I Simulated a Colony of Ant People

[@LycheeGameLabs]

Episode 2 is here! kzbin.info/www/bejne/h6DRd4qDjdB3hbM

[@thatprogramer]

This is a really unique idea! I absolutely love it

[@sarad2487]

Yaaaay

[@prunabluepepper]

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.

[@OrangePylonGames]

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. 😭

[@ultimaxkom8728]

I'm curious whether this semi-vertical-slice-like prototype cost more than a plain programmer prototype (no juice pure prototype).

[@milesparker557]

​@@ultimaxkom8728I imagine they were able to reuse a lot of code from their previous game.

[@ultimaxkom8728]

@@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.

[@milesparker557]

@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.

[@ultimaxkom8728]

@@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?

[@KitsuneFaroe]

"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!

[@sib315]

There kind of simmilar game called Mindustry that's is part factory builder and part tower defence or rts or both depending on level

[@IAmTheNobodyYT]

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.

[@ultimaxkom8728]

A reasonable suggestion. Change now, or patch later.

[@game4us_Splatuber]

How about Patch studio? or patched studio or something like that?

[@thehearingaid]

A nice patch, patchpatch, patchworks, softpatch, escape patch, Patch of the day, etc

[@rainsparks29]

the discord server rebranded to Lychee Game Labs a while back :D

[@rutchjohnson]

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.

[@BlackxesWasTaken]

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

[@SombreroMan716]

Yo same

[@maxmartin6199]

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 :)

[@2teepeepictures382]

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.

[@anytng999]

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.

[@MenicaFolden]

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!!

[@jonp3674]

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.

[@ultimaxkom8728]

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.

[@ShaddyFromHatena]

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

[@stupidmonkey089]

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!

[@NamelessPerson360]

22:10

[@jaxpianoteacher]

@@NamelessPerson360"mentioned Pikmin till the end."

[@NamelessPerson360]

@@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.

[@DaZugZug]

I would like to sniff these plants.

[@Soraphis91]

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).

[@dazcarrr]

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!

[@gabrielturner1287]

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!

[@alchemicColored]

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!

[@hexxt_]

damn i did not realize this video was 23 minute long until it was over. all the prototype games look fun too

[@anytng999]

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!

[@KaraokeDeepCuts]

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!

[@cookiebabbus]

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.

[@Eliasdbr]

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!

[@LycheeGameLabs]

Wow, thank you!

[@yourlocalgrubdog3345]

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.

[@Red_Steampunker]

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.

[@koukaakiva]

Thank you for sharing your prototyping process. It was very interesting seeing the iterative approach you took.

[@YIIP9]

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

[@lavabiscuits]

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.

[@pythonrpg010]

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! :)

[@80l08]

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.

[@heirapparent8217]

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.

[@ultimaxkom8728]

Good suggestions, although be mindful of the potential scope creep following them. *Note: minimalist game.*

[@heirapparent8217]

@@ultimaxkom8728 You got me there chief.

[@ultimaxkom8728]

@@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.

[@AndréThemistocles]

Don't make the same mistake again of making this game and after three years changing your mind and having to redo it again

[@UliTroyo]

Nah, do whatever man. The story of your life will be written whether or not you meet others’ expectations. I like your videos regardless.

[@Penguinmanereikel]

Or do, make a video about it, and let it go viral.

[@ultimaxkom8728]

@@UliTroyo KZbin 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]*

[@ultimaxkom8728]

@@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._

[@ultimaxkom8728]

@@UliTroyo KZbin 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]*

[@ryanlibatique0666]

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.

[@coobbyo]

I’ve wanted to make a game like this for years. Glad to be watching this

[@kin98100]

To make it more minimal i thought of maling the ants autonomus and they build and gather depending on resources you place. So like with real ants you give them stuff and they do theyr thing.

[@caliorbroke]

Just stumbled across this video and I love the idea! First of all, it's gorgeous and I love how mesmerising it is! Seems like there's a lot of direction you could take this in, I really enjoy when games give the player control of how they want to play, calm environment builder vs dominating war machine. It could be a great ambassador for giving the player control of the gameplay and how they choose to play. That being said, multiplayer could be interesting, like a vs mode with up to 4 people that could be represented by different coloured Tanklings. I also like the idea of having different types of Tanklings, like 'warrior, breeder, gatherer, worker, etc' would be another concept you could explore as perhaps a different amount of each type at different stages would provide certain strategic advantages. Anyway can't wait to see the updates, going to check out the other videos now!!

[@highstakes5260]

A patch quest video is a blessing, you have a very nice voice

[@ninibupu]

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?

[@gery49]

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.

