Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD38 → Lead the Ants
By matita
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 551 | 3.09 | 35 | |
| Fun | 513 | 2.90 | 35 | |
| Innovation | 70 | 3.87 | 35 | |
| Theme | 208 | 3.75 | 34 | |
| Graphics | 688 | 2.36 | 35 | |
| Audio | 481 | 2.19 | 33 | |
| Humor | 563 | 2.10 | 31 | |
| Mood | 581 | 2.83 | 32 |
Ha, it's a pretty amazing idea to make an ant-based lemmings game! Leaving behind pheromones for other ants to discover is one of those "why didn't I ever think of that" ideas, ingenious yet simple. The footprints they leave behind look cool and it's interesting how they follow the player's/scout ant's path. The exploration could have been made more interesting, with more varied terrain perhaps?
I agree that this game is very intriguing conceptually. I would suggest slightly speeding up the player ant, as the game feels a little bit sluggish as it is. I also agree with the suggestion for more varied terrain.
Very interesting idea!
The simplicity was really appealing. I succeeded the first time but then went a little bit extreme on the pheromones I think, poor ants went a little crazy, completely stuck at the food's place. That's an interesting base for something more, I'm sure you'll be able to push it further with more time. Bravo !
Thanks for the kind comments! Being my first time at doing a game, and obviously first Ludum Dare, I failed to plan my work, so I couldn't fit a little level design nor a random level generation at least... I'm thinking about a post-jam version with different terrains and maybe some unexpected situations you have to resolve during some levels.
Very nice work for your first game! It's a really nice concept, and the paths of the ants look really interesting. I was not sure how frequently I had to press space, and ended up somewhat spamming it. The difficulty of the levels also varied a lot. In some cases I barely managed to find the food in time, in one extreme example, the food spawned literally 1.5 seconds away.
There was also a bug which occurred, that the ants just kept moving straight without being affected by the traces or anything (Only happened one time on level 9)...
The tutorial level was really good, but when I don't think you should play it again every time you don't make it.
Apart from that, really nice game and keep up the good work
Cool!
This reminds me of the old days and "SimAnt." It kind of felt a bit like a guessing game (which way is the food?), but I love the little algorithm-driven critters (like real ants!).
The idea is, indeed, clever, but it doesn't carry the experience for long.
I was waiting for additional challenges to appear, like competing :ant:hills, :ant: warfare, :bird::bird: or :man: :runner:! But nope, this is it. If the food supply is right next to your hill, it all basically boils down to: release pheromones, wait for 2 minutes... That is not interesting.
I also get a lot of slowdown on the WebGL build once 20+ :ant::ant::ant: are marching around.
This is a good base for something bigger. Keep at it.
A very nice idea, but the gameplay isn't satisfying.
The biggest problem is that the player has to spend most of his time doing nothing: click, wait several seconds to move, repeat, find food, place pheremones, wait a couple of minutes. Speeding up the player's move speed would help. Another idea to reduce downtime would be to add a game speed setting that lets you accelerate the game's speed through the collection phase.
A clever and original idea for a Ludum Dare game. Hopefully you'll be able to flesh out the idea into a game later.
It was pretty entertaining watching lost ants try to find their way. The AI is very impressive, it feels like real ants trying to figure out where to go.
Thank you very much for all your feedback!
I know the game is not very challenging for the player and there is a lot of time the player has nothing to do... maybe it would have been a better entry for the slow game jam :D
As I said being my first game and my first LD I didn't plan correctly my time, so I didn't have time to think and program some real challenge, so I focused on making the ants behaviour the most realistic possible. Glad at least this effort seems to have passed through!
Sure I still have a lot to learn in gamedev...
Nice work for a first game! The mechanic for ants to follow the traces is well done. Also having the grass slow down the movement is a good idea.
But as it is, the game's only challenge is to find the food. Once that's done, you leave a trace and just watch the ants pick the food.
Some suggestions: - Let me speed up the time when I'm done leaving the trace, so that I can watch in fast-motion - (Better than the last one) Give me something to do while the ants are getting food. For example, fight against some enemies, like worms trying to steal food from the ants. - Have several food locations, and let food end more quickly. That way, I have to split the ants, and there might be a strategy in there...
Overall the concept is nice, and the mechanics are interesting. But to be a challenging game, it needs more diversity in gameplay.
Great idea, very inovative. Even though it was a simple enough mechanic i enjoyed it when my little workers found their way on the first try :) First of all i think it is a great achievement to have a fully working game after your first game jam, so congratz for that! To improve the idea you could add some obstacles that you have to go around and that might harm the ants, also some limitation to the amount of signals that you can set.
I like the idea. Some suggestions: - Faster ants - Simply drop the 'mining' they could just pick up the food and return immideately. - I don't think the ants need sound at all. Only some game music and some confirmation and victory sound is needed, imho.
Neat little game. :)
Accidental double post.
Cool game and a nice implementation of the theme! I enjoyed playing it and the idea was interesting, but I did find the blinking traces that you left kind of annoying. Maybe if they were to blink slower with less opacity or something similar would be better.
It's kind of funny that most people either made games about planets or bugs :D
The idea is interesting and very well implemented. I really enjoied when the ants came to the hole again with the food, all in a perfect line xD Nice job! If you want to check out our game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/dr-zorongo
Nice idea! (I actually made a similar game for my first Ludum Dare when the theme was Tiny Worlds, haha)
It gets a bit repetitive after a level or two. Once you make a path to the food it's pretty much just hoping your buddies don't wander off otherwise there's almost no way for you to put them back on track.
