▶ Play it here: lychee-game-labs.itch.io/habi... ▶ Join the community Discord Server... / discord ▶ Patch Quest is on Steam now! store.steampowered.com/app/13...
5:50 vegetables can grow stronger when in proximity to protective other plants. Lavender and pepper mint for example keep certain bugs away. The player has an incentive to mix flowers and veggies. Yet, the closer the same type of plants are the easier is the harvest. It's a logistic bonus to not mix. Same for watering plants. Don't mix wet lovers with dry lovers. The bonuses and maluses change depending on ecosystem and the environment.
Man, the juiciness and appeal that your UI has just for a prototype is insane. Everything is so bouncy and fun. No wonder the UI turned out so well for Patch Quest. 😭
@@milesparker557 My thought as well. Realistically. As for pessimistically: there's a *small* possibility that they didn't or barely, and it's just the side effect of being a devtuber.
@ultimaxkom8728 it's likely that even if they reused code, it still probably took them longer than if they had not added juice at all. But considering that they were able to do it through multiple iterations of the project, I imagine it wasn't much of a hindrance. And many of the visuals and effects do look very similar to Patch Quest, so they definitely reused stuff. But yeah, I get what you're saying. Unless you have a huge inventory of quality code that you can reuse with little to no effort, it's probably not smart to get juicy with your prototypes.
@@milesparker557 My thought is so practically the same with everything you just said that I'm speechless and now have nothing to add... Btw are you my long lost twin?
I'm surprised in all of this you never played/mentioned Pikmin till the end. As you were describing things, like giving the little dudes "personality" i thought Pikmin!
@@jaxpianoteacher oh i thought it was like 'didn't mention till the end' with the meaning that he never mentioned it. The reason why i thought this is probelly cuz I'm from the netherlands.
"Part Town Builder and Part Tower Defense" in my era those used to be called Real Time Strategy hahah. Now no joking I'm always shocked by how extremely juicy you make your prototipes look, even since Patch Quest! Also is pretty nice to see more RTS kinda games! These genre really needs some real love lately!
I am allready in love, even though its different from patch quest. Also, it might be a good idea to rename the channel to something like “lemon” or a production name, since its just patch quest now.
Hey, I love the project, fun fact, ants use aphids as cattle, they, well, farm them for their sugary poop that they extract from sucking plants sap, I think adding other species your ants could rely on could be really fun! I'm excited to try it out :)
You know, I watched the latest Video of Jonas Tyroller about how the early game development goes and its pitfalls This video actually perfectly aligns to what he described. The branches you created as in exploring different areas, etc. Was a pleasure to watch. The game looks really nice. For my taste a little to simple since I'm a more of a "I want to get involved more" type of player but I am sure this will be a lot of fun. I played your last game as well so its obvious you are going on with passion about it
@@UliTroyo UA-cam deleted my replies -twice- N times. *Research edit: *[9]* *[Test conclusion: the following combination is the deletion trigger]* Do it enough times and you've thrown some years away. Or... actually fin sh it. *Test was conducted by individual replies, which was now cleaned up, and is now aggregated into this one comment in the descending order:* *[0]* Indicates reply index. *[1]* @UliTroyo Test. Finish. *[2]* @UliTroyo Test. actually finish it. *[3]* @UliTroyo Test. F llow all devs' biggest advice to finish _even if it's fl wed._ *[4]* @UliTroyo Test. Follow all devs' biggest advice to finish _even if it's flawed._ *[5]* @UliTroyo *[Test failed with the complete comment]* Do it enough times and you've thrown some years away. Or... actually fin sh it. Follow all devs' biggest advice to fin sh _even if it's flawed._ *[6]* @UliTroyo Test. actually finish it. advice to finish. *[7]* @UliTroyo *[Another test failed on the following complete comment]* Do it enough times and you've thrown some years away. Or... actually fin sh it. *[8]* @UliTroyo Test. Or... actually finish it. Follow all devs' biggest advice to finish _even if it's flawed._ *[Test has been concluded, and the conclusion has been moved to the top with the @UliTroyo mention removed]*
@@UliTroyo Do it enough times and you've thrown some years away. Or... actually fin sh it. Follow all devs' biggest advice to fin sh _even if it's flawed._
@@UliTroyo UA-cam deleted my replies -twice- N times. *_Research edit for self:_* *[9]* *[Test conclusion: the following combination is the deletion trigger]* Do it enough times and you've thrown some years away. Or... actually fin sh it. *Test was conducted by individual replies and is now aggregated into this one comment in the descending order:* *[0]* Indicates reply index. *[1]* Test. Finish. *[2]* Test. actually finish it. *[3]* Test. F llow all devs' biggest advice to finish _even if it's fl wed._ *[4]* Test. Follow all devs' biggest advice to finish _even if it's flawed._ *[5]* *[Test failed with the complete comment]* Do it enough times and you've thrown some years away. Or... actually fin sh it. Follow all devs' biggest advice to fin sh _even if it's flawed._ *[6]* Test. actually finish it. advice to finish. *[7]* *[Another test failed on the following complete comment]* Do it enough times and you've thrown some years away. Or... actually fin sh it. *[8]* Test. Or... actually finish it. Follow all devs' biggest advice to finish _even if it's flawed._ *[Test has been concluded, and the conclusion has been moved to the top with the all the REDACTED mention filtered out]* *[This edit resulted in an automatic delete, and thus now this is a re-edit that filters out all mentions on a new reply]*
You know, there was a game that completely captivated my imagination as a kid and blew my mind in a way that I don’t believe any other game has really been able to. Streets of SimCity is a very old racing/driving combat game made by the same people who made SimCity and the Sims. This game had a game mode where you could load in a save file from your SimCity game and race on the streets of the city that you built in the other game. It was what spore galactic adventures promised to be able to do, but didn’t deliver. The thing that I think would take this game to the next level would be to add in a 3-D element where you could explore your simulation as one of the little guys. I would recommend not using 3-D models, and instead just have sprites for all of the buildings and characters. If you look at old first person video games forests where all of the trees were sprites, it didn’t really break the immersion at all. I’m not sure what you would do in the first person perspective but that isn’t really the point. All of us playing Lego rock raiders would chill out in the first person perspective, even though it had no use. It’s just cool being able to visit your world.
Great job Liam, happy to see a new game coming along :) One technical point re loops is it matters if you're amplifying or decaying. So if each A creates 2 B's and then each B creates 2 A's then yeah it's going to blow up. However if you have a system like each 2 A's creates a B and then each 2 B's creates an A then that will give you a nice boost of resources as it spins round for a while, but will eventually settle to a finite number, which might feel quite cool as a kind of engine you can build.
2A creates B, and 2B creates A. Or 2A => B => 0.5A => 0.25B ... . This decays as opposed to amplif- growth, and instead of a _"boost"_ and settling to a finite number, it converges to 0.
