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Ants can be your strongest allies in the struggle to mess with your friend's sandwich, but they can also be your most deadly foes.
This is my Ludum Dare compo submission, inspired by real-life events in my very own backyard! Wield a can of ant spray and corral the ant swarms to do your bidding. If an ant reaches your friend's sandwich first, you win, but if it reaches yours first, you lose. Simple, no?
This game runs on HTML5, and is currently playable at http://www.cgmorton.com/holygophergames/ants/ants.php
I hope you like it!
Downloads and Links
Ratings
 | Coolness | 100% |
| #137 | Innovation | 3.77 |
| #295 | Theme | 3.66 |
| #387 | Audio | 3.02 |
| #469 | Mood | 3.03 |
| #630 | Humor | 2.58 |
| #636 | Overall | 3.08 |
| #770 | Fun | 2.80 |
| #981 | Graphics | 2.25 |
Comments
Interesting game, I love ant simulations. They didn't really seem to follow the pheromones all that much though, so it felt pretty random when I won. I didn't have the patience to get past the second level. Perhaps more ants, faster simulation would help?
Really cool idea and execution. It's like a zen experience with this music :D
The best strategy for me was building a tunnel to the opponent's sandwich and focusing on one ant that was the closest to the goal.
Later levels required more creativity though.
It's a good concept to expand on but game in this stage is also really fun to play. Well done!
A nice, chilled game that requires a bit of thinking. Sometimes it felt like potluck that I won because an ant managed to make it by accident, but the challenge in the later levels proves that it's not all down to chance. Great game! :)
Oh, I like this concept!
At first I didn't think the levels would be all that different and challenging, but just the different types of sprayable surfaces made it worthwhile to continue to play past the first level. Good work!
Really good concept and interpretation of the theme! This "real life event" of yours must have been damn funny.
The music fits well too.
It would be interesting to extend the game with a way to make the ants behave not so randomly, like find a way to attract them to some extent.
Good entry! :)
Had to find out that the red sandwich is the one you want to destroy the hard way. Not sure if I was just being dumb or what.
very soothing game. It makes me feel nostalgic for some reason. Good job
A neat little idea, though it could be too random at times.
I keep running out of ant spray. Seems like winning/losing is mostly just luck.
I like the concept and there's a decent amount of strategy to it.
Interesting idea! Sometimes felt like more luck than skill though, which can be frustrating
That moment when you've run out of spray and the ants are almost to both sandwiches... awesome. Surprising amount of strategy involved in a game that appears random on the surface.
Nice game. I had fun playing it, but gave up after about 4 unsuccessful attempts on level 6. I got a bit lost about what those yellow boxex actually are. I think I credit this to the differrence of details between the spray and the anthill. (The anthill is detailed and everything else is in simplistic art style.) Also I learned about the spray from your GitHub page, not from the game or description. It'd be better if you presented the game in a bit better way (the mechanics alone is fun).
I'm giving you 4* on overall (even though the game could be vastly improved).
I won't lie why I came to this game. I saw your comment on mine (Ageless Machine: Cup of Tea) and was a bit of upset, but mostly sad. The solution to the equation really is 25/9, which is 2.77..., but when there are only integers as the answer, it's pretty intuitive to assume that you just have to get rid of the decimal part. Even if you disagree with this part, there's no need to give the game 1* in every category. The equation is not the game. The game has about 30 minutes gameplay and the equation is only about 20 seconds of it. Please consider changing your opinion (or just explaining me your current one).
Thanks :)
Hey all! Thanks for playing my game! This was really a spur-of-the-moment thing for me, so I'm glad a lot of you enjoyed it.
About the randomness, the ants' movement is a bit less random than it might seem. I won't say any more than that, though of course the source code is right there :)
To CireNeikual, I thought about putting in a way to speed up time, but decided that wasn't the feel I was going for. Later levels have a lot more going on as well.
And sorry for the confusion ViliX64, my sense of humor doesn't always come out right. I really did like your game!
It would be nice to know wich of the sandwiches is yours and wich is your friends
Nice game, I quite like it! It's very fun and challenging! I missed an explanation about how to effectively use the spray, since it's not really explained anywhere if the spray attracts the ants or repels them :)
interesting idea. the randomness made me wonder if my actions had any influence at all, but somehow managed to win more often than not. audio was great. nice work!
I like it, definitely a unique idea I think. Cool game I believe
Its a good concept for a game, the music/birdsong is nicely suited to the scenario. I only got to level 6 but found it quite fun :)
Interesting game but at first I didn't know what to do. I had to read the description here to get it. Then I didn't know which sandwich was mine. So basically I'm stupid :)
Neat idea, and peaceful music. The bird sounds were too loud compared to the music, for me.
Unfortunately level 6 seemed to depend too much on randomness for me. It takes a very long time to wait and see if ants will move in the direction you encourage, with the very limited spray amount.
Nice, I really like the concept! I'd love to see it fleshed out more.
I have to admit I didn't like the extremly indirect controls. (wasn't that one of the final themes too? - I think it would have matched that one better).
Surprisingly compelling ant simulator where you plead the random number gods to favor the ants in the direction of the red sandwich. Those ants never listen though. They won't stop touching my previous sandwich.
Nice visuals, fitting audio, good time overall. That road level is nuts.
Playthrough video forthcoming :)
Good game. I like pushing ants to opponent sandwich. One thing - bait for ants to move them toward opponent and AI.
My sandwich...
Simple graphics, but surprisingly deep gameplay. I found myself playing for at least 20 minutes, stopping at level 9.
Simulation games tend to be too complex a lot of the time, but I really appreciated the simplicity of this one. Took me a while to get the hang of it, but I liked the trial/error process and figuring out what worked best.
Can't really think of anything I'd change, other than sprucing up the graphics a bit.
I really enjoyed this, thank you!
Very cool, love your AI and path finding, very new and innovative :)
The outcome of the game is almost completely out of the player's control. All you can do is defend and hope. :\ I didn't really enjoy it.
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Very interssting concept. I like that the ants move random but you can still influence them quite a lot. Nice game.