Couple of improvements I'd personally like to see: - A way to remove your pheromones, when you have too many the ants go crazy and there's no way to fix your mistakes - keyboard control instead of mouse. I think I'll feel more connected with the game if I'm actually walking myself instead of directing with a mouse click. - different terrains, maybe there's a terrain that hurts the ants, or some that speeds them up? - multiple food spots that deplete faster so you have a more dynamic playing field
Considering it's your first time doing Ludum Dare, making a game and playing with Phaser, I'm impressed!
Keep it up and I can't wait to see your next game :grin:
like the idea :) I like how different terrain types influence movement speeds, this can probably be elaborated on to make the player decide between longer paths which are faster, or shorter but slower paths (although perhaps you already do this and I missed it...).
It might just be me but I would have loved to just see a simulation of the ants, with the pheromones being handled automatically :P
Thank you very much for all your feedback!
@bestnickname actually it ended up more as a simulation than an actual game, so a totally automated mode should not be excluded!
As soon as I have time among work, playing, voting and commenting other games I will respond to all the feedbacks in my post-mortem post.
I like the concept. The sound of the ants mining is a bit annoying. Are the levels randomly generated?
I'm impressed of the "lead and follow" mechanic you programmed here, it works perfectly although it took some time until I understood how it worked. Would have liked some background music.
Nice! Early levels could be made more interesting if there is something for the lead ant to do after creating a path to food. I felt like there was a lot of waiting around.
The concept of the game is nice, but the ants sometimes didn't follow my marks well (especially in later levels). Some music also would have been nice. I liked the style of the tutorial very much.
It felt a little bit slow to me, at least the early levels (I always drew the line to the food and then had to wait). We have considered simular controls in our game before we decided to take different approach. Good job!
I liked the premise and idea and the execution of the actual mechanics was well done. I just missed something more to do once I had the ants on their way, and also an option to unmark my stupidly placed beacons. As for the design, you could have introduced in later levels some hazards I need my ants to go around, or limit the number of beacons players can place in a level.
On the user experience side, I really wished for a button to restart the current level instead of having to wait for the timer to run out and then start all over again from level 1. That and the slow gameplay really was a test of patience and when I messed up a second time, I didn't bother going through all the previous stages again, especially because most of the time you just wait.
My suggestion would be to find something for the player to do once they had sent their peers on their way, such as clearing the path, if there are any obstacles, picking up some food herself, or fighting off evil, red ants that are also tapping into the same supply.
Nevertheless: A sold entry, much better gameplay than most of my submission so to date ;)
123.png
I agree on some additions to a gameplay -- obstacles, water, rocks, dynamic hazards, multiple food locations, time speed up and level restart button.
Nice work on the AI. It was fun to play and to figure out how it works.
I just suggest putting a reset button. But the idea is great, good job!:thumbsup:
I got to lvl 20 before I messed up the pathing and got the ants stuck. All in all really nice idea! In level 9 there did seem to be a bug where ants with food would go through the ant hill coming back and just keep going, but it didn't happen again. The progression was pretty slow to me, it kind of felt like the levels were randomly generated but I don't know if that was the case. It was more interesting when you had to transverse through or around the green area. I could see more exploration in that area, like a maze or so, but the game does seem to have a solid base to build stuff on. In general really enjoyed the mechanics, but the user experience could be a lot better with speeding up time or level resets. Anyway great job!
Great gameplay idea! It would be even better if there were more objects on the map to interact with. However it's very innovative, well done!
Interesting idea! I was once hit by a weird bug(pun unintended), where ants were going past the nest when coming back with food.
Very simplistic but still fun :) Well done :)
Very cool, the interactions are simple but the mechanics have some depth to them. I especially liked the subtle touches like independent ant behavior (if one is stranded between two scent circles it will sometimes wander off) and variable speed between terrain types. The timer is nice for pressure and I'm impressed you managed to build multiple levels in such a short period.
My first request for your next version would be a choice of how to get the ants back to their nest from the food - right now you basically want a straight line, but it'd be neat if there were obstacles that got in the way, enemies that patrolled certain areas, or if the terrain was intricate enough that a straight line wasn't always the answer. To really explode the scope, you could have different types of ants - say, fighter ants that defend the line from other insects, but you only have a limited supply. It'd also be interesting to be able to traverse in a different way when you're scouting than when you're creating a path - for example, imagine something frogger-like across a little stream. You couldn't use that as your path back to the nest, but it could give you a shortcut to the food. A final thought (I'm still playing it, just beat level 3) - what if there were multiple food locations in a single level, none of which supplied enough food for your mission? That way you'd have something to do (continue scouting) even after you'd set up your first scent trail.
Great work, I'm impressed that it's just instantly playable.
Very nice, the ants moved surprisingly well for what I expected and it brought back old memories of ant simulators from long ago, really made me happy =)
HTML5 was a great choice, I should try it next time, I think this game has lots of potential ^^/
Neat! Everything felt really good, and although it was a bit boring after the ants came out, it was nice to have a relaxing Ludum Dare game for once. I agree with a lot of what other people are saying, there is a lot of potential for new features to expand upon this game.
Very nice, it reminds me SimAnt. Tutorial is very simple, you get it quickly. With some additions like rocks, water, ennemies it could be a really cool game !
I really liked this game. It has a simple mechanic with potential for more additions! The graphics were simple but effective and the sound effects were helpful without being intrusive. Nice job!