If you have multiple copies of buildings though, you still run into the same issues. 2 buildings with a 2:1 ratio becomes a 1:1 ratio, which obviously still breaks, so you'd have to account for this in some way too. @@ultimaxkom8728
It's fun that you begun with this idea of a minimalist ecosystem, like Islanders, and finished with a concept of a town builder x tower defence, which is more like Thrownfall 😊The idea of a cute "villagers of AoE game" is lovely, can't wait to play it!!
I don't think I've ever seen one of your videos before, but this one was great! I love how much focus you gave on what failed during your development process - a lot of people show more of what worked, so it's cool to see a more complete view of the development process. Can't wait to see where you take this!
love the concept. reminds me onto a lot of games. but mainly: - a bit of mini motorways, trying to keep all the colors organized betwen houses and stores. In your game, currently all the ants wanna go to the hive itself. - a bit of anno 1800, in terms of happyness. maybe happyness decides the max age the ants can reach? and you unlock new buildings when reaching certain population thresholds? - a bit reminds me on "AntMe" which was a coding-project where you had to code the AI a single ant, in a way that the colony would survive, to teach students to code (I just saw they try to revive it).
Much respect to you man. This 100% is going to hit big. There aren't many people who are able to keep their heads high while working and trying to figure out the best path to a game they can feel proud of. I love how it all grew from curiosity and watching videos about a guy who creates terrariums. And look at the progress you have made so far. Gj man!
So excited to see how this goes! Ive followed the development of patch quest and its now one of my favorite twin stick shooters ever. your art style is so charming and fits perfectly with this new game. as a big patch quest player I immediately noticed a lot of the same plants and structures in the final prototype which made me happy almost as if the spirit of the old game is still here with the new. I was actually surprised to see the swarm of ants idea came from a different game and not from patch quest itself since in patch quest you can get tiny minions that follow you around. I also appreciate how you show the reality of game development and how in order to get a successful idea you need to fail a lot first and that its okay to cut your losses rather than forcing something to try and work just because you sunk time into it.
I have over 100 hours in Dorfromantik and nearly 200 hours in ISLANDERS, which are very high amounts for me! I started thinking about these games even before you mentioned them in the video, AND ecosystem/colony sim games are the main forms that my creative inspiration comes to me in (tower defense also often making significant appearances lol). Unfortunately for me, my creative inspiration does not translate into motivation, so I never create anything substantial. So THANK YOU for making this haha, I am stoked!
Your art, your process of designing the mechanics, even you took your time to learn a new programming paradigm to make that game more performant. Congratulations man, you are an excelent game developer!
Amazing work! I really like how you showed your design process and envy your willingness to criticize your own work. I tried the latest version and what jumped out at me is the way the characters move in a single file line. Some randomness with boids might help make their movements more natural.
Thank you for sharing the journey! Not enough people getting into games realize the fact it's usually not just a good idea into a great game.. it takes lots and lots of iteration and fat trimming, sometimes it comes out as a totally different game! So fun to watch, cheers.
this is so cool! as a biology nerd, I'm excited to see what else you add... desert ants that have to build defenses not only against other colonies, but against wind and heat? jungle ants that need to navigate through the thick underbrush? a leafcutter ant colony that can make mushroom farms, but face threats from parasites? ...that's probably a bit too complicated, but I'm excited to see how this project comes along!
I would LOVE for the whole process to be documented!! So those are great news. A Godsend to those attempting to reach the levels of quality you put out! Congrats and best of luck on this project!
Have you considered having a system for mutating your ants down certain ‘builds’? It could allow for a variety of approaches and challenge maps. Do you go for bulky, defensive ants or fire ants? Do certain builds require more resources, or even more of a certain type? Perhaps capturing the capital of other ants melds their mutations with your own? On a snowy challenge map the player might be forced into a slow moving, bulky fur covered build just to survive, which isn’t what they’d usually go for, for example.
@@heirapparent8217 Oh, I'm not catching you of anything. I'm saying that just in case they want to _expand and or add_ to your idea, which for me, is not yet creep heavy.
I'd recommend checking stackland as well, I'm sure you'll get more inspiration from that game than you could imagine becasue it fits your type of gameplay I beleieve. Also another thing that seemed interesting right after you said " what ants do?" was that there could be season changes in the game so that for example you collect stuff to prepare yourself for winter. That's what ants do.
The stress test was my favorite portion, its so mesmerizing lol. But here's a suggestion for the combat portion. You can make the map small at the start, giving you mostly production until you reach a certain point. like I guess total score will expand the map, spawning in some spare resources and enemies. From then on packs can contain enemy how to say "den's" or single large "Raid Boss" like enemies. they could prob move around to mess your colony up so you need to balance where you place them. They could get stronger if placed together, so you avoid "shove all the bad things in this corner", or you could purposely do it to increase net gains. They can prob also wander in on the edges of the map, and get deleted lmao. Not sure how to implement correctly but the biggest problem i saw in the last test was the space, and how it runs out. With enemies that destroy, and a map that grows. It could make it to eventually you get that stress test level of them just being fun to watch.
Thanks for sharing all the iterations you went through! Helped me realize I run into the same pitfall all the time too: I try to make a simple game, but when it's not working or fun, I keep adding more and more to it, but then I just end up with a jumbled mess of a game with poor fundamentals.
This game looks so cool already! I'm really excited to see how you develop it, I'll definitely be sticking around to find out Good luck with the development!
Super cool! Really like how you explained what did and didn't work about each prototype. I wouldn't be afraid to take some detours on the way to finishing the game; shelving the colony building aspects for a while so you can zero in on tower defence seems an obvious choice. Marrying the two concepts will need you to understand both, you've already demonstrated the utility of building and breaking a bunch of small games. Missteps are more evident and you can experiment unrestrained by prior notions. ie. Techniques like the ant swarming that could be really cool for enemys, and reframeing their behaviours as such might lead you to implementing some very different behaviours than you'd consider when they're "tankling" minions. Super keen to watch how this progresses.
Especially given how long you spent on your last game; just make as many little games as you can. Fun is so subjective and hard to intuit. Making 10 games that suck will teach you more than 1 game that's just ok.
Could be cool to by more limited by movement. So sticks, stones, blockades. Anything to limit movement that can be overcome. Could also be cool to see the world split in half. The lower portion of the horizontal half represents underneath the ground. And the upper portion can be land and trees to climb. The higher you scroll upwards the further from the ant hill you are.
I also played the Gnorp Apologue which feels kinda similar to this. All I do is buy upgrades and more Gnorps, then the Gnorps do most of the work. Of course I gotta start up some of the process by manually working to get rock shards into the stash, but then after I get enough, the Gnorps can carry the rest of the way as long as you keep upgrading them. I love this kinda game with a cute minimalist style, so your video thumbnail IMMEDIATELY caught my eye. I like this premise so I am definitely looking forward to the fully-formed game's release. I'm glad you got to play that Gnorp game too.
loved the attention to the UI in even the prototypes, the whole game feels super chill and fun. overall greatful that i stumbled upon this video, will definetlly sub. also i feel you might want to check out mindustry/factorio type games.
