King of Crabs – Basic Guide (Controls, Crabs, App, Weapons and Shields)

Guide to Basics

Basics

The game is simple. Move around, kill crabs, feast upon their flesh, get big, become the King of Crabs. Along your journey you will find weapons and shields with which to aid you on your quest to the crab throne. But beware, those with the crown draw the ire of those without it. While king you are visible on the map as the crown icon, so that any crab may challenge you for the crown.

Complete quests, earn coins, gather pearls, and collect rewards from the glorious crab grab machine. If you wish to spend those gathered pearls you can even get yourself a royal crab grab for more rewards, or earn royal crab grabs through quests and ranking.

Along the way try and find the letters for megabig so that you may transcend normal crabhood and enter the realm of kaiju, if only for a short duration. All fear the megabig.

Vengeance is a part of the game as well, do not feel afraid to seek retribution. The most recent crab that has killed you appears as a skull and crossbones on your map so you may hunt them down for vengeance.

Controls

The game is simple, and while is can be played with mouse and keyboard I recommend using a controller. Microsoft Xbox controllers and even Steam controllers will work.

Mouse and Keyboard

  • Move by clicking with the mouse or using WASD.
  • You automatically attack any enemy crab in front of you.
  • Click the weapon and shield icons at the top of the screen to lock them, that way you won’t pick up another weapon or shield you happen to over.
  • Clicking the map will increase or decrease its size, showing Xs on the map of various size, indicating a player crab and their general size.
  • A giant red X indicates a player that has gathered all the megabig letters and it now megabig. Best to avoid those crabs until megabig wears off.
  • Space bar activates your crab’s special.
  • B activates the buddy finder, or makes you go solo if you already have a buddy.
  • Shift or double click to boost, increasing speed for as long as the blue boost bar lasts or you stop.
  • ESC opens the menu.

Controller

Note: I can only vouch for Steam Controller layout.

  • Use the left joystick to move.
  • Left Bumper locks your current weapon. Right bumper locks your current shield.
  • B toggles the map size.
  • X activates your crab’s special.
  • Y activates the buddy finder, or makes you go solo if you already have a buddy.
  • Back bumper boosts.
  • Start opens the menu.

The App

Get on your mobile device, and download the app. Trust me, it’s worth it.

  • You can get free rewards by watching ads.
  • In the shop you can get 100 gold, up to 50 times every 12 hours, by watching ads. That adds up to 5,000 gold which is 10 crab grabs.
  • In the shop you can also get up to 10 pearls every 12 hours the same way, 1 pearl per ad.
  • In addition you can receive 2 of every buff randomly, such as fast growth, double coins, double xp, and mega magnet. Again, every 12 hours.
  • Every 3 hours you can get 3 free mini crab grabs at the top left of the main menu. It gives you 3 items from the crab grab each time, so up to 9 items.
  • You can get up to 5 new quests by watching ads. Once you complete your quest(s), you can watch an ad and to a new one. These reset every 3 hours.

Always do your crab grabs on the app. You can double certain rewards, such as skill points and pearls, that you earn from crab grab by watching an ad. That lucky x3 pearl can become x6, and 1 skill point becomes 2. However you only get 5 double ups every 3 hours. You will mindlessly skip over some things you wanted to double up. It happens, that’s life. Unfortunately this only applies to the normal crab grab. You cannot double up on royal crab grab rewards.

The refresh time for each of these begins once the first one is gained. So the 12 hour timer for pearls begins when you collect the first pearl, the timer for gold is when you collect the first 100 gold, etc.

Crabs

Here is a list of Crabs and some basics about them.

Brown Crab

The brown crab’s special grant unlimited Boost for a short duration. This can be used defensively and offensively. It can be used to make a speedy escape, or to engage on enemies. Boosted attacks deal additional damage. While boosted attacks from the side or back will knock over a crab, causing them to take extra damage. This also makes it a good tool for ganking.

Rainbow Crab

The rainbow crab’s special discharges sticky goo that stops enemies in their tracks. While the sticky goo slows enemies, it also does copious small ticks of damage for the duration to those in the area. This will shred through any shields that a crab may have on them. This special can be used to escape by slowing the enemy down. It can also be used to lock an enemy down so they can’t escape or so you may reposition yourself.

Blue Crab

The blue crab’s special freezes air within a short range, leaving enemies immobilized. Similar to the rainbow crab’s special in terms of strategy. The blue crab’s special deals no damage and is an instantaneous effect. It won’t linger around to freeze other crabs that waltz in. However those effects can’t act for the duration, not even turn their crab’s facing.

Mitten Crab

The mitten crab’s special speeds up attacks and gives 100% critical hit chance. This is a purely offensive special. With the right hat and matching weapon, this can swiftly take down most any crab.

Spanner Crab

The spanner crabs special burrows into the ground reappearing in a random location. This is a purely defensive special. When activated you become immune to damage for a b rief moment as you burrow and reappear somewhere else on the map. However, this escape is a gamble, you could reappear right next to another enemy crab. So be cautious when you choose to use it. Too low of health and you could easily be killed or even starve before you find any food in your new location.

Stone Crab

The stone crab’s special forms a shield that absorbs huge damage. This can be used both offensively and defensively. While trying to escape it can mitigate what would otherwise be deadly damage, allowing you to flee and grab food to heal. Offensively you can take more damage during a fight, but it won’t do any good if you can’t kill the enemy fast enough.

Elbow Crab

The elbow crab’s special spins at high speed damaging everything around. This special can be used offensively and defensively. While it does not state it in the description, you get a boost to defense while you are spinning, allowing you to take more damage. Additionally since you spin in an area of effect and can move, you can move around to kill random NPC crabs and heal from their meat.

