Free-Bug

boltkey 2018-12-03 02:25

First of all, it obviously seriously lacks polish, like proper tutorial, restart and others.

The game itself is actually interesting strategy-wise.

First, I though that the optimal strategy is to just kill all but one bug in the start. Then, I had one bug which just didn't grow fast enough. Because by killing, you don't just preserve more food for other bugs, but also lower the amount of potential bugs that get lucky and eat a lot of food at once.

Another aspect is that if you have more bugs, theoretically the average time to get food is lower, since if a bug goes to a food far away, it is likely to get eaten by a different bug and the first bug perhaps finds food which is closer. Also, you can keep the bugs you know will not win just to strategically clear some areas of the board.

I got score of 36 and think I found a strategy that could be good. In theory. All the strategic decisions sadly get vastly overpowered by the random factor, but here it is.

At the start of the game, select one of 4 quarters of the board, the one with most food and least ants in it ideally. Kill all the ants that are not potential winnters going into the segment. Once there are 2 or 3 ants left, hope for the best. They are more likely to select food from the area you protected, saving them distance they need to cover.

It would make the game more strategic and less random if you highlighted the foods that some bug is going to.

kamekai 2018-12-03 02:48

Pretty interesting concept. Agreed on all points with @boltkey (btw your strategy netted me ~24pts on average)

I think also having some heuristics for which food item a bug targets would help for strategy formation.

egos 2018-12-03 10:31

Thank you @Boltkey for these ideas it helps me a lot to better understand the gameplay

The strategy of killing them all seems to work sometimes but I find it much more useful to keep some big creatures like you congratulations for the idea of the corners

thanks @kamekai just for better understanding i added a link between the food and the bug

justalocalhero 2018-12-03 16:03

This is a really neat concept. It works as an arcade/puzzle style game where you optimize a strategy for how many to keep and how quick to cut ties with them if they don't grow fast, with just enough randomness to keep it interesting on multiple plays. It would be nice if there were different bug types or characteristics to allow more decision making. A bit more work on the aesthetics might have gone a long way since the player is often just watching for long periods of time.

arkiruthis 2018-12-03 16:15

I love these little sandbox games. I'd maybe have the bugs eat the closest food so you could work on more of a strategy? Nice though, well done.

egos 2018-12-03 20:07

@justalocalhero you have brilliantly summarized the gameplay, I admit that I did not know what to expect by mixing all this

In fact I wanted to add a lot of selectivity feature and more ^ ^, but I took the opportunity to discover the JS also

But with this kind of encouragement it will motivate me to continue thank you

@arkiruthis eat the nearest, yes it's part of the things I wanted to settle on late some bug go fast but far and other slower close

Thank you for these ideas

kamekai 2018-12-04 00:53

@egos Nice update. I think it definitely adds some dimensionality. Pretty cool how you only show the path for the bug you are hovering over.

andrea 2018-12-04 14:49

Nice concept! Definitely deserves to be explored more, by adding babies for example, or making more, harder levels. Well done!

egos 2018-12-04 14:55

@Andrea thanks for your reviews

eddie-li 2018-12-05 01:53

Very interesting concept! It's surprising how much more there is to it than there seems. My high score was 30 which I think is low. The game needs polishing (tutorials, menus, audio, etc.) but the mechanic is unique. Well done!

kambing 2018-12-05 04:38

Good - One of the most original ideas - One of the few games that forces players to think - What is the optimal strategy?

Could be better - Add some sound? - It's hard to tell what food the bug is aiming for before hovering. Maybe bugs should just be greedy and eat the closest food? - Maybe you can sacrifice bugs to be eaten by other bugs?

morriss 2018-12-05 12:18

game over score=3

paulhocker 2018-12-06 04:01

one of the most interesting mechanics i have seen in a jam -- it was quite fun -- thanks for making it

srakowski 2018-12-08 02:43

I ended up getting 35 my first try! After that I didn't have as much luck. I couldn't put together a cohesive strategy to maximize the bugs. Concept & use of theme is good :)

garygreen 2018-12-08 15:03

This was very straightforward, but an original and fun idea.

egos 2018-12-08 15:48

thanks all for your feedback

I realize that not to use a game editor for a ld is a problem to add the minimum feature

@kambing : thanks for this advice i try to had it for the post mortem

frescogusto 2018-12-09 10:26

interesting concept, it made me try few different strategies, while being so simple. gj

annagavaldakedavra 2018-12-10 22:48

Nice gameplay mechanic, good idea.

derek-volker 2018-12-11 09:28

Score = 28.

Never though i was going to play a game about breeding bugs, that is definitely an original idea. Though it lacks polishing on graphics, some more intrincated mechanics and audio, its simplistic view and straightfoward gameplay makes it a pleasant experience.

Good job.

bros 2018-12-11 10:51

*"Sacrefices must be made"* is a difficult theme to realize in a perfect way. That's what I thought. And then I played this game.

This game is definitely a prime example for this theme. Thank you for this experience.

The other aspects have already been mentioned by the others, so I won't repeat them here. The only concern I had with this game is, that at the end, my browser (Firefox) stoped responding completely. Probably some optimization missing. Still good enough for a COMPO Entry.

cg-fred 2018-12-12 22:26

Good concept for the theme but I would have loved sfx and music in the game. As other stated more stuff had been great and more variation.

kleinzach 2018-12-14 02:55

Overall I think that there could be a larger strategic element to the game. Currently it feels a bit like horse racing where you shoot whichever horses you think are going to lose (Which sounds pretty horrible.) I wish there was some more ways to manipulate the probability, or some sort of simulation underneath to manipulate.

jihem 2018-12-14 09:39

31 too ! First, I thought kill them all except one so the last will eat all the food. But... They don't target the nearest food. So may be we have to last with two or three... huhu... When the sacrifice is done, It could be fun to make the bugs explode and release (not all but some) foods. When a click is done on the food, you could change the target of the nearest bug to it. I'm gone to replay... ;-)

loveapplegames 2018-12-14 21:51

A great take on the theme! I think it's quite interesting to try and find an optimal strategy. It seems the outcome is rather random, however. Maybe the game should be made less random?

mr-madcat 2018-12-21 11:59

Cool little game. At first glance it looks really simple, but figuring out a good strategy actually requires quite some thought. Well done.

egos 2018-12-23 10:57

thanks all for your feedback i actually work on a post mortem with a cool evolve bugs system

tim-eriksen 2018-12-31 18:36

Nicely done! Cool to see some entries made without editors and fancy game engines too :slight_smile: The game was interesting and has a few strategies to try out. I like it! I hate to ask this in the comments, but time is running out and I need a few more ratings on my entries, so if you could spare a few minutes and try my game too that would be really nice of you! :smile: