12 years. One sketch. An extendable arm. Let’s go.
Hello, you wonderful thing, you!
I’m Luke from Mytholite — and today, I finally get to reveal a game that’s been haunting my sketchbooks, hard drives, and brain for over a decade.
Say hello to Onimo 🧿💥
A competitive physics-based arena brawler where one-eyed orb-creatures with stretchy arms knock each other out of bounds in a glorious display of chaos and strategy.
I don’t know if this game is gold or a delusion- but I love it! I whole-heartedly hope I can convince some of you to love it with me.
(Probably best if you don’t read into that last bit too deeply)
🎬 A 12-Year Journey (Seriously)
Twelve years ago, I scribbled a goofy little idea into a notebook. That sketch? It turned into a tiny Android demo — a weird, 1v1 game where two circles bounced around and punched each other with extendable arms. It only had one AI opponent… and somehow, it was brilliant. Not by design — the code was spaghetti and I barely understood how it worked — but everyone who played it was hooked.
I’ve been chasing that version ever since.
Over the years, I’ve tried rebuilding it more times than I can count. Each time, something felt off — until now.
For the first time in 12 years, Onimo finally feels right again.
It’s bigger, smarter, weirder… but it still has that scrappy magic.
📸
Then vs. Now:
Here’s a look at the original prototype vs. today’s Onimo in action:
The core is the same. A single eye. A springy arm. A whole lot of chaos.
🥊 Gameplay in a Nutshell
- You are a round creature with an eye and an extendable arm.
- You fling yourself around the arena using that arm — no legs, no brakes.
- The goal: knock everyone else out while keeping yourself in bounds.
- Scoring is simple: +1 for a KO, -1 if you fall. Highest score wins.
It’s easy to learn, hard to master, and surprisingly deep — with risk/reward strategy around speed, positioning, and timing.
It plays like sumo meets air hockey meets dodgeball — but with physics-driven chaos and personality.
🧠 Meet the AI That Thinks (and Schemes)
While Onimo is being built for online multiplayer, we’ve put an absurd amount of love into singleplayer — and here’s why:
This game deserves bots that don’t just play the game — they play you.
Ours thinks, adapts, taunts, panics, and occasionally does something so clever or dumb you question reality.
Onimo’s AI isn’t just one-size-fits-all — it’s a modular personality system, where every bot is a unique blend of behaviours, driven by six core traits:
- Aggression – How often it attacks, and how hard it hits
- Caution – How much it avoids risk or danger
- Precision – How accurate its strikes are
- Patience – How long it waits for the perfect opportunity
- Unpredictability – How much it adds chaos to its movement
- Adaptability – How likely it is to change tactics mid-match
Each bot is generated with a unique combination of these traits, rated 0–10. That alone gives us over 1.7 million personality variants — but it goes way deeper.
👤 AI Profile Blending
Every Onimo bot chooses a primary, secondary, and tertiary profile, which define its base playstyle:
- The Aggressive: relentless attacker, prioritises knockouts over survival
- The Coward: avoids everything, only attacks when it’s absolutely safe
- The Berserker: reckless fury, high-speed slams with minimal self-preservation
- The Tactical: careful, calculated, and strategic at all ranges
- The Patient: bides its time, then punishes hard
- The Trickster: loves to feint and confuse you before striking
- The Opportunist: always watching for your weakest moment
- The Calculator: makes optimal decisions every second, like a spreadsheet with a grudge
- The Lazy: doesn’t care… unless it’s losing
- The Defensive: counter-attacks and controls the space
- The Crazy: unpredictable, chaotic, dangerous even to itself
- The Mimic: copies your behaviour — and it’s creepy how well it works
Each trait contributes to which profiles get picked and how they blend. For example:
- A bot with high aggression and low caution might end up an Aggressive Berserker with Trickster elements
- A bot with high precision and patience could be a Calculator/Patient hybrid
- One with moderate adaptability and high unpredictability might mix Mimic, Lazy, and Crazy
These combinations create distinct behaviours, not just stat differences. You’ll start to recognise personalities, like:
- “That purple one’s a coward. It always runs.”
- “The yellow guy keeps pretending to strike then dodging left.”
- “This one copies my every move. It’s unsettling.”
🔄 Dynamic Strategy Switching
The higher an AI’s adaptability, the more often it will switch strategies on the fly. Based on the current situation, a bot might suddenly shift from passive to aggressive, or back off entirely if it senses danger.
Bots actively evaluate:
- Their position on the leaderboard
- Whether they’re near the edge or in danger
- The vulnerability of opponents
- The score timer and how desperate they should be
- Who’s targeting them (revenge is real in Onimo 😤)
This allows for emergent behaviour — not scripted, but reactive and layered. You’ll get moments where a bot does something so smart or perfectly timed that it feels human… and then it flings itself off the map and reminds you it’s still an Onimo.
📈 How Deep Does It Go?
Let’s break it down:
- 11 values per trait, 6 traits → 1,771,561 personality combos
- 288 possible profile sets (primary + secondary + tertiary)
- Combined = over 510 million theoretical AI configurations
- Realistically, we estimate 5,000+ recognisable playstyles, each one visibly different to a human player
It’s like fighting a new person each match — except these ones don’t rage quit, and they never, ever blink.
🎮 A Multiplayer Game That Respects Singleplayer
At Mytholite, we have some core mandatory rules we cannot break. These rules are there to ensure we maintain a consumer-first focus with everything we do.
I’m personally not a fan of the term ‘consumer’, but that’s capitalism for you.
We’re designing Onimo with our consumer-first values in mind. That means:
✅ Fully functional singleplayer
✅ Private server hosting from day one
✅ No required account linking* or always-online DRM nonsense
✅ Tools to keep Onimo alive even if we can’t
✅ No invasive ads — ever
We believe that if you buy a game, you should be able to keep playing it, even if we one day vanish into the void.
*You will be able to log in to your Mytholite account, and will need a Mytholite account to play on the official server. Private servers can make logins optional. Singleplayer does not require a login. You do not have to have acquired the game ‘legally’ to play on official servers with a Mytholite account- we don’t check for that.
🏆 Onimo Esports: We’re Not Kidding
We genuinely believe Onimo has esports potential.
The depth of the mechanics, the speed of the matches, the emergent strategy from player interactions — it’s all there. And we’re building it to support a competitive scene from the start.
Our dream is to see community tournaments, sponsored arenas, and maybe even one day a packed event with casters screaming as a last-second bounce leads to a game-winning KO.
To support that, we’ll offer:
- Local and online spectator tools
- In-arena non-invasive sponsor placements (like football hoardings, never popups)
- Match replay support (planned)
- Ranked and unranked play
- Cross-region matchmaking (pending testing)
We’re not treating this like a silly party game. This is a competitive sport in a goofy suit.
🔥 So Where Are We?
We’re not calling this the “next full release” from Mytholite just yet — especially with Going Down and Acre Shore still in active development. But make no mistake: Onimo is real, and it’s being shaped every day.
We’ve waited 12 years to get this right.
Now we’re building it in the open.
🎯 What’s Next?
Soon, we’ll be sharing more:
- 🎥 Gameplay clips and GIFs
- 🤖 “Meet the AI” spotlights
- 💥 Community tournaments (maybe devs vs bots?)
- 🛠️ Dev logs and technical breakdowns
If you’re into:
- Physics-based multiplayer chaos
- Strategic 1v1 or free-for-all mind games
- Competitive games with real personality
…then Onimo is going to be your thing.
Stick around. The arena is warming up.
— Luke @ Mytholite
🧿 One arm. No brakes. Just chaos.