Some thoughts: - I really like where you ended with this. Tiny creatures swarming around sure looks like a fun game to play with. - Not sure if you are planning to go 3d but if it's 2d/isometric you want to make sure that not everywhere is buildable and have to get the scale, spacing right. I didn't like how the creatures run over everything. You want to find the balance of things getting blocked vs. flowing, space and crowdiness. - I personally feel like adding enemies to this can be a mistake. You can easily turn a peaceful tank builder into a stressful strategy. I'd rather think about telling their story. Where are these creatures from? What is their goal? Where are they going?
I'm adoring this game idea so far, and I do think looking at pikmin for a type of inspiration would help. The fourth game even has a (incredibly watered down) tower defense mode in the form of night missions. Watching them just run around is easily my favorite part so far though. Again, pikmin comparison, but I would always replay challenge levels with a large amount of automated tasks just so I could watch the pikmin run around. The most recent prototype, at the very least, is scratching that same itch.
i love this artstyle you got going on! i also have some ideas maybe? - a camera system to zoom in and automatically follow one antperson - an option to maybe name one to cherish it more? xD kinda manually selecting v.i.p's
It's amazing to see how concepts shift. In the beginning, it felt like you had a unique idea, and every step you took to make the the game more fun sort of stripped it of that creativity and made it more similar to other games. As an outside observer looking at the demo stages like a consumer, it was like the pitch was lost. It was only at the stress test at 17:50 that the new concept actually clicked for me. I recognized what you were going for and I was like "Oh okay, I want to play that now". The way the individual creatures eventually melded into giant color swatches, it almost felt like I was watching a fluid simulation, definitely gave off the "character comes from the colony not the ant" vibes you mentioned earlier. Maybe that's why so many modern games just end up middle of the road. A board isn't going to approve of a shift in goal unless it's immediately obvious that it's heading in the right direction, especially when compared to the crazed mind of a single individual in charge of their own workflow. Looking forward to see where this ends up.
I have a little suggestion like you could also try like making them into attacking like other ants/insects since there's so many of them, they could easily swarm areas and there's often turf wars between ants so it also just natural like that.
I played habitanks... i loved! but some feedback: Let the little trees to became something else because in the final i got 13 of them... and the beehive needs to merge too, it get's o lot of space in the map... but the game is VERY cool! continue working on it! :)
Lovely game! Very interesting to see the developments behind every prototype. It was a fun watch. If I can make a suggestion, not that great, but it would appeal to me a bit, would be the abilty to spawn rare tanklings that have a certain personality (doesn't collect so and so, hangs around certain structure) and exclusive effect (like increasing happiness of nearby units, like a bard, perhaps) that could be customized to a certain extent (color, name and hat, maybe) just so one can attach themselves to an unique character among the crowd as a species of little trophy for your efforts.
I think you should look into the system of control in ant colonies, but even more importantly the behaviour of ants and how they communicate through pheromone markings. These ideas may just complicate things needlessly but i think its worth looking into.
This is awesome! I especially love the art style; it really reminds me of Sokpop :D (which btw I think you could get inspiration from their games: Stacklands, Sproots, Simmiland, and Pyramida)
(the) Gnorp Apologue is indeed a very charming game! I am excited to follow your new game's developpement. Congratulations on finding what you wanted to work on :)
Along the lines of the second idea you tried, it would be interesting you have shapes that can grow, live and die. Then have conflicting drives to the growth cycle. Like how a lone redwood might grow quickly at first, but a grove of them grows taller as they compete with one another for light. You could include the free space and size of nearest neighbors in the calcs and probabilities of when a shape will change and what it will change into.
Damn I tried to do a terrarium game at one point for a game jam and I ran into many of the same problems you did - your solutions are awesome and I'm excited to see where ant people goes!
Thanks for letting us participate in your journey to maybe a fantastic game! If it turns into a ant colony defense game I'd love to see you'd make sure that the waves of increasingly harder to fight enemies don't punish early-game errors at a later stage. I loved when you pointed out that an advantage of realtime was to see the results of what you did and learn from it. If your colony gets completely destroyed because you didn't place your ecosystem perfectly, it would be no fun to me. It would be great to have an adaptive threat level based on how well you fare.
this looks really cool. an idea that might make building harder but could make it look more full of life, is making the plants and buildings and rocks and whatever lack colliders on the top, so they can stick over top of something else. you'd need to indicate where they take up space in some way, but it could make it feel more lively. also, will there be a mac build of it at any point?
Hey this is very cool, I'm working on a very similar game, Gnorp Apologue also inspired me, and I always loved the thousand entities games, so I'm glad to see it withold a great potential. I'm sure you're going places with this game.
i think another important part of an aquarium is layering. idk how pr if it would be possible to implement it in some way but it would bring so much more dimension and intresting gameplay:) also this is such a cute little idea, cant wait for the game
Watching little dudes run around collecting resources is really fun; I am making an RTS game and the workers in the medieval city also pretty much look like busy ants once you zoom out a bit. As a Kid i spent hours watching workers in such games
Sort of tangential, but I've always loved bugs and wanted to see different dev's takes on them in games. One study I was looking at a few years ago was on how they seem to know everything going on within the hive without advanced forms of communication. If I remember correctly, what they seemed to find was that it was based on the number of ants with different roles, marked by their pheromones, that they'd meet within a certain time frame. So like if the colony were attacked and some warriors died, the other nonwarrior ants would see that they aren't seeing as many warriors as there should be so they'd dynamically swap.
The ants also make galeries and build their colony beneath the earth, which opens to a whole housing/life simulation casual gameplay that most often pair really well with a ressources based game :)
I've always been fascinated by ants and thus always looked for ant RTS. So far, the only fun one I've ever found is "empire of the undergrowth", though I havent played in years. It's a very different style from yours, but there is this aspect of fighting other colonies and bigger critters, you shouled check it out! Love your work
I’m not gonna lie, you have my dream job right now. I’ve been trying to learn C# for years now, and it’s been really slow, but I can’t stop now. You are one of my biggest inspirations.
Some notes of things I would like to see after playing for a bit: I wish I had the option to merge more things (Sticks, Honeycomb, etc, or at least be able to delete/sell/relocate certain structures/resources. I also wish there was more variation of the shapes of some of the resources (Sticks, Clay mounds, etc). Maybe rotating or cycling through shapes? More randomness! I wish the little villagers made some sounds! Maybe you can zoom in and hear them chatting with each-other but when zoomed out its silent. Also, after using fertilizer to duplicate some items, it doesn't get consumed, meaning I can use it infinitely to get infinite resources for free. Overall, I love the art style/feel of the game, great concept and I look forward to seeing more! :)
Funny, I had essentially the same idea for a vegetable / vegetation game, where you'd gain adjacency points, but I tried it as a simple card game. I also never really found the fun in it. Excited to see the ant colony game develop - it does sound like an interesting idea!
