FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD38 → Life of an Ant

Life of an Ant

By connor-mcgrory

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall384.0021
Fun2053.3121
Innovation1543.4721
Theme294.2121
Graphics3193.0521
Audio244.0021
Humor204.1021
Mood294.0521

Comments

epicsoft 2017-05-02 01:18

Fine game , I couldn't find any bugs, graphics are retro and I liked audio

martenscedric 2017-05-02 01:34

Wow this is by far one of my favorite compo game, good work! You should definitely upload some screenshots, I have a hard time believing I'm only the second comment! I gave a 5 in humor and it really deserves more. The audio is nice the graphics are really nice and the best is all the ant jokes :) I couldnt really play the game since the first day I struggled to find food (realized it was just at the left) and didnt bring a single one. Anthena died :( The second day I could not find dirt and got slowed down, I don't know where to eat. If you could reply to me with clarifications I will play it again! Good job :)

steve-johnson 2017-05-02 01:36

I liked this game so much [I wrote a post about it.](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/rogue-basement/funniest-game-so-far-life-of-an-ant) Five stars from me in all categories.

I would say this is the best game in LD38, but once I turn into a cave-in repair ant the plot seems to get stuck and I am doomed to fix walls forever. So I just let the colony collapse on purpose because I was done working for the man (er, the queen).

The music is perfect. The sound is good and not just made with bfxr. The graphics are appropriate. The writing is ant-alyzingly good and ant-i-not-funny.

So if there's more plot, I would be so happy if you could make a build that starts the game right after you do the cave-in repair job so I can finish this masterwork!

aurelien 2017-05-02 05:19

The dialogues are gold. The music is also really good, it's not too repetitive as we can often see in compo games.

I also didn't know what to do after I became a red ant. And I couldn't find a way to carry the food and the dirt. Hope you can fix it so that I can know what happen at the end :p

connor-mcgrory 2017-05-02 14:24

Thanks for the comments so far guys! I changed the game so that when you are the red ant, it's virtually impossible for the day to reset. When you are the red ant you must find where the dirt is leaking from the ceiling and press SPACE bar on it to patch it.

I must warn you after you win as the red ant the game gets kinda weird haha. This is mostly due to my sleep deprivation. Thanks again for playing and I enjoy all feedback!

steve-johnson 2017-05-02 19:01

You should totally put this on itch.io so it's easy to find after LD38 is over.

steve-johnson 2017-05-02 19:25

I finished the game! Total work of genius, 5/5 all categories, if we ever meet I will give you a hundred high fives.

simonhutchinson 2017-05-02 23:06

@Epicsoft, you couldn't find any bugs?

Ok, that's a terrible joke, but this game is great. The life of an ant seems awesome if you get to listen to that music all day (except for the bully's of course).

The movement feels a bit slow at the beginning when I'm still exploring and don't know where anything is, but perhaps that's part of the point--feeling like a rookie who's still learning the ropes.

candlesan 2017-05-03 07:16

Really digging the music and sound. The ant concept is awesome too. The puns are so groan-worthy it's awesome :)

gilborn 2017-05-03 07:25

Very good game, it has an easy feel-good mod and at the end it got quite philosophical. Although I don´t know if doing nothing gets punished by the game, I always had the feeling that I didn´t repair enough or carry too less dirt to the outside :-)

larzan 2017-05-03 12:01

Wow, intense 'game', love it. It is more a short story with small game elements but the dialog is very funny and i like the existential discussion that you incorporated at the end, haha.

Enjoyed it a lot, very well done, a small piece of art :)

gustavo-christino 2017-05-03 15:21

Oh, life.

dwemthy 2017-05-04 03:13

Very funny game with nice music! Controls felt a little slow and on the second day even though I found and picked up 0 dirt I got praised. The end made it worth it and the scripted feel made sense. For the controls: up and down are overriden by right and left but not the other way around and if it did allow switching to whichever direction is pressed last it'd be really nice.

connor-mcgrory 2017-05-04 14:38

@dwemthy Thanks for playing and for the feedback!

In most games I make I always have a cascading if-else sequence for checking keyboard buttons. This is what causes the weird controls you were talking about. I think you're right that the last pressed key should always override. Thanks again for the input!

smiling-cat-entertainment 2017-05-06 03:04

Fun story, with a good soundtrack to accompany it. Nice twist at the end, too. During the workday sequences I couldn't understand why I kept slowing down, but all of the other ants were still moving the same speed, but that was pretty minor and never lasted long before moving on to the next sequence. Great job!

superjoebob 2017-05-06 06:10

antrew ryan

gamequester 2017-05-10 20:23

I really liked the game. Not because of the gameplay or the graphics, but because of the story and the characters. Also, the music was very well fitting and added to the mood. Really good Work!

wheffle 2017-05-12 02:42

This was good! It seemed really well polished, the graphics and animations were great, and the music was fantastic! It gave off a strong SimAnt vibe, and I *loved* that game as a kid. I don't think the game lingered too long on each task, so it was always interesting to play. Surprise depressing ending though haha. At first I thought the premise was that they were in an ant farm, but it got even more meta than I anticipated :P

Loved it, nice job!

mikethewayne 2017-05-14 18:55

Really nice game, calm, relaxing, and nothing is better than ant-puns. Hope your brain is OK!

pschichtel 2017-05-15 17:23

There are so many good ways to publish the game binaries, but mediafire is not one of them.

Other than that: Simple but nice entry. A few AI problems (ants stuck in loops or walls).

baraa-marwan 2017-05-16 17:23

Good game!I liked the music most!! Please rate my game to get 20!! https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/monster-island

csanyk 2017-05-18 03:11

I don't have java installed so I can't play it, but thanks for checking out my game :)

steve-johnson 2017-05-20 22:28

Congrats on the great scores! I'm glad your genius is reflected by all the the judges.