levels up).
- Reduced Mana Cost: Actually gold cost. Several units can influence the price of friends and food. The Squirrel, the Goat, and the Sauropod all reduce parts of the shop.
- Rhino Rampage: When the Rhino defeats a unit (and survives), it deals damage to the unit behind it. This counts for ANY damage, including that extra damage. Against a team of enemies with low health, even ones that spawn other units, a single Rhino can tear through them all with just one attack.
- Support Party Member: Several species have relatively poor stats and no useful Ability in terms of pure combat, but said Abilities can permanently buff other units (i.e., the Giraffe, Monkey, and Penguin) or assist in the Shop (i.e., the Squirrel, Cow, and Chicken).
- Taking You with Me: The Badger has a faint effect that deals its attack (or multiple of its attack at higher levels) to the two units on either side of it. This makes the Badger an extremely powerful back unit when paired with Honey to hopefully use its fainting damage to defeat the last remaining enemy unit, and then spawn a bee to win the battle (the Honey-Badger strategy). Alternatively, it can be a strong front unit with a weak support unit behind it, hopefully taking out at least 2 of the enemy's strongest units as it faints.
- You Will Not Evade Me: A few pets' Abilities can move the opponent's units forward in line (the Donkey and Seahorse). This is helpful when going against species that benefit from standing behind several units, like the Shark.
- Zerg Rush: Several friends can spawn tokens when they faint, but especially notorious is the Tier 6 Fly that summons a fly for the first 3 friends that that faint (Pre-nerf, it was for EVERY friend that fainted). Notable mention goes to the Sheep, that summons 2 additional friends at any level, and the Rooster that summons a Chick with 1 health and half its attack at level 1, 2 chicks at level 2, and 3 chicks at level 3.
