itch.io

Ant-stralia's army ants are quite difficult on insane difficulty, but they should definitely be simpler to deal with than e.g. the samurai ants of Eur-ant-ia, as long as you're being aggressive enough. South Ant-merica can also seem easier if you manage to pit our enemies against each other and strike in the confusion.

So how hard a continent is will often depend on what strategies you're using and which difficulty you're playing on.

But thanks for joining the conquest, and long live the Ant-peror Queen.

We don't have a discord server (yet?). We may potentially do some updates on this if reception is good, and then who knows. 

Thanks for joining the Imperial conquest. Glory to the Ant-pire!

My biggest critique of this is that I couldn't see my grotesque creation in the end when I lost. I feel like the concept of this game lends itself to people wanting to view their creation (if for no other reason than to see where it went horribly wrong). 

The controls are good, if a bit difficult (which is not necessarily an issue though), but the checkered boxes help with aligning things, which was nice. I would have liked to have something to aim towards (maybe like the stages you get in Tetris). Also, this might just be me, but I wasn't a huge fan of the colour palette in this -- it seems maybe a bit too random.

(Also, obligatory note on a variety of bugs, such as the settings button not working and the start button only working for the first time.)

This has a really good feel to it, and all the moments of utter despair required in a game like this. The controls are pretty good, though they can feel a bit inconsistent because, as far as I can work out, the tape only collides with the ground when you're below a certain velocity. But that's par for the course for a rage game -- I guess it's just at the start, when I didn't understand how it worked, that it felt inconsistent?

Also, I got to a place with a ladder, and couldn't find a way up. Is that the end?

Really impressive game, especially for 48 hours of dev time. I had quite a lot of trouble with predicting what would happen, and especially when the spinning things came into play, I basically solved levels via random chance. 

I did like the different parts that interacted with the size of the particle, and controls and animations were great.

Also, it felt like sometimes the particle bounced just off angle where it should have; i.e. as if the calculations were a bit off?

Cool idea, and I liked that the difficulty scales up because you have to manage everyone at the same time. The differentiation was maybe a bit low between the different classes -- I basically used them all in the same way, and mostly just clicked randomly for what to use on them.

Tooltips would also have been helpful; or at least having the different classes have fewer stats on them (e.g. the bard not having magic abilities and therefore no mana or whatever?), so that you have fewer things to figure out at once?

The camera zooming out and the enemies getting bigger and bigger gives a great sense of scale! I also liked how just moving the wizard higher and higher makes the approach you have to take to attacking the enemies different (i.e. having to account for the time it takes the fireball to get there. The enemy variety with different attacks was also great, and I loved the intro and epilogue cutscenes! 

I would have liked a little more options in terms of how to deal with the enemies; e.g. the lightning strike was great, but didn't work on enemies above a certain height. I also wonder if being able to see the enemies' health would have been helpful -- especially those big bastards.

Anyway, great job on this!

Really interesting concept that feels like it has a lot of strategic depth. Though I seem to be able to win by just placing a bunch of cells on my side and just letting it go when I'm playing against a CPU. I.e. I'm not sure how much intervention is required to win, which felt a bit disappointing.

But at the same time, it was hard to wrap my head around the concept, so I would probably lose massively against anyone that knows what they're doing. I.e. perhaps my comment is rather that the CPU's AI isn't great?

Anyway, cool entry!

The combos felt really good when they went off, even without the sound (though sound would have amplified it even more!). It took me a while to figure out that I need to hit multiple enemies to get the combo going (even though you said that in the description -- I clearly didn't read that carefully enough!), but once I did, it felt good to scale it up.

The knights were by far the worst enemy, since they were not only more targetted, but also moved much faster. Also, I would have liked some variation over time. I wonder if having some pieces that moved independently of the player would add some; e.g. have bishops that spawn on a random location and then just move diagonally until they hit a side and then bounce off, repeat.

I had some fun with this; the visuals are great, creating a nice atmosphere, though some spooky music would really have elevated that feeling.

I found the three weapons (that I found) to be pretty useless. By the end there were just thousands of enemies bundled up together because the range of everything but the axe was negligible, so I never really damaged them that much (since getting that close seemed dangerous). Like someone else mentioned, the healthbar for the player isn't super visible -- the colours sort of blend in with the background. 

I also would have liked to see some novel attack types that fit this sort of eldritch theme; i.e. some more dark magic sort of stuff, rather than things that are pretty common in these types of games.

Anyway, nice work!

Sounds like an interesting concept, but I couldn't manage to survive even one day, because my food depleted faster than I could find it. Nevermind being able to get back by the end of the day as well. I wonder if I'm perhaps doing something wrong? I'm pressing E once next to food, which then makes the slime eat for a little bit, and then I get 1 food (the apple things on the top left?). But by the time I eat one, I've already lost another, so I never get past three, and most of the time just end up with zero.