Hermit Crab

The hermit crab’s special retreats into it’s impregnable shell to regain health. This special is purely defensive. It uses attrition to save your life. It lasts for a while, and if timed right can cause an enemy to waste their weapon durability. You are immune to damage and heal fully throughout the duration, so it can be used to avoid starving. Not even a MEGABIG crab can harm you while in your shell. You can also end the special early by boosting. Many will leave and come back when they know the special is over, which is why ending it early comes in handy.

Giant Mud Crab

The giant mud crab’s special slams the ground leaving nearby enemies stunned. This can be used defensively and offensively. Enemies affected will be flipped over, taking extra damage from attacks and being immobile. You can use it to escape from a battle you don’t think you can win, lock down a fleeing enemy, or engage with it.

Snow Crab

The snow crab’s special emits a contagious poison that causes life drain. This causes your attacks to poison the enemy, dealing damage over time and slowing their attack speed. This effect stacks with the poison dagger weapon, making it a good wombo combo. This can make an otherwise unwinnable fight winnable as the enemy cannot get off as many attacks.

Yeti Crab

The yeti crab’s special pounds enemies into the ground causing massive damage. This is an area of effect damage effect. The yeti crab can move for the duration of the special, dealing damage around it as it moves. The yeti crab is also immune to stuns while active.

Atlantic Lobster

The atlantic lobster’s special causes you to instantly become massive and powerful for a short duration. This special increases your size, and thus your stats. It is good to note, that an atlantic lobster currently under the effects of this special will use their buffed size for the purposes of determining whether if not any killed crabs get a free respawn.

Tasmanian Giant Crab

The tasmanian giant crab ignites the surrounding area causing everything to burn. This applies a damage over time to all crabs in the area when activated, dealing fire damage. It deals more damage than the snow crab’s poison, but it only deals damage.

Mantis Shrimp

The mantis shrimp’s special is a colossal punch that cuases huge damage and stuns. This special not only deals huge damage, and not only flips over the enemy crab, it also launches them away from you. This makes this special good to escape fights. You can launch enemies into other enemies to start fights, or even into a boss or MEGABIG crab. Due to this launch try and use it as a finisher, otherwise you’ll have to chase after their flipped over body.

Coconut Crab

The coconut crab’s special lays bombs which detonate on contact or when the fuse runs out. For the duration of this special the coconut crab lays bombs behind them. These bombs deal damage and knock enemies away. You can use them when cornering enemies to ensure they get blasted by all the bombs, leave a dissuading trail of bombs for enemies to follow, or even block of an escape route for an enemy crab.

Alien Crab

The alien crab’s special spawn baby aliens that devour anything in their way. Fun fact, multiple activations of this special stack, allowing large swarms. The aliens provide good damage and distraction as the enemy is more likely to hit the swarmers than you during combat.

Robot Crab

The robot crab’s special rains down missiles on your enemies. The special is a bit telegraphed as targets appear on the ground where the missiles will strike. They auto target random enemies around you. If there is only one enemy near you they will all converge on their location. The missiles deal damage in a small area of effect on impact.

Demon Crab

The demon crab’s special creates a black hole that sucks in all nearby you. This includes meat, enemies, coins, random food spawns, etc. Beware, you might heal those you intend to kill, as the food you suck in heals whoever it hits first which might not be you. After sucking in the nearby area, it then deals damage, expels, and flips all caught in the black hole. Its a good way to gather quest items in an area, heal yourself in the middle of battle, or keep an enemy from escaping or engaging.

Weapons and Shields

Weapons and shields can make or break a fight. Without a weapon your chances of winning a fight with even sized crabs, and even smaller crabs, may not be in your favor. Especially if they have a hat that increases the damage of those weapons.

Weapons

  • Baseball bat
  • Bottle
  • Candy Cane, x5 multiplier
  • Chef’s Cleaver
  • Crab Legs
  • Cutlass
  • Fireaxe
  • Flamethrower
  • Knife
  • Hammer, chance of stunning
  • Shotgun
  • Slap Hands
  • Soy Sauce Bottle
  • Stick

Special Weapons

  • Flaming Sword, Dot.
  • God Hammer, ♥♥♥ and chance of stunning.
  • God Sword, ♥♥♥.
  • Ice Wand, slows attack and move speed.
  • Mace, increase size by 50% when equipped.
  • Magic Wand, decreases the size of the enemy crab each hit.
  • Poison Dagger, DoT and slows attack speed.

Shields

  • Turtle
  • Wooden
  • Crabtain America
  • Gold

Crab Wombo Combos

Here is a section for crab combos for buddies.

The snow crab and tasmanian giant crab can be a deadly combo as the poison DoT and fire DoT stack, plus the attack slow can take on most crabs. The combination is even worse if combined you have the poison dagger and the flaming sword, as the effects from the weapons are separate and stack with the specials.

The snow crab with the poison dagger is honestly good with any crab.

The giant mud crab likewise is good with any of the offensive crab specials.

Dual demon crabs can chain their black hole specials together. The other demon crab attacking the victim that the other demon crab has sucked in.

Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 8007 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices. My first official job in the game industry started back in 2005, and I'm still doing what I love to do.

2 Comments

  1. There are a few players that seem impossible to kill. Their crabs seem to move faster and they just crush mostly everyone. I was wondering if that was because they had a gaming pc or am I missing something. I am not talking about when they have collected all the letters to me megga. Just in normal play.

    • I was wondering the same thing. What’s the deal? My crabs that I use are maxed out on their stats, wear hats to increase attack, and even if I’m carrying a shield, golden hammer, and gun it doesn’t seem to have any affect on certain crabs. Not only can I not seem to inflict any damage on them, they are able to kill me with one or two hits. They’re faster by a long shot and seemingly impossible to kill so how do they do it? Is there something I’m missing or are they using codes or what?

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