Ant Runner

mrnyarlathotep 2017-05-02 12:34

Very solid entry - might be worth adding some kind of restriction to shooting, or require some manual aiming, as it seemed mashing fire was the optimal way to take care of enemies, and it took quite a long time before any water showed up which had me wondering what the point of the jump button was (although if you're procedurally generating the levels then that might just be luck of the draw).

Models were nice, and fitted the theme well (maybe smooth shading instead of flat shading would have worked better given the organic feel...?)

generictoast 2017-05-02 15:03

A very nice and pretty game. The enemy models looked good. Would have been nice if the shooting required manual aiming instead as enemies can be taken off too easily just by spamming the shoot button. The procedural generation is an added plus that helps to add replayability to the game. More types of terrain and enemies would have made it even more fun. Still, a really great game.

floata-1 2017-05-02 18:50

pretty fun

makenai 2017-05-02 21:49

Pretty cool! I like the graphics. I wasn't expecting that the ant would auto-aim for me, so it was confusion to start, but nice when I got used to it. I managed to get pretty far (I think) but a hidden pool of water took me out instadeath style when I didn't realize I needed to jump. If you go further with this one, adding some periodic checkpoints to continue from might make the sad reality of instadeath a little easier to deal with. Well done!

unidaystudio 2017-05-03 13:57

Great! I've liked the game, If you want to improve more, you can remove the automatic Aim (this makes me immortal, because I just need to keep pressing LMB to kill everything) and make a mouse aiming, with some objects that I can't hit. This will make the game even moore fun!

Good job! :D

fiote 2017-05-03 17:50

Damn those hidden pool of water lol. Nice entry. I liked the models and the style. Would be interesting if the ant could move left/right to dodge things too instead of just jumping. Seems that the courses are random generated? That's cool!

lot9s 2017-05-03 18:45

This was pretty fun! It certainly fit the theme well, and the procedural content generation kept each playthrough quite fresh.

As others have said, the enemies weren't much of a challenge after I discovered that you could just mash the attack button to achieve perpetual safety. The biggest obstacle in the game proved to be timing jumps as the ant cannot stay airborne for very long.

slowian 2017-05-03 19:36

Fun game with good use of procedural generation. For further development, I want to suggest few things - new obstacles and controls can be added, for example ducking, option to use fly ant (possibly with a powerup) and new moving directions. New timely events can be introduced, like rain, that you need to avoid by moving left or right and jumping over rain drops. Instead of health, ant could carry pieces of dirt, that could be dropped after hitting an obstacle or being stolen by enemies. For attacks like others suggested you could aim and shoot, with some delay between attacks, or with rechargeable pieces of stones that you can throw and shown on the ui. Before starting new level, the generation can be done in a background and after that option to start it can be shown - currently it is visible at the start that level is generated. The level could get harder in time, and not only time, but the distance traveled could also be shown after ending it. You can also add option to pickup fruits that could be used for buying further ant upgrades - more control over speed, ability to auto jump above an obstacle, available stones to shoot, speed of projectiles etc.

unit684 2017-05-03 21:34

Thanks for all the great comments and suggestions! I agree that the shooting is a bit easy once you get the hang of it - aiming is definitely a possibility. If we decide to implement other obstacles or enemies (or any other great mechanics as suggested by @slowian), it might get a bit hectic trying to manage aiming too. But it's definitely worth playtesting.

Rushing around last minute, I forgot to implement a difficulty increase over time! We were planning on just increasing the speed as time went on. Perhaps change the spawn rate of different obstacles and stuff too.

kosmo 2017-05-04 03:43

I like that the level is procedurally generated -- but it doesn't seem to get more difficult as time goes on. Sometimes I would get like 3 jumps right in the beginning and then go a full minute without another one. Additionally, shooting seems like an afterthought since you can just spam left click and it will automatically shoot at anything that comes in range.

I'm a bit torn, because if you were going for just a relaxing game where you more or less watch an ant crawl around a procedural tree then you probably didn't need the shooting mechanical at all. On the other hand, if you wanted to add some more challenging gameplay then shooting should require some skill.

Theme wise, I get the idea of small world -- that being said, what exactly is the ant shooting? I can't shake the idea that this was originally in a different setting but was reskinned towards the end of development.

Either way I think you made a really interesting game and kudos for trying to do it procedurally in such a short time! Thanks for making it! :)

2017-05-04 11:54

Neat game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15RvXBjxVuU&feature=youtu.be

unit684 2017-05-04 21:28

@jupiter-hadley Thanks for playing! Glad you enjoyed it :)

@kosmo The 3 jumps at the beginning thing is just luck of the draw I'm afraid. Might be able to implement some less random generation in the future.