I.e. hard for me to judge the game when I can't engage with the main mechanic because it is seemingly too difficult (or I'm too stupid) to get past the first hurdle.

This was quite cool; the gameplay is pretty simple, but I enjoyed the moment-to-moment problem-solving. It gives a sort of <insert regular job> simulator vibe, which I think has a lot of relaxing qualities. 

The music and graphics also complemented the whole thing, and overall it's a great entry. Nice work!

The sailing controls are so good! I had a nice time sailing around, though I was a bit disappointed that there was nothing at the islands. I see some other people saw a titan, but I unfortunately never found any.

Also, the islands felt maybe a bit too far away, especially with how severely the angle of the wind affected my ability to move forward -- i.e. it could get a bit tedious.

But I loved the sounds (and how it changed and got more ominous in the deep sea), and the controls, as I've mention. Nice work!

Thanks! There's a few places where I was missing some obvious feedback for actions that don't do anything, unfortunately. 

Also, yeah, I was really chuffed with the little moments with the commander, haha

Interesting concept. I don't know that I entirely understood how best to use all the tools at my disposal. I wonder if things would have felt more intuitive if you could e.g. target specific areas with lockdowns and things so that there is some kind of visual indication of what's happening? It basically felt like nothing I did made much of a difference, and then eventually I lost.

I.e. I'd have liked to have seen some more exaggerated effects so that the implications of my choices were a bit more obvious.

I love this idea of a mini open world. And it's been really well done here. The fact that you can accidentally run into a quest or item is cool -- e.g. finding the bandit camp in the woods. It makes it feel very open world-y despite the relatively small size. 

My only complaints are that the first quest from the wizard says the hut is in the west, when it is, in fact, to the east; and that the game abruptly finishes when you return home, even though I still wanted to complete the other remaining quests.

Anyway, nicely done on this. I enjoyed it!

Great art and a fun concept. The huge UI gets kind of funny, which is great for the idea of the game. It felt like the skeletons started attacking a little too quickly after getting to you, perhaps? It felt like before the first attack's upgrade, hitting a skeleton with that without getting hit yourself is near impossible. The ranged attack felt very situational given how long it takes to charge -- basically only useful in situations where the skellies are stuck behind something. The time slow move on the other hand seems way too strong. Especially since you can cast it again before the first one runs out, and thus just have an infinite immortality, since no one can get to you.

Anyway, interesting idea and nice presentation. Good work on this!

Really cool! I had a nice time stacking objects, and the fact that it goes from small to big makes it even better. Also, I'm glad you locked in the pieces of the previous phase when you move to the next phase, because otherwise I'd never have made it to the end!

There was bug where it would sometimes move to the next phase before I actually made it to the arrow (think it happened when I dragged a piece too high, potentially?). Otherwise, like everyone else said, music would have made this even better. And, like you mention in the description, having randomised items to place would probably be better, since some items are just straight up better than others.

But yeah, overall, a great entry. Nicely done!

Like the others, I'm basically unable to see anything on the cards because of the resolution and the lack of fullscreen. (You can maybe try to enable the fullscreen button under Embed options>Frame options in the edit game screen?) Ergo, I had to figure out what each vague shape was by comparing them to the cards shown in the description.

Nonetheless, I could sort of play this, so here's my thoughts:

I like the concept, and the art is great when you can see it. The gameplay feels like it's missing something though; all the pieces seem to do basically the same thing better or worse. E.g. having a fast guy that does less damage is worse in every way to having a slow guy that does a lot of damage, because being slow has no advantage. (This could potentially be mitigated a bit by having "build" times and having some be faster or slower there?) Also, the wagon that blocks enemies' paths doesn't seem all that useful either, since it doesn't seem like there are ranged units? I'd have imaged the gunslinger is ranged, but I never managed to get someone who shoots from a distance, i.e. over the wagon (though it's entirely possible that I never placed a gunslinger because I couldn't see which one was it).

Anyway, cool concept, maybe needs a bit of work on the balancing between the different cards/tiles.

I liked that the boss had phases, and that the attacks were differentiated enough that you have to keep on your toes the whole time. 

I wasn't a big fan of the JKL controls not being in order of size -- i.e. I'd have liked them to be JKL from smallest to biggest, or vice versa, since that's easier to intuit in the middle of combat, as opposed to trying to remember which is which.

Though, speaking of the scaling, I'm not sure the middle size is actually that useful; the small size is good for dodging, and the large size is (presumably) good for damage, but the middle size does less damage and can't dodge the attacks, so it doesn't seem terribly helpful. Also, when you hold space, the octopus shoots for a little bit, and then stops, which was kind of weird/annoying. 

