Play game
A Party for Ants's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #7 | 4.240 | 4.240 |
| Overall | #9 | 3.687 | 3.687 |
| Theme | #11 | 4.200 | 4.200 |
| Graphics | #14 | 3.920 | 3.920 |
| Controls | #15 | 3.360 | 3.360 |
| Audio | #21 | 3.200 | 3.200 |
| Fun | #24 | 3.200 | 3.200 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
3.2.2 stable
Source
might share code on request
Game Description
Attract some ants to your party with free blueberries and water! If they have plenty to drink and eat, they might just start a dance party for you. Add some leave to the mix and maybe some caterpillar would come to mingle as well! Though if you don't want fly to crush your party, go easy on the food so they don't spoil before they are eaten!
Discord Username
jmbjr (johnstein), sophiadoodles (no discord)
Participation Level (GWJ)
5th GWJ
Jam Time!
No
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Very adorable - I played a lot of a game called "SimAnt" when I was younger, so I really appreciate a cute ant simulator. (even though the theme is very different)
I want all bugs of the world to party together!
It kinda gives me Tamagotchi-ish vibes, and I'd totally dig having a casual version of something like this on-the-go!
The character are so cute. It's a really nice game with a cool objective. I was having a hard time renaming the ants and caterpillars on the html version when I rigth-click the mouse. But over-all I like the game. Great work.
Well, that was a ton of fun and addictive. I didn't expect the ant and caterpillar to jam together. it took me by surprise. haha.
Well done!
It's a very casual and cute game! The art was nice, and the sound effects were okay! Though I wish the game could pause whenever I try to name a bug. Because I lose track whenever I try to name them, especially because of the mildly fast-paced nature of the game. But that's pretty much my only critique. Nice job!
thanks for playing and for the comments! I've been poking around the code and just updated the game so when you right click an ant to rename, the game pauses, but the ant still shakes in fear (I also tried to limit some of the messages, but that's proving to be quite difficult).
Thanks again!
doh I made some other updates that broke dancing so I had to roll back! good thing I didn't try that during the jam.
I really liked the art, and the super cute little sounds. My main issue was that I managed to just spam all 3 buttons which basically took all the strategy out. But if it's possible, players will no doubt exploit it! Lol, keep it up you two! ^^
Nice game with some cute arts, loved the party logs showing every action .. cheers
Such a cute and chill game
Nice game, I really like the characters design / animation
Also the party log is a really cool feature to have,
Thank you for the compliment on the design and animation. :) Happy to hear you thought the log was a neat idea!
I really enjoyed this one! It was very casual and pleasant to play. I must be bad at throwing parties because my ants kept becoming sad :-( I just started throwing gobs of food and water everywhere but even that didn't always seem to work. Great job! I enjoyed the graphics and sfx.
Thank you! I am glad you thought it was pleasant to play. The bugs have three needs that they are trying to fill all at the same time to be happy so sometimes they can look really sad still even though they have made progress toward happiness! Once a party starts going bad, I also have a hard time savaging it too, so it's not just you I don't think!
Very nice and I loved the Zoolander reference! I just feel like it needed some way to win, as well as some disadvantage for just aimlessly throwing food and water on the floor. Nice job!
Yes! someone got the reference! And yea, when we realized we were out of time to add more features (sometime early saturday) we had to pivot hard to polishing up what we had in order to ensure it worked ok, even if it meant it was more of an ultra casual sim rather than a more challenging game with nicely balanced difficulty progression. Thanks for playing!
Neat little game. I agree that music would've made it a bit better. I really liked the animations and the need to manage each of your 'guests'. It was difficult to keep track of everybody's needs though with the clipboard filling up so fast.
Yes music would have been great too! Since our musician is busy this week, we make the bugs cover a little of the music aspect though sound effects instead! But you can only hear them when they are dancing, so I can see sometimes it's a bit quiet!
And yes I agree once the party get big, the clipboard is hard to keep up. I think John tried remove a few messages to improve it, but it is still very fast for sure.
