Explore the small world of ants and manage your own colony. Build, fight and explore to dominate the area.

How to Play:

In the nest view you can hatch ants for food. Outside you can click on food piles to place a marker to direct ants to collect it. Clicking on a marker will increase its urgency (so ants will more likely visit it). Right clicking will remove markers. Eventually enemy insects will invade, attack them to defend your nest. Build rooms in your nest to upgrade the colony. How long can you survive...?

Controls:

Left Click (on piles, items or enemies) - Place marker
Right Click - Remove marker
Left Click (on cracks in nest) - Open construction menu
WASD / Arrow Keys - Move view
Tab - Switch view
F5 - Restart

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  • Tero Hannula
    Patron

    I didn't survive. I thrived :D My food capacity 250 was almost always full, and my primary food source was just enemy insects. I had more aggressive approach, fast and durable ants. There were no piles of honey etc. left, and I had couple farms, but primarly my ants just ate insects. I had army of ants and I wanted to take screenshot of my nest and legion, but just before that error occurred :S

    https://i.imgur.com/Md5jXTB.png

    I think I conquered neighborhood on my first attempt :)

    It would have been great to have some sounds.

    • Grunlock
      Lv. 5

      Wow, that's a lot of ants! While rushing I skipped adding a lot of fail-safes to code which I thought I could get away with but there's always that one edge case you forget about -_- . One of my biggest takeaways from this jam was the importance of sound, next jam I'm going to make sure I dedicate some time to add audio. Thanks for playing :]

  • Fachewachewa
    Patron

    It's a really nice game and maybe I missed something but... it's extremely slow?

    On my first try I had like 7 ants and got wiped without realizing it by a praying mantis, after collecting almost everything. Then I tried building an army on my second game but I had too many ants and I was eating as much as I was gathering, with no insect to kill in sight.

    Third game I built only 3 ants to gather while making one room of each and... I collected everything and barely had enough to make a second garden. After that I waited and made more gardens / stockpiles but there nothing to do outside and no insect to kill. I made up to 5 and but that didn't change much.

    I really don't get it. I didn't get to fight once and I'm not sure why :(

    I know it's a jam game and the content will be limited, but it seems like I had a widly different experience from other people.

    Shrinkoban
    Submitted

    Shrinkoban

    • Grunlock
      Lv. 5

      I'm sorry to hear that. One of my main goals with this game was to make it fast and not feel grindy. With not much time to test I must have missed some play styles. I think the game mainly works with a specific set of decisions, like how the Ant Gym is critical to advance early game. Possibly the biggest assumption it makes is that progression is proportional to the amount of ants. The more ants you have, the more insects that spawn. It takes around 10 ants for first the praying mantis and around 16 ants for the first beetle. This is counter-intuitive so there's a lot that can be improved and added (such as providing help/info).

      Thank you for taking the time to play and write out detailed feedback. Hearing another experience is extremely useful and will help me improve games in the future!

  • Veralos
    Lv. 38

    Really cool game. It's pretty enjoyable trying to gather food and slowly build up the upgrades in your base. I'm not sure if there if there was an end goal but I got to the point where my whole nest was built and the map was cleared of resources. The graphics are are very charming and clear. Some sound would be nice, but I can't complain considering I also made a game without sound.

  • Nyveon
    Patron

    Ants fascinate me, and I really enjoyed playing this game.

    I wiped the map clean of resources, and created a self sustaining farmer ant society. My main feedback would be that the game is too easy, enemy attacks never posed a real challenge in my playthrough. Perhaps rival colonies, more enemy variation, more places to spend your resources. There are many possibilities for a game like this.

    Thoroughly enjoyed, well done! :)

  • 89o
    Lv. 18

    This was honestly way more fun than I expected. What bothered me is the pace of the game. I agree that the player should have a chance at the beginning to build up an empire, but later on, attacks should happen more often, and maybe you should even get the chance to go to other colonies, or increase the size of yours to more anthills, or something else. Currently, there's just collecting food and killing intruders, and that feels a bit bland.

  • Maria Laranjo
    Lv. 4

    I'm hooked, I remember a game like this from my childhood, so I was immediately drawn to it, I really like the simple mechanics and the art. Maybe a score system could have been cool. I really liked it and it would be good to see a continuation of it. Congratulations on the game.

  • fqSake
    Lv. 3

    I love this types of games. Reminds me of a childhood PC Game who's name unfortunately slips my mind. I wasn't able to get far because, despite my love for this genre, I'm very bad at it.

    Overall the game felt balanced in the start and I found it pretty easy to manage things. I wish the art could have been better executed, but I don't think it takes from the positive experience! Congratulations! x]

  • illdie
    Lv. 12

    I really enjoy this game, though it runs out of content pretty quick. I eventually got to hovering around 200 ants that sustained the colony through hunting/gardening. I would love to see this idea developed further with more systems involved, it's quite enjoyable!

    • Grunlock
      Lv. 5

      Yeah it is currently very simple. Woah, 200 ants is a lot (I didn't even know that was possible)! I'm hopefully going to make a post-jam version with more content and systems. Thanks for playing and leaving feedback, I really appreciate it :]

  • Atomic
    Lv. 19

    Probably my favourite game of the jam so far. I played until the collony could sustain itself with 50 ants. It's well balanced, and the enemies are a cool addition. I would love to see this expanded upon, or if you have any rts recommendations.

    cat game
    Submitted

    cat game

    • Grunlock
      Lv. 5

      Thanks, that means a lot to me! A sustainable 50 ant colony is great. I'm thinking of expanding it a bit and releasing a post-jam version hopefully. I haven't played many RTS games so don't have any recommendations sorry (I should though because I would enjoy them). Thanks for playing :]

  • Infernobomb
    Lv. 1

    Really love this game, was satisfying to see my army of ants charging after the big bugs.

    Did run into an error:

    ERROR in action number 1 of Step Event0 for object obj_ant:

    Data structure with index does not exist. at gml_Script_marker_direct_ant

    stack frame is gml_Script_marker_direct_ant (line -1) gml_Object_obj_ant_Step_0

    • Grunlock
      Lv. 5

      I have run into this error once before, I actually forgot to record it - thanks for putting it down here! It is probably caused by one of the many questionable coding choices made while rushing. Thanks for playing :]

  • dosto
    Lv. 16

    Nice! Gameplay was smooth and flowy, it didn't end up being laggy at any point. Collecting and spending were well balanced and controlling the game was intuitive.

    The game could have had more enemies: it would have brought a bit of needed challenge. Also ending/score and music would have been a good addition.

    • Grunlock
      Lv. 5

      The collecting and spending balance turned out a lot better than I hoped as I didn't have much time to test it! Yeah, it is in need of more challenge, an ending and music. Thanks for playing and giving feedback :]

  • ceaselessly
    Lv. 8

    Nice work! I agree with the below comment about Sim Ant. It reminded me a lot of it, which is a good thing. :D

    I really love the art style and the gameplay concepts. I wasn't entirely sure what I was meant to do once my ants finished collecting all the food available, and it would have been nice to have some kind of audio. Other than that, I enjoyed my time with this game.

    • Grunlock
      Lv. 5

      I'm glad it's bringing back good memories! Currently there isn't anything to do after collecting all the food, so it needs some sort of goal. I totally forgot about audio until it was too late - having sounds and music would definitely improve it a lot! Thanks for playing and I'm pleased you enjoyed it :]

  • Chris
    Patron

    This took me back to my Sim Ant days. This is a very cool game with alot of detail.