Great work for a first entry to GMTK Jam ever!

The climbing system is really good. It felt very easy to use while still requiring focus to not accidentally mess up. The mushroom sort of blended into the background a bit -- perhaps giving it some more contrast would have been helpful to make it more obvious?

The first mushroom I found was worth 11 points, which I'm guessing is pretty low on the value scale, and that felt like it took quite a bit to get to. I wasn't able to get super far in, so maybe these came later, but it feels like there would perhaps need to be a bit more mechanics over time to keep things interesting in a longer version of this game.

But overall, this feels really nice to play, and has a bit of the "holding" simulation that reminds me of GIRPS, which was really nice to see.

Really fun, and leads to some hilarious builds, or janking your way through a level in a way that was definitely not intended.

Some of the placements were a bit iffy (e.g. the direction the rocket is pointing in the end doesn't always reflect where you placed it, which can be problematic), but for me most part, the building worked pretty well. I'm sure this is a thing you would have included if you had the time, but an undo button would have been really useful. Or at least a way to remove parts (and that way you can also reload the previous build and have the player edit that if they want to, rather than having to start from scratch every time.

Anyway, very enjoyable and great concept. Nicely done!

Cool idea; I always like sort of "guild management" kind of games where you send someone off to do a mission off-screen with whatever preparations you can manage. 

I like the different kinds of metals doing different kinds of things, but having to make all of them again every time got very tedious very fast. I think I personally have preferred to have some information about what the chameleon was going to walk into at the start, and then equip him accordingly (maybe with some kind of scouting mechanic or something?), so that I'm not continually making things in vain. 

The art is really good, and the concept feels like it can work really well, but I definitely got a bit frustrated with having to do the same things repeatedly.

I absolutely love this game! It's a great concept with a good amount of strategising to figure out the best way to outplay the opponent. They sometimes made some questionable moves, but for the most part, provided an interesting problem to solve. I liked how the different opponents had different amounts of the moves available to them; it made each one play a bit different.

Also, the art and sound is great. Honestly I have nothing bad to say about this game, other than it needs more content! Truly excellent work on this!

I definitely had a chuckle at the concept and the 8-bit Old MacDonald tune, and I love the little tardigrade you have as the cover image!

The gameplay is quite simple -- I would have liked some complexity added to make it a bit more involved. E.g. maybe you need to box them in a bit in a sheepdog kind of way, trying to herd them into a container rather than just collecting them? 

Cool experience. I like that the tree sort of grows by itself and you just kind of shape it along the way. I had a bit of trouble making it do the exact things I wanted though. E.g. sometimes the branches don't go in the direction I placed them at. On the other side, I was disappointed that the leaves were just static things rather than tiny buds that grew into leaves.

Also, I would have liked something like a pruning mechanic as well, so you can really shape the tree into what you want it to be.

But anyway, nicely done. A very relaxing and cool game.

Really interesting movement mechanics, and I enjoyed finding speed run strats. It felt a bit like Getting Over It, in that once you know what to do, you can get pretty far pretty quickly. 

The controls and graphics were a bit jank. I sometimes just randomly flew of into a direction, or got stuck between some branches, but played off as funny for the most part, so it's probably not a big issue. Oh, and the music (?) got real repetitive real fast.

Overall, a cool experience with a novel feeling movement mechanic. Nicely done!

The graphics, and animations especially, are really stellar. I also like the main gameplay mechanic, though I would have liked some kind of goal to build towards. As far as I can tell, you just build stuff, but there's nothing more to aim for to "win".

Having the villagers cost nothing to make is maybe a issue, as it makes them dying essentially a minor inconvenience at most (and probably not even that). Maybe there should at least be some kind of recruitment time or whatever so that there's a cost to losing a person?

Also, my knights were constantly just loitering around on the wrong side of the map when goblins attacked, leading to them taking ages to get to the goblins, and thus having the goblins kill some builders despite me having a veritable army of knights (like 15). 

(Oh, and the fact that the builders and the gatherers look exactly the same made me confused about what "Lumber" did for a long time.)

A great entry for sure. Loved the concept, and the execution is very well done. 

The horde attacks were quite hectic, but after a couple of restarts, I finally got a better strategy for dealing with those. The scaling out of the map was a cool addition, to scale the difficulty up as you went along. Initially it felt like it scaled up way too fast, but playing a few more times and getting better at the game essentially made it a lot more manageable, so that's probably fine as well.

Don't really have anything else to say about this, other than this was great, and nicely done!

Yeah, there's definitely a bit of Pacific Rim in there! Thanks for giving it a try!

I thought of doing that (or at least having the end turn button ping or something), but I didn't have any way of telling whether someone is done dividing and want to move on. And I thought it was important for strategy reasons that you be able to divide after moving.