I'm loving playing the demo but I found some bugs: 1: Unlimited fertiliser - Fertiliser doesn't get used up 2: Bee hives are fertilisable - put fertilisers on beehives
As someone who loves terrariums I love this idea! You should look into isopods and springtails as well if you want it add diversity. They are used as a cleanup crew in many reptile terrariums! I have them in my crested gecko terrarium and they keep it fungus free! :)
That looks really cool, I hope it goes well and we get thaat full ant colony simulator. I have a question tho if you don't mind. how did you make the task system for the ants, I made a simple rts but the task system turned out to be a mess, i just used a simple queue of tasks.
I watched this a few days ago and your desire to keep your critters from being automatons/1 dimensional stewed with me for a bit. Have you played Oxygen Not Included? It being my favorite game aside, I think the life that the devs breathed into the dupes is something you could find inspiring. Dupes are adorable clones that don't speak any discernable words, but you always know how they feel. They wave to each other, cheer for each other's accomplishments, wipe their tongue off after being fed disgusting food, wobble when sick, etc. They're human enough to get attached to them, but also inhuman enough to not feel too bad when bad things happen to them. I think you could do wonders with your art style if you gave your ants visible emotions on the level of emojis.
21:55 could also have seasons be a threat, games like clonk planet and glittermitten grove have a pretty heavy threats from some seasons (rain in clonk planet, winter in glittermitten)
Very cool idea. Looking forward to seeing nore of this. Maybe you could keep the original spirit or therarium if the ants are the main population, but they don't win by endlessly growing but by being in balance with the environment. E.g. just adding foodsources is good but it risks overpupulations and them eating the plants faster then they grow. So you add enemies that eat some of the ants, or a river that blocks their path, or events like a rainstorm that washes some ants away and give the plants time to regrow while the ants hide in their caves. And the goal is to creat an ecosystem that can lasts in balance as long as possible without intervention. (E.g. fast forward) Just my brainstorm, what ever you decide will be fun :).
For a minimalist war approach with many agents I suggest having a look at the game Eufloria, maybe it gives you some ideas, both in regards to gameplay mechanics as well as how to create a variety of levels from a simple set of mechanics
I'm a management and 4k game enthisiast and I can tell you right now; I love the ideas here, I've always been dreaming about some sort of colony sim type of game where there's tons of units you can see but that work on their own while you just manage the building and logistics. From this you pay think games like dwarf fortress and rimworld fit the bill, but they actually deviate in the opposite direction: they focus more on your units being individuals, having individual wants and needs, while the resource and colony management aspects are kind of on the backburner despite how it may feel to some players. To me, the game that gets the closest to this idea so far has been stellaris, oddly enough. Because at the very core of it it's about managing your planets and what to build on them to optimize your use of your available pops rather than anything else, and with it being 4k it has enough different systems in it that by optimizing together offer a pretty fun amount of possibilities in your pursuit of efficient management. I feel that what you've talked about at the end of the video and shown skirts really closely to this type of gameplay and I can't wait to see how you progress! And also the colony defense aspects are a good way to see just how well you've made your colony, similarly to how you interact with other empires in stellaris
@@anytng999 I did and quite enjoyed it, only wish there were more content/modding supporrt/or multiplayer, I'm now just waiting to see frostpunk 2 and if they'll expand the game in scope
@@gaboratoria Yeah, I totally understand. Frostpunk is a great game but lacks a bit of content, especially if you only buy the game without the extra DLC. Frostpunk 2 is releasing this year, 25 July, and after looking at the trailers it sure does look a lot larger in scope compared to the prequel. I do hope they release lots of new scenarios too.
When I saw this game I thought it would be cool to have an ending state where it simulates it for 100 days and sees if it is stable, since you talked about creating a balance in a terrarium. High score is there to gauge how balanced you made it.
Given the ability to have so many ants on the screen the potential for MASSIVE wars is just insane. That would be cool Haha ants with cannons go vrum vrum
great progress! I was also thinking your tanklings are doing only one thing. I'm worried about this TD thing... I mean there's a natural organic feel in it youre prototype you shouldn't loose by turning this into waves of attack.... I'm thinking different type of tankling could emerge naturally because the resources favors them to. Maybe you could play both sides lets say there is this other race like termites or such.... what do they do? the same things, they use same type of resources to grow. So youd be design the environment so they both grow. Then whats the play, maybe its keeping balance, planting resources that favors one race a bit, because the other is too strong, but not too much... just throwing some ideas 😊 inspiring stuff!
I like the tower defense idea too, but just before that point in the video, what if the tanklings had a lifespan and you had a limited time per run and had unlocks tied to your run score. It'd be the race to make the best layout while the lifespan would most likely keep your colony a certain size. That could keep it fresh, a fun pace, and make less of a need for more/more complicated mechanics to keep extending the life of the game.
Episode 2 is here! ua-cam.com/video/QonFWMXkDOQ/v-deo.html
This is a really unique idea! I absolutely love it
Yaaaay
5:50 vegetables can grow stronger when in proximity to protective other plants. Lavender and pepper mint for example keep certain bugs away. The player has an incentive to mix flowers and veggies. Yet, the closer the same type of plants are the easier is the harvest. It's a logistic bonus to not mix. Same for watering plants. Don't mix wet lovers with dry lovers.
The bonuses and maluses change depending on ecosystem and the environment.
Man, the juiciness and appeal that your UI has just for a prototype is insane. Everything is so bouncy and fun. No wonder the UI turned out so well for Patch Quest. 😭
I'm curious whether this semi-vertical-slice-like prototype cost more than a plain programmer prototype (no juice pure prototype).
@@ultimaxkom8728I imagine they were able to reuse a lot of code from their previous game.
@@milesparker557 My thought as well. Realistically. As for pessimistically: there's a *small* possibility that they didn't or barely, and it's just the side effect of being a devtuber.
@ultimaxkom8728 it's likely that even if they reused code, it still probably took them longer than if they had not added juice at all. But considering that they were able to do it through multiple iterations of the project, I imagine it wasn't much of a hindrance.
And many of the visuals and effects do look very similar to Patch Quest, so they definitely reused stuff.
But yeah, I get what you're saying. Unless you have a huge inventory of quality code that you can reuse with little to no effort, it's probably not smart to get juicy with your prototypes.
@@milesparker557 My thought is so practically the same with everything you just said that I'm speechless and now have nothing to add... Btw are you my long lost twin?
I'm surprised in all of this you never played/mentioned Pikmin till the end. As you were describing things, like giving the little dudes "personality" i thought Pikmin!
22:10
@@NamelessPerson360"mentioned Pikmin till the end."
@@jaxpianoteacher oh i thought it was like 'didn't mention till the end' with the meaning that he never mentioned it. The reason why i thought this is probelly cuz I'm from the netherlands.
I would like to sniff these plants.
"Part Town Builder and Part Tower Defense" in my era those used to be called Real Time Strategy hahah.
Now no joking I'm always shocked by how extremely juicy you make your prototipes look, even since Patch Quest!
