6 hours play : feedbacks

[Togno]

Hi there,


I discovered this game yesterday on the commentary section of a newpaper (about ants !) !


I'm a huge fan of ant (i have several farm at home ! And i studied ants for years W/ myrmecologist), and also a RTS entusiast.

Here my review of your game :

WHAT I LOVE :

- The animation are pretty ok for an indie game with only 3 dev
- I like how you move "squad" of ants through pheromone marker rather than moving directly ants, and i like seend some doing "whattthay want" instead of beeing little robot
- The interface is pretty cool
- The design are nice
- The game run pretty smoothly



WHAT I DON'T LIKE (really not) :

- How the population is managed. I hate pop limit, and especially in a STR. And i hate the system "you have X max ant, you have larva ready, when an ant dies you get a new one after X seconds"

- You can basically let 7 workers do all the job into the colony. It's not enough, and it's not reallistic







WHAT I'D LIKE TO SEE IN :

Settings.

- please make us able to chose on which screen we want the game. I have 3 GPU, 6 screens, and i am not able to chose where the game display (but in windowed mode)
- Trap the mose in the selected screen, so we can move the camera with the mouse on edge (not always working properly)
- Make us able to move the camera like with the button under the wheel (you keep it pushed and it moves the camera)


Gameplay

- I want mutiplayer and colony versus colony mode like any STR over "survival" things

- Add war fog

- I'd like to see like 4-5 type of ant for every species, not especially the "standard" worker/fighters thing, but like give us the ability to "upgrad" some nursery spot for ant with better starts (for species without dimorphysm, like step 1 = underfeeded ant, step 2 = normal, step 3 = well feeded big ants, like what you can see in nature). It's almost already the case but i don't know who's who.I'd like to be able to "sort" my ants by power / capability

- Remove the max population.

- I'd prefer -by far- a system with continuous population growth. Like every nursery produce 1 ant every X secondes. It's a bit... weird to see larva and pupe ready to get an ant but... not giving it at all as long as you don't lose an ant.

- A step by step breed growth. Like the total cost is 20 food point. The egg take X seconde to go to larva. Then the larva wait 4 food and will go larva2 after X sec. Then larva2 wait 4 food to go to larva3. Then larva 3 need 4 food to go to larva4. Then larva4 need 4food to go to pupae... and after the last X sec it gives you a working new worker.

This will require the player to have WAY MORE active worker in the colony in order to manage the breed, making it more realist and more tight to manage.


Then :

- make ants age. After X days the ant die of old age. It'll be, in fact, a max population cap (since you can't stack as much ant as you can, but only something proportional to how much breed you can feed)

- Allow injured ants to "heal" by eating. Puting more pressure on food (=> increasing management gamplay)

- add a 2nd type of ressource : material (construction bloc), needed to build anything on a virgin spot. You could get some (few) by digging, and get more outdoor on some thing (and having some with some food, like seeds give you few and stuff...)

- Allow us to move the queen. Fist of all it is not realistic, the ant queen is not like the termite one, so fat she can't move, and it's also needed for multiplayer (so you don't exactly now where she is, and can't rush her).

- Allow us to "replace" dirt on a digged spot, for better underground management.


Maybe later :

- Allow us to create princess, to stop a survival game and start a new colony on another map
- Make species with more than one queen
- Make species with particular food needs (only seeds, like most Messor, only meat...)
- Setup sustainable food source (aphid...)

 

[Raptorofwar]

You said you can leave only 7 workers to do all the work.

...

I don't want to be rude, but no. You will need many more than seven to restock your ants, to gather food, to build new tiles, and more. 7 is fine when you're not fighting anything, albeit slow to do things, but you're going to be fighting things pretty consistently.

This is from my (limited) game experience, and I play on normal-hard difficulty mostly.

 

[Serafine]

- How the population is managed. I hate pop limit, and especially in a STR. And i hate the system "you have X max ant, you have larva ready, when an ant dies you get a new one after X seconds"

There is no hard pop limit in the missions only in the formicarium (because otherwise the challenges would be a joke).

I find the unit production/pop mechanic they did quite elegant. What would have been the alternative? Command & Conquer style with the queen essentially being a vehicle factory? That doesn't really work well.

- You can basically let 7 workers do all the job into the colony. It's not enough, and it's not reallistic.