The theme was mostly there from the beginning but the shooting was added on later as an extra mechanic. Not exactly sure what the ant is supposed to be shooting, just adds a bit of extra gameplay. We'll probably rework it if we carry on working on the game :)

cheesymoo 2017-05-04 22:01

:bug:

SQWRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEK!!

geck0 2017-05-04 23:51

cute game!

nvrskipgameday 2017-05-05 00:05

Somewhere, some punk kid is throwing pockets full of mushrooms at my innocent little ant! All jokes aside, this was a good game. The audio helped a lot in knowing when enemies were around, that was really nicely done. The jump could feel a bit 'floating', it made it a little hard to know when to start pressing jump. I enjoyed the random generation of the board and enemies, though. All in all, great job.

adhesion 2017-05-05 01:25

Cool concept & nicely executed, I like the general vibe of the game. Would be cool to see some more elaborate mechanics, like more actions or branching paths - I liked how you could see the path ahead of you as it loops around, which could play nicely into that. Nice work!

tashfiq 2017-05-05 08:26

Thank you so much for reviewing our game. we really appreciate your valuable time for playing our game. As we couldn't manage enough time to complete the game as we were expecting, but we will sure take your suggestion and play-testing those mechanism for the further version.

Specially thank you @jupiter-hadley for adding our game to your video. We really appreciate your afford on making the video.

Cheers :D

codechomper 2017-05-05 23:49

What a neat entry! I like the "bugs life" feel to it. You might want to put in some sort of manual aiming, I kinda cheated and mashed the shoot button. Great effort loved the models and animations.

Feel free to rate mine if you have time [Not So Small (HTML5)](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/not-so-small)

martenscedric 2017-05-06 21:02

Nice entry! I enjoyed the game quite alot but I don't see the purpose of shooting, since you can just spam the button and you are immuned to alot of stuff.

flatgub 2017-05-07 00:53

This was really great! It was nice to sort of relax and just let it go and watch it, clicking on the things that appeared. The graphics style was nice and it had a really fitting mood! Well done!

anim-ace 2017-05-07 01:09

Quite a relaxing infinite runner. Though the screen resolution could be a bit smaller, as it could just barely fit on my 1366*768 laptop screen. This probably could have been eligible for Ludum Dare 34 back when it happened.

miggyg 2017-05-07 01:18

I liked the mood of the game, although it was not very challenging (maybe remove auto aim?) it was nice to play! Great work on the models!

ping78 2017-05-07 01:32

Cool concept. Nice procedural generation.

linus 2017-05-07 10:16

I liked the concept. Relaxing game but wasn't that hard but still fun. Simple gameplay that was easy to understand. The procedural generation of levels was a really nice touch that added a lot of replay value. Good job!

conrad123 2017-05-07 13:35

Interesting experiment with procedural generation. I sort of just clicked my mouse the entire time, and because there's no ammo reloads I got rid of all of the enemies. The jumping is tough though. I usually died.

d-studios 2017-05-07 22:28

I think you should make the water more "flashy" or something because sometimes I touch the water and don't even realize it. Also, you should have a better "background" rather than just a color. Also, you should make the death sound effects less "sad" because I feel guilty when I kill grasshoppers or when my ant dies :) . Other than that, this is a very good game and I certainly loved the graphics, isometric infinite runner gameplay, and stylish music!

pstudio 2017-05-08 15:45

I really like the graphics and the death screams of my enemies as I slay them. The game becomes a bit boring since button mashing shoot is just too easy. A bit more variety in the generation so there's a better mix of jumping vs shooting would also be great. With a bit more polish this could become a zen kind of game, where you just get lost in trying to get as far as possible.

lereveur 2017-05-08 18:39

A little easy to play, but, well, it's a working game with good graphics and I played it more than 5 minutes, so it's good for me.

qzqxq 2017-05-09 08:07

I played for about 100 seconds before getting bored and stopping. The graphics look very nice and the polish is pretty good (e.g. I really appreciated the x-ray vision if the ant was covered by a leaf), but there isn't much in the way of gameplay right now. As others have already mentioned, the shooting mechanic might as well not be in the game: if you added some more complexity to it, such as manual aiming or limited ammo or switching between different kinds of bullets for different enemies, I think this would have been a lot of fun. One mechanic I really like in games is multitasking, so avoiding obstacles while dealing with enemies flying at you has the potential to be great. There are lots of directions you could take this in and plenty of possible additional mechanics (as @slowian has already pointed out).

I think this is a very promising idea, and could be a lot of fun with a few minor changes. Nice job!

cremmy 2017-05-09 18:03

Shooting should be limited somehow, as best strategy is just mashing mouse button, and that limits gameplay to jumping over rivers. Models look nice, but I think there should be more rules governing level generation, eg. branches spawn upwards, and grass level is constant. It felt really weird when i saw branches going underground. Maybe you could also take a look at this cutoff effect, maybe it would be better if it didn't affect leafs under ant's feet.