Also is pretty nice to see more RTS kinda games! These genre really needs some real love lately!
There kind of simmilar game called Mindustry that's is part factory builder and part tower defence or rts or both depending on level
I am allready in love, even though its different from patch quest. Also, it might be a good idea to rename the channel to something like “lemon” or a production name, since its just patch quest now.
A reasonable suggestion. Change now, or patch later.
How about Patch studio? or patched studio or something like that?
A nice patch, patchpatch, patchworks, softpatch, escape patch, Patch of the day, etc
the discord server rebranded to Lychee Game Labs a while back :D
Hey, I love the project, fun fact, ants use aphids as cattle, they, well, farm them for their sugary poop that they extract from sucking plants sap, I think adding other species your ants could rely on could be really fun! I'm excited to try it out :)
You know, I watched the latest Video of Jonas Tyroller about how the early game development goes and its pitfalls
This video actually perfectly aligns to what he described. The branches you created as in exploring different areas, etc.
Was a pleasure to watch. The game looks really nice. For my taste a little to simple since I'm a more of a "I want to get involved more" type of player
but I am sure this will be a lot of fun. I played your last game as well so its obvious you are going on with passion about it
Yo same
Don't make the same mistake again of making this game and after three years changing your mind and having to redo it again
Nah, do whatever man. The story of your life will be written whether or not you meet others’ expectations. I like your videos regardless.
Or do, make a video about it, and let it go viral.
@@UliTroyo UA-cam deleted my replies -twice- N times. *Research edit: *[9]* *[Test conclusion: the following combination is the deletion trigger]* Do it enough times and you've thrown some years away. Or... actually fin sh it.
*Test was conducted by individual replies, which was now cleaned up, and is now aggregated into this one comment in the descending order:*
*[0]* Indicates reply index.
*[1]* @UliTroyo Test. Finish.
*[2]* @UliTroyo Test. actually finish it.
*[3]* @UliTroyo Test. F llow all devs' biggest advice to finish _even if it's fl wed._
*[4]* @UliTroyo Test. Follow all devs' biggest advice to finish _even if it's flawed._
*[5]* @UliTroyo *[Test failed with the complete comment]* Do it enough times and you've thrown some years away. Or... actually fin sh it. Follow all devs' biggest advice to fin sh _even if it's flawed._
*[6]* @UliTroyo Test. actually finish it. advice to finish.
*[7]* @UliTroyo *[Another test failed on the following complete comment]* Do it enough times and you've thrown some years away. Or... actually fin sh it.
*[8]* @UliTroyo Test. Or... actually finish it. Follow all devs' biggest advice to finish _even if it's flawed._
*[Test has been concluded, and the conclusion has been moved to the top with the @UliTroyo mention removed]*
@@UliTroyo Do it enough times and you've thrown some years away. Or... actually fin sh it. Follow all devs' biggest advice to fin sh _even if it's flawed._
@@UliTroyo UA-cam deleted my replies -twice- N times. *_Research edit for self:_* *[9]* *[Test conclusion: the following combination is the deletion trigger]* Do it enough times and you've thrown some years away. Or... actually fin sh it.
*Test was conducted by individual replies and is now aggregated into this one comment in the descending order:*
*[0]* Indicates reply index.
*[1]* Test. Finish.
*[2]* Test. actually finish it.
*[3]* Test. F llow all devs' biggest advice to finish _even if it's fl wed._
*[4]* Test. Follow all devs' biggest advice to finish _even if it's flawed._
*[5]* *[Test failed with the complete comment]* Do it enough times and you've thrown some years away. Or... actually fin sh it. Follow all devs' biggest advice to fin sh _even if it's flawed._
*[6]* Test. actually finish it. advice to finish.
*[7]* *[Another test failed on the following complete comment]* Do it enough times and you've thrown some years away. Or... actually fin sh it.
*[8]* Test. Or... actually finish it. Follow all devs' biggest advice to finish _even if it's flawed._
*[Test has been concluded, and the conclusion has been moved to the top with the all the REDACTED mention filtered out]*
*[This edit resulted in an automatic delete, and thus now this is a re-edit that filters out all mentions on a new reply]*
You know, there was a game that completely captivated my imagination as a kid and blew my mind in a way that I don’t believe any other game has really been able to.
Streets of SimCity is a very old racing/driving combat game made by the same people who made SimCity and the Sims. This game had a game mode where you could load in a save file from your SimCity game and race on the streets of the city that you built in the other game. It was what spore galactic adventures promised to be able to do, but didn’t deliver.
The thing that I think would take this game to the next level would be to add in a 3-D element where you could explore your simulation as one of the little guys. I would recommend not using 3-D models, and instead just have sprites for all of the buildings and characters. If you look at old first person video games forests where all of the trees were sprites, it didn’t really break the immersion at all.
I’m not sure what you would do in the first person perspective but that isn’t really the point. All of us playing Lego rock raiders would chill out in the first person perspective, even though it had no use. It’s just cool being able to visit your world.
Wow, no wonder it captivated you so much. It's a great concept! I have always had the same idea, but for the video game Frostpunk.
Great job Liam, happy to see a new game coming along :)
One technical point re loops is it matters if you're amplifying or decaying. So if each A creates 2 B's and then each B creates 2 A's then yeah it's going to blow up.
However if you have a system like each 2 A's creates a B and then each 2 B's creates an A then that will give you a nice boost of resources as it spins round for a while, but will eventually settle to a finite number, which might feel quite cool as a kind of engine you can build.
2A creates B, and 2B creates A. Or 2A => B => 0.5A => 0.25B ... . This decays as opposed to amplif- growth, and instead of a _"boost"_ and settling to a finite number, it converges to 0.
If you have multiple copies of buildings though, you still run into the same issues. 2 buildings with a 2:1 ratio becomes a 1:1 ratio, which obviously still breaks, so you'd have to account for this in some way too. @@ultimaxkom8728
It's fun that you begun with this idea of a minimalist ecosystem, like Islanders, and finished with a concept of a town builder x tower defence, which is more like Thrownfall 😊The idea of a cute "villagers of AoE game" is lovely, can't wait to play it!!
SERPA DESIGN MENTIONED
Man, AntsCanada could inspire this game also really big time, two of the greatest channels
@@nekuyo1147 ANTSCANADA MENTIONED
I don't think I've ever seen one of your videos before, but this one was great! I love how much focus you gave on what failed during your development process - a lot of people show more of what worked, so it's cool to see a more complete view of the development process. Can't wait to see where you take this!
love the concept. reminds me onto a lot of games. but mainly:
- a bit of mini motorways, trying to keep all the colors organized betwen houses and stores. In your game, currently all the ants wanna go to the hive itself.
- a bit of anno 1800, in terms of happyness. maybe happyness decides the max age the ants can reach? and you unlock new buildings when reaching certain population thresholds?
- a bit reminds me on "AntMe" which was a coding-project where you had to code the AI a single ant, in a way that the colony would survive, to teach students to code (I just saw they try to revive it).