There are some ant species that never reach 100 workers on a colony and they can do the stuff quite fine.
Also just play the missions, 7 workers might be enough to do 1.1 but in 2.1 and 2.2 you will utterly fail with just 7 workers.

- I want mutiplayer and colony versus colony mode like any STR over "survival" things

Yes, we all want multiplayer but currently there simply isn't enough content (= ant species) for an actually interesting gameplay. They also need the rebalance the F. rufa units, the soldiers are useless and the shooters are just ridiculously overpowered.

- Add war fog

Fog would be nice (especially for multiplayer) and might actually be implemented into the game but for the current missions it isn't required and wouldn't really work either.

- I'd like to see like 4-5 type of ant for every species, not especially the "standard" worker/fighters thing, but like give us the ability to "upgrad" some nursery spot for ant with better starts (for species without dimorphysm, like step 1 = underfeeded ant, step 2 = normal, step 3 = well feeded big ants, like what you can see in nature). It's almost already the case but i don't know who's who.I'd like to be able to "sort" my ants by power / capability

WTF are underfed ants? The minors and majors aren't worse or better fed ants, they are different phenotypes with different traits and roles within the colony.
Even super well-fed colonies will still produce tiny workers to care for the brood because majors are a bit of wasted resources on that task.

- Remove the max population.

There is no hard pop limit in the missions only in the formicarium (because otherwise the challenges would be a joke).

- I'd prefer -by far- a system with continuous population growth. Like every nursery produce 1 ant every X secondes. It's a bit... weird to see larva and pupe ready to get an ant but... not giving it at all as long as you don't lose an ant.

I like the way the handle unit building and replacement although they're not really using the full potential of the tile system.

- A step by step breed growth. Like the total cost is 20 food point. The egg take X seconde to go to larva. Then the larva wait 4 food and will go larva2 after X sec. Then larva2 wait 4 food to go to larva3. Then larva 3 need 4 food to go to larva4. Then larva4 need 4food to go to pupae... and after the last X sec it gives you a working new worker.


This will require the player to have WAY MORE active worker in the colony in order to manage the breed, making it more realist and more tight to manage.

This has actually been suggested a few times already and I hope we one day get something like it. Having to feed for each instar would be pretty cool and prevent those infamous F. fusca soldier colonies.

- make ants age. After X days the ant die of old age. It'll be, in fact, a max population cap (since you can't stack as much ant as you can, but only something proportional to how much breed you can feed)

That would be pretty ridiculous even for freeplay. Even the workers of short-lived species like Solenopsis geminata live for at least a few months, a match time few players will ever achieve with a single colony.

- Allow injured ants to "heal" by eating. Puting more pressure on food (=> increasing management gamplay)

I don't see how an additional drain on the food storage makes for a more interesting gameplay.

- add a 2nd type of ressource : material (construction bloc), needed to build anything on a virgin spot. You could get some (few) by digging, and get more outdoor on some thing (and having some with some food, like seeds give you few and stuff...)

The ants literally live inside nesting materials why would they ever need something else? They're not really building anything anyway, they're just carving out nesting space. Only F. rufa would require needles and twigs to build an ant hill but I don't think we will ever see hill-building in the game (the animations alone would be an absolute nightmare).

The best go for a second resource would be to separate sugars and protein. Sugar can be used to keep the ants alive, protein is required for larvae to grow. If you have no sugars you can still pay protein for maintenance but if you have no protein you cannot raise brood. That would make for an interesting gameplay and add a great value to those aphid farms as they essentially offer free maintenance (which would otherwise drain your protein storage).

- Allow us to move the queen. Fist of all it is not realistic, the ant queen is not like the termite one, so fat she can't move, and it's also needed for multiplayer (so you don't exactly now where she is, and can't rush her).

Yes, an option to move the queen would be nice, especially since she's far too close to the entrance in most missions.

- Allow us to "replace" dirt on a digged spot, for better underground management.

I think they are already working on that (or it at least is on the to-do list).

- Make species with particular food needs (only seeds, like most Messor, only meat...)

Leafcutters will be the next species added.

- Setup sustainable food source (aphid...)

There already are aphids in the game, both the missions 2.1 and 2.2 have them. They will very likely also be available in freeplay mode.