Anyway, thanks for playing!

Like one of the other people below, I initially ended up with a huge body and a tiny little t-rex arm that couldn't even reach the things attacking me. Then I read the description again and saw my mistake.

I quite liked this. The grabbing and bringing back to the mouth motion feels really good (other than it not initially being clear to me where they need to be dropped, and it sometimes not eating even when I think it should have). I like that the upgrading of the arm and body isn't done through a menu with upgrade points or something, but actually with the actions you take -- that feels very cool and diegetic.

I think this is the kind of game that could get a little tedious after a while, though I'm more running into a difficulty wall; i.e. at some point I simply can't move my mouse fast enough to deal with attacks from three directions. I don't know if that's just a me problem or if maybe there needs to be some way to deal with that more effectively?

Anyway, cool game!

This was really fun, if a bit short. The mechanic feels very clever, and it melds nicely with a puzzle adventury atmosphere. I also liked that there was a bit of added complexity with the items you have to collect to get to certain places, though I'd have liked some more of that sort of thing -- i.e. things that make the puzzles a bit less straightforward to solve? But I think the map zooming as a core mechanic is really good.

The game also looks and feels great; nicely done!

Great atmosphere and art. The gameplay got a bit tedious pretty quickly, but I like the idea of condensing a large group into a more powerful, smaller group. 

I wasn't entirely sure what the potion upgrade did? And it felt like the attack up was basically the best one to pick every time? Though being able to click/press space fast did seem to be the most important element.

Anyway, this was very charming and looks really good; I would have liked some more mechanics, and maybe something other than clicking to do damage (e.g. an autobattling kind of thing?), but that might be a preference thing on my part. Nice job nonetheless!

I'm so impressed with this! Great gameplay, great concept, and great presentation. 

Having a stealth element combined with the monster killing process was great. I also liked the way the shadows were done, both offering a way to hide from the enemies and a way to obstruct your own view. It really felt like I was stalking them. Also, having the attack jump forward means that I almost always landed attacks I tried, and it can serve as a getting away mechanism as well.

The bigger phase was less fun, as it was essentially just mindlessly spamming attacks and seemingly infinite armies. I would have liked to see it scale up slower and maintain some form of stealth, or at least some way to defend yourself against the enemies other than just attacking. 

Also, and this might just be a preference thing, I wonder if a slower pace (for the first phase, I mean) would have helped build the tension and the feeling of stalking prey. 

But anyway, loved this; absolutely incredible work. Well done!

Really cool concept. I loved the art and vibe of this; it looks and feels really good.

The tongue retracting thing was a bit difficult to use, so I struggled to get Reginald up on branches, especially with him being able to get stuck on the bottom of the platform bits. Having it pull him up faster might have helped avoid this somewhat? 

A cool concept, but it's hampered quite a bit by the turning speed. The first form's is fine, but after that it just becomes excruciatingly slow. I don't know if there are upgrades that could have helped, but I never got any that did. Mostly just got speed ones, which often puts me in more danger than not.

The environment looks nice, and I really like the concept, growing over time, etc.

Really cool! I liked the process of upgrading the ship and getting better, and the upgrading of the individual parts. The UI and the graphics in general are also great, and the music fits well. All around a great entry.

I didn't really like that I couldn't stop moving; it made trying to dodge the asteroids quite difficult and random-feeling, especially because you're always moving in the direction that you're shooting; it felt like the best strategy was to just fly in a random direction and just pick off the ones directly in front of you. But that isn't as fun as "hunting" them down. 

Also, when you upgrade the ship, you don't necessarily have enough upgrade points to build enough parts to make a whole-seeming ship, which wasn't ideal. Getting the four spaces in the middle of the first upgrade to be blank pieces that could be replaced might have avoided that feeling? And/or giving the player the 100 points to use for upgrades in addition to whatever their current parts are worth?

The UI in this is really good; it was pretty easy to understand what each thing was doing and where things were going. Building belts and things was also quick and easy, which is crucial in an automation game.

Making letters is quite an interesting take on it, though I wonder if more could have been squeezed out of it. E.g. I usually would just break down the stuff I already had if I didn't need that letter, since they produced the right parts for the next letter, or whatever. So it never really got to the point where it felt like I was building a massive efficient factory, which I think is kind of the fantasy of these types of games.

To that point, the time limit is interesting, because it adds a dimension to the automation genre that isn't usually present. I think this has its strengths and weaknesses (one of the core weaknesses being that it disincentivises making neat and efficient factories, and incentivises quick and dirty tricks). I wonder if having a timer run only once you officially start the factory up (having already built everything) would scratch both the itches? I.e. you have to make a factory to create a word/letters efficiently enough that it can create them in X seconds or whatever.