Pretty cool trying to micro-manage the needs of each insect.
Really cute game and easy to play but also has a challenge. I liked it. The audio is great, it really makes the game.
Glad you like the audio! We...uh, drafted one of our kiddo for sound effects last minute. Seemed to work out!
Haha my little guy did sounds for me too!
Enjoyed the idea. For a moment I felt like an insect disco manager :D You can make the blueberries, droplets and leafs resource-dependable. For example when insect are happy, they generate happiness and I can use it to get those 3 items. Now I can spawn them aimlessly and my party number will keep growing. Also, it would be awesome to add a mechanic to win the game.
Thanks! your suggestions were exactly the direction we were heading actually (i.e. as the bugs get happy and dance, you gain 'hearts' to spend on dropping food and water. We just ran out of time and had to pivot and drastically simplify to meet the deadline.
I think it would have been neat for each 'dance party' to have specific quotas and constraints. 'get a fly to dance for 30 seconds' 'get 3 ants, 3 caterpillars, and no flys dancing at the same time'. 'see how long you can last if you only get 3 blueberries, 3 water, and 3 leaves, per minute'.
Thanks again for playing!
Oh, running out of time is nothing unfamiliar :D Yea, achievements are a great idea. Kudos!
Cute little game. I liked the ant drinking animation :D
Thanks! I thought I was being lazy by giving all the bug a straw to do the drinking, glad you like it. :)
Fun little game! It ties in really well with the theme. I think with some measure of progression or a victory condition, and maybe an added element of difficulty, it could be really good! I played the html5 version and it worked just fine :)
Thanks for playing! 100% agree that progression would improve the game. We ran out of time before we could actually implement a lot of the cool stuff we planned so for now, it's more of a 'experience' rather than a difficult game to win :) Thanks again!
Another simulation game! It would be engaging if there is an upbeat music in the background. Overall, very ambitious game for a game jam.
Thanks! yea, doing a sim game was tough for a gamejam. Agree that a music track would have been nice. Our 'nice to have' plan was to make the volume of the music louder as you were able to get more and more bugs to start dancing :)
Thanks for playing!
Even though you warned me on the game's page, I played the html5 version and crashed it when I had a big old party going lol. Sometimes bugs would just get sad and I don't know why. Maybe they just do occasionally? Even though it was a bit shallow, it was very satisfying to see and hear all my buggy friends having a good time.
Yea, we didn't notice that the html5 version had issues until about 5 minutes to the deadline. As for the bugs getting sad, it should only happen when they get thirsty or hungry. In retrospect maybe the bugs should only have gotten sad after X seconds of being hungry or thirsty, rather than instantly. I bet that might even reduce the sfx load to allow for bigger parties :)
thanks again for playing and for your comments!
Really cool idea! Doing a simulation game for a game jam is quite ambitious. :-) Definitely fun, but I had a lot of trouble keeping up with my ant party, even after like 2 or 3 ants. Solid art and sound, overall a very polished experience. Gonna try this one with my kids tomorrow, I think they'd like it!
Yea, getting the simulation to work properly was more difficult than we anticipated for sure. We even thought we were trying to keep it 'small'. And yea, one intent was to encourage players to selectively scare away some bugs to keep the vibe of the party at 'optimal' levels, but we ran out of time to really make that part work. Thanks for playing and hopefully your kids enjoy it. Our kids had a good time playing :)
I liked the idea of the game and the way it was made. I think the gameplay was a little bit repetitive, but it was still nice. It was rather unclear as to what to do exactly. Also, it was not very well balanced with the ability to remove guests, as by just spamming resources and scaring away the flies a sizable party appears. That being said, it was well made and polished, and the graphics and controls were good. I liked the animations for the characters and the music. The idea of an insect dance party is unique and funny, and I liked the spin you put on it. Overall, something I would play for a long time? No. Something unique and interesting for a one time play? Absolutely.
Thanks for playing and your comments! I agree with what you said; we definitely wanted to add more variety (different colors of bugs, more balance, a 'money' system to spend on resources, and even a conga-line!).