Much respect to you man. This 100% is going to hit big. There aren't many people who are able to keep their heads high while working and trying to figure out the best path to a game they can feel proud of. I love how it all grew from curiosity and watching videos about a guy who creates terrariums. And look at the progress you have made so far. Gj man!
seeing this prototype come together in the discord these last few months has been great. can't wait to see where it goes from here!
So excited to see how this goes! Ive followed the development of patch quest and its now one of my favorite twin stick shooters ever. your art style is so charming and fits perfectly with this new game. as a big patch quest player I immediately noticed a lot of the same plants and structures in the final prototype which made me happy almost as if the spirit of the old game is still here with the new. I was actually surprised to see the swarm of ants idea came from a different game and not from patch quest itself since in patch quest you can get tiny minions that follow you around. I also appreciate how you show the reality of game development and how in order to get a successful idea you need to fail a lot first and that its okay to cut your losses rather than forcing something to try and work just because you sunk time into it.
A patch quest video is a blessing, you have a very nice voice
I have over 100 hours in Dorfromantik and nearly 200 hours in ISLANDERS, which are very high amounts for me! I started thinking about these games even before you mentioned them in the video, AND ecosystem/colony sim games are the main forms that my creative inspiration comes to me in (tower defense also often making significant appearances lol). Unfortunately for me, my creative inspiration does not translate into motivation, so I never create anything substantial. So THANK YOU for making this haha, I am stoked!
Thank you for sharing your prototyping process. It was very interesting seeing the iterative approach you took.
Your art, your process of designing the mechanics, even you took your time to learn a new programming paradigm to make that game more performant. Congratulations man, you are an excelent game developer!
Wow, thank you!
Amazing work! I really like how you showed your design process and envy your willingness to criticize your own work. I tried the latest version and what jumped out at me is the way the characters move in a single file line. Some randomness with boids might help make their movements more natural.
Finally got a chance to watch this, and it was worth the wait, really loved seeing the prototypes and your thought process behind each one!
Thank you for sharing the journey! Not enough people getting into games realize the fact it's usually not just a good idea into a great game.. it takes lots and lots of iteration and fat trimming, sometimes it comes out as a totally different game! So fun to watch, cheers.
this is so cool! as a biology nerd, I'm excited to see what else you add... desert ants that have to build defenses not only against other colonies, but against wind and heat? jungle ants that need to navigate through the thick underbrush? a leafcutter ant colony that can make mushroom farms, but face threats from parasites? ...that's probably a bit too complicated, but I'm excited to see how this project comes along!
I would LOVE for the whole process to be documented!! So those are great news. A Godsend to those attempting to reach the levels of quality you put out! Congrats and best of luck on this project!
Have you considered having a system for mutating your ants down certain ‘builds’? It could allow for a variety of approaches and challenge maps. Do you go for bulky, defensive ants or fire ants? Do certain builds require more resources, or even more of a certain type? Perhaps capturing the capital of other ants melds their mutations with your own? On a snowy challenge map the player might be forced into a slow moving, bulky fur covered build just to survive, which isn’t what they’d usually go for, for example.
Good suggestions, although be mindful of the potential scope creep following them. *Note: minimalist game.*
@@ultimaxkom8728 You got me there chief.
@@heirapparent8217 Oh, I'm not catching you of anything. I'm saying that just in case they want to _expand and or add_ to your idea, which for me, is not yet creep heavy.
I'd recommend checking stackland as well, I'm sure you'll get more inspiration from that game than you could imagine becasue it fits your type of gameplay I beleieve.
Also another thing that seemed interesting right after you said " what ants do?" was that there could be season changes in the game so that for example you collect stuff to prepare yourself for winter. That's what ants do.
The stress test was my favorite portion, its so mesmerizing lol.
But here's a suggestion for the combat portion. You can make the map small at the start, giving you mostly production until you reach a certain point. like I guess total score will expand the map, spawning in some spare resources and enemies. From then on packs can contain enemy how to say "den's" or single large "Raid Boss" like enemies. they could prob move around to mess your colony up so you need to balance where you place them. They could get stronger if placed together, so you avoid "shove all the bad things in this corner", or you could purposely do it to increase net gains. They can prob also wander in on the edges of the map, and get deleted lmao.
Not sure how to implement correctly but the biggest problem i saw in the last test was the space, and how it runs out. With enemies that destroy, and a map that grows. It could make it to eventually you get that stress test level of them just being fun to watch.
I love your artwork! It gives the esthetic that I look for in my favorite games. Looking forward to the next update.
This was an amazing video. Seeing it come together really is something special. Looking forward to future videos!
I love how you went though the reasoning of all decisions and their context here; great vid!
I’ve wanted to make a game like this for years. Glad to be watching this
Thanks for sharing all the iterations you went through! Helped me realize I run into the same pitfall all the time too: I try to make a simple game, but when it's not working or fun, I keep adding more and more to it, but then I just end up with a jumbled mess of a game with poor fundamentals.
I'm so excited that your making a new game! Your gamedev videos are always super inspiring and well done. And your last game was wonderful!
This game looks so cool already! I'm really excited to see how you develop it, I'll definitely be sticking around to find out
Good luck with the development!
Super cool! Really like how you explained what did and didn't work about each prototype.
I wouldn't be afraid to take some detours on the way to finishing the game; shelving the colony building aspects for a while so you can zero in on tower defence seems an obvious choice. Marrying the two concepts will need you to understand both, you've already demonstrated the utility of building and breaking a bunch of small games. Missteps are more evident and you can experiment unrestrained by prior notions.
ie. Techniques like the ant swarming that could be really cool for enemys, and reframeing their behaviours as such might lead you to implementing some very different behaviours than you'd consider when they're "tankling" minions.
Super keen to watch how this progresses.
Especially given how long you spent on your last game; just make as many little games as you can. Fun is so subjective and hard to intuit. Making 10 games that suck will teach you more than 1 game that's just ok.
@@percyvile this is some great advice
That video was like watching a class. Thank you, it's very valuable! Love your references, Avatar, One Piece. New subscriber
Could be cool to by more limited by movement. So sticks, stones, blockades. Anything to limit movement that can be overcome. Could also be cool to see the world split in half. The lower portion of the horizontal half represents underneath the ground. And the upper portion can be land and trees to climb. The higher you scroll upwards the further from the ant hill you are.
I also played the Gnorp Apologue which feels kinda similar to this. All I do is buy upgrades and more Gnorps, then the Gnorps do most of the work. Of course I gotta start up some of the process by manually working to get rock shards into the stash, but then after I get enough, the Gnorps can carry the rest of the way as long as you keep upgrading them.
I love this kinda game with a cute minimalist style, so your video thumbnail IMMEDIATELY caught my eye. I like this premise so I am definitely looking forward to the fully-formed game's release. I'm glad you got to play that Gnorp game too.