[@Gambit-YT]

0:57 “a lot of your ideas that might sound good on paper actually will suck”. Yeah learning that the hard way right now haha. I’ll still probably release it anyways since I’m about halfway done already

[@GamesBySaul]

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!

[@mikelezhnin8601]

Happy to see Islanders being mentioned, this game is surprisingly addictive despite its minimalism

[@mattresshour4860]

I LOVE THIS GAME ALREADY, it is so satisfying looking at the little tanklings move around

[@F41nt13]

The ant farm concept looks amazing but I'm afraid the war and tower defense takes the project off rails. I think you should discover other concepts first. Compared to terrarium you should discover death first. Dead plants, ants, and how you handle them. How they give back to the system

[@anytng999]

True, hopfully he didn't get stuck in a rabbit hole of tower defense without thinking of other opportunities.

[@Soulessblur]

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.

[@sharktacos]

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! :)

[@oprimonrardian]

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.

[@norseexpansion8076]

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

[@GamingTardigrade]

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

[@Boomblox5896]

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.

[@beyond4598]

there was a game back then where you just defended your colony from other ants called "Ant hills". This game reminds me of that but more advanced ofc

[@GyroCoder]

Oh gosh yes another deckbuilder roguelite city-builder, I love Against the Storm and I love Kainga so I'll probably love this

[@GyroCoder]

Ah, the Islanders inspiration!! That's a really good one too. Simplistic though

[@publicalias8172]

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.

[@meatyokra6637]

I love your artwork! It gives the esthetic that I look for in my favorite games. Looking forward to the next update.

[@Big_Dai]

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!

[@xKumei]

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.

[@moonstar_connor]

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.

[@derekborders9647]

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.

[@HeythGaming]

SERPA DESIGN MENTIONED

[@nekuyo95]

Man, AntsCanada could inspire this game also really big time, two of the greatest channels

[@HeythGaming]

@@nekuyo95 ANTSCANADA MENTIONED

[@BananaBotanists]

Tanks for Nothin and Dr plants are also some of my favs😅

[@qualityclipscentral2876]

@@BananaBotanists tanks for nothin needs to upload regularly :(

[@LazyPoet101]

The final boss should be a kid with a magnifying glass lmao

[@mioki-leaf2]

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 :)

[@AvoxionYT]

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!

[@ThePiachu]

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

[@rob3110]

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

[@igrb]

I love how you went though the reasoning of all decisions and their context here; great vid!

[@ariorick]

Notice how at 11:55 inability to make loops became a critical problem, and then it absolutely did not matter later. I definitely think that it looks more fun with ants, but it would probably be a decent game on a previous version too, it's just when you get burned out on an idea, sometimes you find excuses to throw everything away, and rework it to some new idea that excites you now. You're at a great point now, be mindful not to throw it away to rework it into a tower defense all of sudden

[@2RyuGo]

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.

[@Bogrin]

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! :)

[@tommax1626]

There is a game called Ant Nation, you might wanna look into that, it is pretty basic but simmilar to your idea, it is on nintendo though!

[@kristenholt3051]

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.

[@AnnisVeryGoodGames]

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!

[@snowpoint720]

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!

[@hellothere-nv8gc]

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

[@shadowguarder2857]

the biggest visual upgrade was not having the grid always be there and also having a background green color. makes it feel like an ecosystem, and less like... well, a game. makes it feel natural

[@rerere284]

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)

[@InboundShovel]

Really great breakdown of the prototype iteration process - excited to see more!

[@Nomontopian]

My suggestion would be to lean back toward the terrarium feel you were thinking of at the beginning: introduce more critters. Not as complex and central as the ant people, but still little things to watch. Sometimes they'll fight the ant people, sometimes the ant people will hunt them. It'll make the game a bit more zen and give more emergent complexity by watching the interactions between all of them. Placing the giant mantis colony too close to the antlings will cause trouble for them, but placing it too far away will mean the spiders will get out of control since the antlings don't spend enough time hunting them like the mantis' would! It'd become a game about building balance, just like trying to set up an ecosystem in a real terrarium. Town builders are fun, but I'd really love to see a good terrarium builder where, once you've built it well enough, you can watch the little critters interact in a balanced circle of life. Even see how things develop, and mix it up a bit more if it gets stale or unbalanced!

[@Raye938]

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.

[@percyvile]

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.

[@percyvile]

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.

[@anytng999]

@@percyvile this is some great advice

[@randomclips7777]

You probably know this, but there are so many types of ants like an ant that has a sheild as a head that it can use to seal cracks in your anthill. Ant games have so much potential because ant colonies are legit like a game themselves.

[@pandaberick]

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!

[@crinklyonion1410]

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.

[@MBSfilms77]

Bro your an absolute genius! That was the best original idea for a minimal game ever had in quite a long time tbh.

