Traction Bugs by TimBeaudet

You are a colony of ants that wants to go racing, so they all got Formula 1 cars and created a racetrack. Don't let them crash!
How to play
Use arrow keys to drive.
Known Performance Issues
If the game (tractionbugs) is running slowly, or not at all you can try potato100 first to see if that helps, and finally potato50 for not quite the same experiences. If possible use tractionbugs.exe instead of the potato PC helpers.
| Windows | https://www.timbeaudet.com/goods/ludumdare/ld56/traction_bugs_windows.zip |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/traction-bugs |
Ratings
| Overall | 383th | 3.7⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 159th | 3.875⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 60th | 4.05⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 123th | 4.2⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 670th | 3.475⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 276th | 3.65⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 197th | 3.667⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 512th | 3.55⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 26🗳️ | 11🗨️ |
The only minor issue I see is that the "health" bar is on the top of the screen, and it hides the incoming road.
I normally don't like racing games that much, but controlling a swarm of bugs is something else :)
good job!!
Now, I'm not surprised it's a racing game, but I'd never expected to pilot hundreds of ant-driven cars all at once :) It was fun to try to aim for a flawless run as fast as possible, I just wish there was something tracking the best times (and whether they were flawless). Also, it was cool that the credits were a track on itself.
Controls feel a bit weird, but I can't quite nail down why, and it doesn't run as well as i'd like, but fun entry regardless !
If I have one point that throws me off is the "invisible swarm queen" which is controlled by the player and that the other bugs try to go to. Perhaps having a visible "main character" or dynamically adjusting it (because I managed to get ahead of my bugs and then it's hard to control) could potentially improve this, but I also get the point of not having it.
I really enjoyed playing this and it's a very solid entry. Well done!
Game felt polished. Music set the mood for racing :)
Had some fun trying to complete the courses with as few as possible bugs surviving, :laughing:. It's just too much fun watching them slam into walls.
(I also tried the potatoes)
The audio feedback was good, when I lost my little cars.
It happened to me, that I lost some cars when I already reached the finish line and I couldn't do anything about that. I would suggest to change that.
The controls felt alright and the difficulty was nicely implemented. It got harder, but not unfair. The visuals were clear and I like that you put the "credit screen" as an additional track into the game. :)
(Sorry, it's in french)

I would try changing some of these values vs whatever is setup by default, the ao/bloom are somewhat new and suspect in my engine.
```"show_ao":false,
"show_bloom":false,
"show_particles":false,
"show_reflections":false,
"show_shadows":true,
"single_pass_shadows":true,
"super_sampling":0,
```
Thanks for digging and trying, I appreciate the help.