I like the idea of doing the simulation "inside" the ant mound then you zoom out to showing the outside of the dirt mount for tower defence combat
loved the attention to the UI in even the prototypes, the whole game feels super chill and fun. overall greatful that i stumbled upon this video, will definetlly sub. also i feel you might want to check out mindustry/factorio type games.
Some thoughts:
- I really like where you ended with this. Tiny creatures swarming around sure looks like a fun game to play with.
- Not sure if you are planning to go 3d but if it's 2d/isometric you want to make sure that not everywhere is buildable and have to get the scale, spacing right. I didn't like how the creatures run over everything. You want to find the balance of things getting blocked vs. flowing, space and crowdiness.
- I personally feel like adding enemies to this can be a mistake. You can easily turn a peaceful tank builder into a stressful strategy. I'd rather think about telling their story. Where are these creatures from? What is their goal? Where are they going?
I'm adoring this game idea so far, and I do think looking at pikmin for a type of inspiration would help. The fourth game even has a (incredibly watered down) tower defense mode in the form of night missions.
Watching them just run around is easily my favorite part so far though. Again, pikmin comparison, but I would always replay challenge levels with a large amount of automated tasks just so I could watch the pikmin run around. The most recent prototype, at the very least, is scratching that same itch.
nice to see you go through each of the steps in the process. The inclusion of Tower Defense makes sense, and I'm curious to see where it goes!
i love this artstyle you got going on!
i also have some ideas maybe?
- a camera system to zoom in and automatically follow one antperson
- an option to maybe name one to cherish it more? xD kinda manually selecting v.i.p's
It's amazing to see how concepts shift. In the beginning, it felt like you had a unique idea, and every step you took to make the the game more fun sort of stripped it of that creativity and made it more similar to other games. As an outside observer looking at the demo stages like a consumer, it was like the pitch was lost. It was only at the stress test at 17:50 that the new concept actually clicked for me. I recognized what you were going for and I was like "Oh okay, I want to play that now". The way the individual creatures eventually melded into giant color swatches, it almost felt like I was watching a fluid simulation, definitely gave off the "character comes from the colony not the ant" vibes you mentioned earlier.
Maybe that's why so many modern games just end up middle of the road. A board isn't going to approve of a shift in goal unless it's immediately obvious that it's heading in the right direction, especially when compared to the crazed mind of a single individual in charge of their own workflow. Looking forward to see where this ends up.
I LOVE THIS GAME ALREADY, it is so satisfying looking at the little tanklings move around
Maaan all the iterations and prototypes looked already soo good and fun! Looking forward for the final product!
I love this idea, I really look forwards to seeing what you come up with and can't wait to give it a go.
What you described in the end reminded me of Miniscule: Valley of the lost ants. It's one of my favorite movies from when I was a kid!
This looks soooo good! I can't wait to see how you develop it and would love to play a full version
I have a little suggestion like you could also try like making them into attacking like other ants/insects since there's so many of them, they could easily swarm areas and there's often turf wars between ants so it also just natural like that.
I played habitanks... i loved! but some feedback:
Let the little trees to became something else because in the final i got 13 of them... and the beehive needs to merge too, it get's o lot of space in the map... but the game is VERY cool! continue working on it! :)
Lovely game! Very interesting to see the developments behind every prototype. It was a fun watch.
If I can make a suggestion, not that great, but it would appeal to me a bit, would be the abilty to spawn rare tanklings that have a certain personality (doesn't collect so and so, hangs around certain structure) and exclusive effect (like increasing happiness of nearby units, like a bard, perhaps) that could be customized to a certain extent (color, name and hat, maybe) just so one can attach themselves to an unique character among the crowd as a species of little trophy for your efforts.
I think you should look into the system of control in ant colonies, but even more importantly the behaviour of ants and how they communicate through pheromone markings.
These ideas may just complicate things needlessly but i think its worth looking into.
I love how your prototypes looks more polished than AAA games
Man, I was going to say "oh, those creatures butting the rock with their head looks like Gnorp" and then you mentioned that game as well! :D
This is awesome! I especially love the art style; it really reminds me of Sokpop :D
(which btw I think you could get inspiration from their games: Stacklands, Sproots, Simmiland, and Pyramida)
Happy to see Islanders being mentioned, this game is surprisingly addictive despite its minimalism
Bro your an absolute genius! That was the best original idea for a minimal game ever had in quite a long time tbh.
Really great breakdown of the prototype iteration process - excited to see more!
(the) Gnorp Apologue is indeed a very charming game! I am excited to follow your new game's developpement. Congratulations on finding what you wanted to work on :)
Along the lines of the second idea you tried, it would be interesting you have shapes that can grow, live and die. Then have conflicting drives to the growth cycle. Like how a lone redwood might grow quickly at first, but a grove of them grows taller as they compete with one another for light. You could include the free space and size of nearest neighbors in the calcs and probabilities of when a shape will change and what it will change into.
hell yeah, i remember being absolutely addicted to watching ant colony simulations a few years ago, gonna be so cool to have a game about it
Damn I tried to do a terrarium game at one point for a game jam and I ran into many of the same problems you did - your solutions are awesome and I'm excited to see where ant people goes!
Thanks for letting us participate in your journey to maybe a fantastic game!
If it turns into a ant colony defense game I'd love to see you'd make sure that the waves of increasingly harder to fight enemies don't punish early-game errors at a later stage. I loved when you pointed out that an advantage of realtime was to see the results of what you did and learn from it. If your colony gets completely destroyed because you didn't place your ecosystem perfectly, it would be no fun to me. It would be great to have an adaptive threat level based on how well you fare.
this looks really cool. an idea that might make building harder but could make it look more full of life, is making the plants and buildings and rocks and whatever lack colliders on the top, so they can stick over top of something else. you'd need to indicate where they take up space in some way, but it could make it feel more lively. also, will there be a mac build of it at any point?
Hey this is very cool, I'm working on a very similar game, Gnorp Apologue also inspired me, and I always loved the thousand entities games, so I'm glad to see it withold a great potential. I'm sure you're going places with this game.
i think another important part of an aquarium is layering. idk how pr if it would be possible to implement it in some way but it would bring so much more dimension and intresting gameplay:) also this is such a cute little idea, cant wait for the game
Watching little dudes run around collecting resources is really fun; I am making an RTS game and the workers in the medieval city also pretty much look like busy ants once you zoom out a bit. As a Kid i spent hours watching workers in such games
Sort of tangential, but I've always loved bugs and wanted to see different dev's takes on them in games. One study I was looking at a few years ago was on how they seem to know everything going on within the hive without advanced forms of communication. If I remember correctly, what they seemed to find was that it was based on the number of ants with different roles, marked by their pheromones, that they'd meet within a certain time frame. So like if the colony were attacked and some warriors died, the other nonwarrior ants would see that they aren't seeing as many warriors as there should be so they'd dynamically swap.