[@dmarsub]

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 :).

[@Amvod]

(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 :)

[@D01Light]

I love how your prototypes looks more polished than AAA games

[@ChimeratAlpha]

Interesting idea. I've played a few ant games, but this is the first one that seems to want to add an economy.

[@evanjohnson5038]

Lots of cool ideas in this your video, I think one of the biggest problems with your last design (I think adding your combat system would be a great idea) is the difficulty. It seemed that it was too easy to get a ton of resources and then get a ton more of options to buy to the point that you just have an overwhelming amount of what would then just feel like "stuff", rather than progress and excitement, because then it would mean something to have that change to make more progress. Cool idea, I like to see the timeline of ups and downs. 👍

[@foodstuff]

I just *love* how this went from "abstract card-based minimalist colony simulator" to "colony simulator".

[@avgchoobafan]

Ants have different purposes and types to acomodate those purposes, scouting ants, collector ants, guard ants, etc. Something I think it could be nice is to start on a small map with a few ants, the resources are invested in creating new types of ants, and use them to discover new clusters of resources and grow the colony. Also instead of placing resources on the map from the start you could make an ant that is in charge of moving resources that are already on the map closer to the main colony. But maybe at that point is somewhat closer to an RTS or a colony simulator type of game rather than resource management. Just some ideas though

[@treemologamedev]

Maaan all the iterations and prototypes looked already soo good and fun! Looking forward for the final product!

[@SpectrumThing]

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!

[@cupofoats]

As someone who isn't a game de but an artist, I love how you share where you get your inspiration and the entire thought process of your work. I don't see that a lot. I hope this gets more views so more people get inspired.

[@jaypants1436]

Maybe the different “ant” castes/types can have a farming/collecting and battle purpose that other types don’t so each type feels unique

[@natasha6867]

i love serpadesign. if i were to imagine a game based off of his channel, i'd go for a tank building simulation ecosystem game. basically each level would be building more and more complex tanks and unlocking new animals/plants with each tank/level. there'd be the first series of levels of land vivariums and then a second level of levels of aquatic vivariums. each creature/substrate/plant would produce and use different resources and the players goal would be to be able to add all the required creatures while maintaining homeostasis. so you'd start with substrate, introduce bacteria and springtails, they'd produce like nitrogen/stabilize pH and decay/recycle organic matter. once that reaches the right levels you have enough points to unlock plants to spend those points on and then they'd produce organic matter/food for creatures and use up nitrogen, etc etc. then you could unlock/add other creatures like beetles, frogs, lizards, etc. you'd make it as complex or simple as you want - for example you could make bacteria just use up one thing and produce one thing or you could use up one thing but produce 3 things, etc. my guess is keeping it as simple as possible for each creature would probably be ideal as it can get complicated really quick that'd be a ton of fun and if you had some good art/lighting in there to make the vivariums beautiful it'd be so amazing. players would be really proud of their finished tank builds :)

[@okamiryun6963]

Games that might help expand ideas or show how available these options are. For ants empire of the undergrowth is showing different ant species and what they do. Rise to ruin is a town builder game with tower defense against ai and waves of attackers.

[@andyhanlin5800]

I agree with some people here about finishing the game, but i also like your ideas about future devolpment. A solution is to take what you have and leave it with this idea and finish it and then start a "new" version that is actually ant theamed. The reason i say this is what you are cuttently eorking with and your vision are going in different dirrections and it you let both ideas go their separate ways bothideas will be better and more holistic.

[@thelightsilent]

I cannot stress how much art style means for a game. Take cult of the lamb for example their prototypes and the original game they presented had awesome gameplay features mechanics and themes but the art style was soo lacking thankfully their publisher helped them realise and improve on this. Without an appealing art/graphics style a game with good features mechanics gameplay can suddenly ignored and not do as well as it should do. Judge a book by its cover or in this case a video game by its art.

[@evoluxman9935]

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

[@Topengaverse]

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.

[@SkeleTom22]

This was an amazing video. Seeing it come together really is something special. Looking forward to future videos!

[@seagullsdaddy]

I played the latest version and it was very cool! I decided to break the game a little. In my second playthrough, I don’t know how, but for some reason the fertilizer did not decrease. When I reached level 18 and only then noticed that I could no longer take new cards (yes, that’s logical). Then, having collected enough coins at the end of my playthrough, I decided to spend them on additional cards. After 9 or 10 takes, my computer froze. Overall, the game is sooooo addictive (in a good way). The game has room to develop and I will look forward to new content! Good luck

[@PlumOrganization]

How does this only have 25,000 views?! This is an amazing video and game!

[@anytng999]

now it has 115k+ views.

[@PlumOrganization]

lol, honestly. 👌🏻@@anytng999