Guzzling Ants by Paul-Maxime

[raw]
made by Paul-Maxime for Ludum Dare 56 (JAM)

The ants are hungry but they don't know how to invest the food they harvest.
Please guide them on the path of gluttony!

firefox_blqEo3qa7I.png

Guzzling Ants is an idle game made with Godot for the web. It was mostly an excuse for us to learn 3D with Godot and Blender from scratch.


How to play

  • Train five ants using the button in the top-right menu.
  • Wait for the ants to gather more food.
  • Train even more ants. Sacrifice weaker ants to train better ants.
  • Move the camera by dragging the mouse. Zoom using the scroll wheel.

You can turn colors ON and OFF using the bottom-right button. Let us know in the comments which version you prefer, we couldn't agree within the team!

If you experience issues or slowdowns using the Web build, you should try the Windows or Linux build instead.



Ratings

Overall 383th 3.7⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 604th 3.325⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 503th 3.35⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 123th 4.2⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 522th 3.7⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 739th 3.3⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 27🗳️ 11🗨️

Feedback

Sn4pi
08. Oct 2024 · 07:08 UTC
Great, an Idle game! I totally loved the idea and you managed the classical "Idle-scaling" in a special way: Instead of increasing the price, the distance the ants have to travel gets longer which is a nice thought indeed.

Good entry!
Exa
15. Oct 2024 · 14:12 UTC
Omg!!!It is S-o beautiful!!!Nice job 10/10!!!![9DA3C6A1-76B6-4CAD-A30D-7854D1D33174.jpeg](///raw/753/16/z/68dbb.jpg)
Krabban
15. Oct 2024 · 15:07 UTC
Really love this game. It's like some weird cookie-clicker. I hope the ants track pheromones and stuff? :D

I prefer the black and white version btw.
Prunus Padis
15. Oct 2024 · 15:14 UTC
As an ant fan this was a nice game though as it was an iddle game it wasnt that interactive. Why did you have to limit the ants :(. I wanted to see my browser freeze from all the ants it could handle xD.

The graphics were nice enough and the spiders feel alive expecially when looked from afar. I liked to color more since it brough nice constrast.

The one thing i most wanted was you to implement a proper ant colony optimization algorithm and see the ants create and travel their own paths and finding food. (Ofcourse you have time for that right?)

Joking aside the idea is there and the grahipcs are nice. Only thing the game was lacking is more depth but simulating the ants on my other monitor while playing other games netted you most time played of the jam games :)
LDJam user 236256
15. Oct 2024 · 15:27 UTC
This was cool, idk why but when you launch the game it starts in black and white, I played this for 10 min before realizing it had colors. My biggest complaint, and idk if there's anything you could do about it, is that it wouldn't continue playing while I was in another tab. As an idle game that seems like the main point, to let it run and come back to it.
🎤 Paul-Maxime
15. Oct 2024 · 16:40 UTC
@prunus-padis Yeaaaah we definitely had time to implement an entire ant civilization simulator. :eyes:

Limiting the ants might have been a mistake, we did it to prevent the game from freezing and crashing, but some players might have liked seeing the game run at 2 fps with 5000 ants.

@cheeks Yes, we decided to start in black and white because most people seem to prefer the black and white look (@krabban is proof of that!). The color toggle is here because it was easy to add and some people prefer colors, but it isn't supposed to be the default look.

As for playing while the tab isn't active, it's technically possible but a bit more difficult, since the browser stops processing frames. We'd probably have to manually calculate what happened while the game wasn't active or somehow call `setTimeout` from the godot code.
DangItsPang
16. Oct 2024 · 14:24 UTC
Fun game! I got up to 4 matriarchs and decided I had enough food to stop lol

Good job representing the 3D side of LD!
p0l4r
16. Oct 2024 · 16:50 UTC
Well done
_nill_.
19. Oct 2024 · 13:28 UTC
Cool mechanics. It's a pity there is no music. It will be cool if you can choose the ant and tell them what to do. Good luck!!!
Weine
19. Oct 2024 · 15:41 UTC
Very soothing feeling to this, and because of that I prefer the black and white theme. And the ants look really realistic also!
Baturinsky
19. Oct 2024 · 18:19 UTC
Ant animation is great but otherwise...

First, it could really use the play speed controls.

And second, why, or why did you not use the pheromone trail mechanics (like this https://resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-3032.2008.00658.x) ? It would make it unique and a educational. And it's quite simple to implement.

As it is, it's too generic.
🎤 Paul-Maxime
19. Oct 2024 · 19:04 UTC
We did implement basic ant behavior: they randomly search for food, go back and forth between the nest and the food once some has been found, stop moving once in a while to check where to go next, mostly move in straight lines and rarely turn while moving, etc.

But yeah, we didn't have enough time to implement pheromone mechanics, so each ant is basically an independent ant scout. :(

We also wanted to implement the queen, sound effects and quite a few other things, but we spent too much time on the 3D, animations and trying to make the browser not crash when displaying 100 ants.
TheBookSnail
22. Oct 2024 · 23:38 UTC
I liked the gray scale, it gave a good mood for it. The fog of war was a fun touch.

who needs frames when you have ants.

![ants.png](///raw/863/72/z/6909b.png)

oh no. food scarcity.
![nofood.png](///raw/863/72/z/690a1.png)
Turquoise Moon
23. Oct 2024 · 06:15 UTC
This game is very cool! I liked zooming out and just watching the ants. They look pretty good when searching for food. I personally prefer the color version, but the gray scale looks fine too.
jelch
23. Oct 2024 · 21:04 UTC
Really neat. Simple and elegant! I really like that you have a color toggle (though I really like the grayscale look!)
Praccen
25. Oct 2024 · 16:14 UTC
Nice! I got way to invested in getting all the ants :laughing:

I liked the color mode most!
![Ants.png](///raw/b7f/f3/z/6919e.png)