The ants also make galeries and build their colony beneath the earth, which opens to a whole housing/life simulation casual gameplay that most often pair really well with a ressources based game :)
I've always been fascinated by ants and thus always looked for ant RTS. So far, the only fun one I've ever found is "empire of the undergrowth", though I havent played in years. It's a very different style from yours, but there is this aspect of fighting other colonies and bigger critters, you shouled check it out! Love your work
14:00 I've been thinking about Aoe2 the entire video and you bringing it up was such a suprise (:
thank you for bringing my childhood ideas to life with this, ant type simulations are too uncommon
I’m not gonna lie, you have my dream job right now. I’ve been trying to learn C# for years now, and it’s been really slow, but I can’t stop now. You are one of my biggest inspirations.
damn i did not realize this video was 23 minute long until it was over. all the prototype games look fun too
Hey thanks for this video very informative and i love how you played other games to get ideas!
Some notes of things I would like to see after playing for a bit:
I wish I had the option to merge more things (Sticks, Honeycomb, etc, or at least be able to delete/sell/relocate certain structures/resources. I also wish there was more variation of the shapes of some of the resources (Sticks, Clay mounds, etc). Maybe rotating or cycling through shapes? More randomness! I wish the little villagers made some sounds! Maybe you can zoom in and hear them chatting with each-other but when zoomed out its silent. Also, after using fertilizer to duplicate some items, it doesn't get consumed, meaning I can use it infinitely to get infinite resources for free.
Overall, I love the art style/feel of the game, great concept and I look forward to seeing more! :)
Funny, I had essentially the same idea for a vegetable / vegetation game, where you'd gain adjacency points, but I tried it as a simple card game. I also never really found the fun in it.
Excited to see the ant colony game develop - it does sound like an interesting idea!
I'm loving playing the demo but I found some bugs:
1: Unlimited fertiliser - Fertiliser doesn't get used up
2: Bee hives are fertilisable - put fertilisers on beehives
Looks really captivating! Can't wait to see how you work in tower defense elements.
As someone who loves terrariums I love this idea! You should look into isopods and springtails as well if you want it add diversity. They are used as a cleanup crew in many reptile terrariums! I have them in my crested gecko terrarium and they keep it fungus free! :)
This looks great, I'm really excited to see where this goes!
That looks really cool, I hope it goes well and we get thaat full ant colony simulator.
I have a question tho if you don't mind.
how did you make the task system for the ants, I made a simple rts but the task system turned out to be a mess, i just used a simple queue of tasks.
This is so funny, this video got recommended to me now after I've made a similar concept in a 48 hour game jam last week, also using Unity DOTS
I watched this a few days ago and your desire to keep your critters from being automatons/1 dimensional stewed with me for a bit. Have you played Oxygen Not Included? It being my favorite game aside, I think the life that the devs breathed into the dupes is something you could find inspiring. Dupes are adorable clones that don't speak any discernable words, but you always know how they feel. They wave to each other, cheer for each other's accomplishments, wipe their tongue off after being fed disgusting food, wobble when sick, etc. They're human enough to get attached to them, but also inhuman enough to not feel too bad when bad things happen to them.
I think you could do wonders with your art style if you gave your ants visible emotions on the level of emojis.
Thank you so much for letting us play it!
The final boss should be a kid with a magnifying glass lmao
A sense of Worldbox but you can intervene. That's great, I love this!
21:55 could also have seasons be a threat, games like clonk planet and glittermitten grove have a pretty heavy threats from some seasons (rain in clonk planet, winter in glittermitten)
Very cool idea. Looking forward to seeing nore of this. Maybe you could keep the original spirit or therarium if the ants are the main population, but they don't win by endlessly growing but by being in balance with the environment. E.g. just adding foodsources is good but it risks overpupulations and them eating the plants faster then they grow. So you add enemies that eat some of the ants, or a river that blocks their path, or events like a rainstorm that washes some ants away and give the plants time to regrow while the ants hide in their caves. And the goal is to creat an ecosystem that can lasts in balance as long as possible without intervention. (E.g. fast forward)
Just my brainstorm, what ever you decide will be fun :).
For a minimalist war approach with many agents I suggest having a look at the game Eufloria, maybe it gives you some ideas, both in regards to gameplay mechanics as well as how to create a variety of levels from a simple set of mechanics
I'm a management and 4k game enthisiast and I can tell you right now; I love the ideas here, I've always been dreaming about some sort of colony sim type of game where there's tons of units you can see but that work on their own while you just manage the building and logistics. From this you pay think games like dwarf fortress and rimworld fit the bill, but they actually deviate in the opposite direction: they focus more on your units being individuals, having individual wants and needs, while the resource and colony management aspects are kind of on the backburner despite how it may feel to some players. To me, the game that gets the closest to this idea so far has been stellaris, oddly enough. Because at the very core of it it's about managing your planets and what to build on them to optimize your use of your available pops rather than anything else, and with it being 4k it has enough different systems in it that by optimizing together offer a pretty fun amount of possibilities in your pursuit of efficient management.
I feel that what you've talked about at the end of the video and shown skirts really closely to this type of gameplay and I can't wait to see how you progress! And also the colony defense aspects are a good way to see just how well you've made your colony, similarly to how you interact with other empires in stellaris
Idk if you have played Frostpunk, but after reading this comment I think you would like it.
@@anytng999 I did and quite enjoyed it, only wish there were more content/modding supporrt/or multiplayer, I'm now just waiting to see frostpunk 2 and if they'll expand the game in scope
@@gaboratoria Yeah, I totally understand. Frostpunk is a great game but lacks a bit of content, especially if you only buy the game without the extra DLC. Frostpunk 2 is releasing this year, 25 July, and after looking at the trailers it sure does look a lot larger in scope compared to the prequel. I do hope they release lots of new scenarios too.
When I saw this game I thought it would be cool to have an ending state where it simulates it for 100 days and sees if it is stable, since you talked about creating a balance in a terrarium. High score is there to gauge how balanced you made it.
Oh gosh yes another deckbuilder roguelite city-builder, I love Against the Storm and I love Kainga so I'll probably love this
Ah, the Islanders inspiration!! That's a really good one too. Simplistic though
Given the ability to have so many ants on the screen the potential for MASSIVE wars is just insane. That would be cool
Haha ants with cannons go vrum vrum
great progress! I was also thinking your tanklings are doing only one thing. I'm worried about this TD thing... I mean there's a natural organic feel in it youre prototype you shouldn't loose by turning this into waves of attack.... I'm thinking different type of tankling could emerge naturally because the resources favors them to. Maybe you could play both sides lets say there is this other race like termites or such.... what do they do? the same things, they use same type of resources to grow. So youd be design the environment so they both grow. Then whats the play, maybe its keeping balance, planting resources that favors one race a bit, because the other is too strong, but not too much... just throwing some ideas 😊 inspiring stuff!
I like the tower defense idea too, but just before that point in the video, what if the tanklings had a lifespan and you had a limited time per run and had unlocks tied to your run score. It'd be the race to make the best layout while the lifespan would most likely keep your colony a certain size. That could keep it fresh, a fun pace, and make less of a need for more/more complicated mechanics to keep extending the life of the game.