Teaching my virtual Ant People to Fight!

[@tritonis54]

This is maybe a bit anti-video-gamey but a thing that is super cute with ants is the way they never go on a straight line but always seem to wiggle a bit in a very peculiar way, looking for a better path or something. It's endearing and really make them feel alive, not just like little robots.

[@MrFlambo_]

Agreed it makes them feel all cute and stupid, cause if you watch them follow a trail, if 2 are heading at each other they will almost always bump into each other Edit: The reason I know this is cause my house has these sugar ants that don't bite that will occasionally show up in little scouting parties in my room and they are so funny to watch because of how stupid but efficient they are

[@Tzi123bor]

A way to implement this could be using simulated ant pheromone trails, but that might not be efficient enough if there are thousands of ants.

[@alansmithee419]

@@Tzi123bor I think it would be much simpler to add some type of random movement to their walks. Certainly an interesting developmental process needed to make it look natural though.

[@danielsantos3254]

@@Tzi123borSebastian Lague has a video on implementing this exact concept in Unity that worked with several thousand particles, so it might not be that far fetched.

[@silversoul21000]

ants actually do that only when they are looking for things to forage ! once they did find they do DO pretty straight lines (3 lines ways actually which prevents circulation jams)

[@Nikeshan]

There is this AntsCanada KZbin channel that built a 1000 gallon terrarium with 4 or 5 ant colonies along with a ton of other insects and animals, it’s fascinating how ants live and not attack some animals but do attack others. It might give you a lot of inspiration for your ant miners

[@gresenolpholt354]

I wrote this on his last video! I hope he does!

[@silversoul21000]

Pantdora :D

[@maplefoxxo]

Yes!!!!

[@maplefoxxo]

I was thinking of ants Canada

[@ladygaga8781]

ANTCANADA mentioned!!!!

[@avocado9999]

I had an idea for fighting the slugs, where if there aren't enough ants attacking it, or its only workers fighting, some could release pheromones to call in further away ants/warriors

[@halalouis3814]

That's Genius!

[@maplefoxxo]

That's what I was thinking

[@sky01james28]

I was going to say the same thing, when an ant attacks it should alert ants in an area larger than their normal bubble of awareness

[@vickonator4998]

You could have different species of "Ants" each with different pros, cons, art styles, and mechanics. Maybe one of the species could be a "Moss Ant" so you can still have the original artwork in its own colony!

[@setster007]

That's an awesome idea! I was just thinking along those lines, and I come down here and see that you thought of it first!

[@LagiacrusHunter]

For the issue of "how much should the game focus on fighting", you might consider an opt-in approach. You already have a framework for structures that produce resources, so implementing a "bait" category of cards that attract hostile monsters, which the ants can then fight for resources, would allow the player to organically decide how much combat they want in their playthrough. The player could turn it into a full on RTS game by going all in on bait cards, crafting, and housing, or could stick with simple resource management/peaceful farming as in the previous prototypes.

[@aguyontheinternet8436]

exactly my thoughts

[@ChelloveckCog]

I doubly like the idea of the enemies being defeated dropping loot that the ants can gather off of their corpse, creating a little gathering resource right there in front of them. Maybe with a timer on it until it decays or perhaps other insects in the ecosystem that harvest them as well and build up their own homes (another reason to build archer ants in the case of the opting out of raids perhaps)

[@spaceman1643]

Hello! love your work! If you want to add different types of ants, certain colonies have whats called 'majors' which are way bigger than normal ants and they are specialized in protecting the colony and hauling big chunks of food. Basically, as a colony grows bigger they have more needs so they feed some larvae with special food that can either make them grow into majors or even grow into queens that would leave the colony to find a mate and start a new colony and so on. If you wanna see more on different types of ants with special attributes, I recommend AntsCanada on youtube. He recently started a serie on an ecosystem he built and it might inspire you for the game. His content is more romanticized than SerpaDesign but it's also very entertaining. Good luck with your game :)

[@SIZModig]

That's a clever way of either setting up a new outpost, or sending a new queen out - so that you can start a new game/map under this new Queen! AntsCanada is great, I agree.

[@Just_a_guy909]

He could also make different types of ants based on species such as honeypot ants and the Malaysian exploding ant.

[@lavabiscuits]

Like ants that have a ranged poison attack or trap jaw ants who can leap to add variety visually.

[@Just_a_guy909]

@lavabiscuits They could possibly even have the ability to dodge attacks since trap jaw ants use their mandibles to escape danger

[@purpleheadache6455]

Having the enemies have 2 eye stalks really reminds me of Bulborbs from Pikmin. This game is really starting to feel like a top-down pikmin colony sim. Whish honestly just sounds like a dream game to me! Combining my favorite video game franchise with my favorite genre of games. I never got patch quest because the game didn't really seem up my alley, but this game feels like it was just made for me to enjoy. Let's just say, I am hyped.

[@SIZModig]

I think you should aim for a game where you have to explore and expand your colony in search of new food sources - you still upgrade your Castle/settlement however, probably without outposts (if you want it to simulate how ants build, anyway) but in order to get hold of new resources you might need to send your warriors on either raids, meaning you get some short term resources but leave the node or the enemies to recover (so that you can raid them again!), or you might send your warriors to attack the "nest" where a threat is spawning "enemies" from. Basically, you should think of what the end goal of a session or playthrough is, and if it's not to be done within the hour you'll need some "checkpoints" to aim for in between the beginning and the end.

[@LycheeGameLabs]

This might be the best of both worlds

[@itsukaaaaa]

I really like the "plant-creature" earlier design of the ants - I highly recommend retaining both of these designs. A "gardener" and "warrior" subtypes would fit really well with the ant theming, giving you different eusocial castes to play with. "Gardeners" could be green and bushy, better at resource gathering, and could do low damage but also slow enemies down, while "warriors" would be less efficient at certain tasks but have much higher offense and speed. A few types like that could create a really cool progression path and options for specializations - don't scrap the design quite yet!

[@MiserableLunacy]

I tested the update from last video and it was a lot of fun though I saw that you can get a lot of honey very easy. like .... a LOT of honey. So naturally I did what everyone would have done and started a new colony placed the building that honey gets delivered to at the very bottom of my screen and played until the pile of honey was so high, it went beyond the screen. I really like this :D

[@nnelg8139]

Your ants look a lot like the main character of Hollow Knight. This is a good thing!

[@dragonflydragon8716]

exactly what i thought! they look great

[@boyinblue.]

That's what I thought too

[@Bobmoment123]

Lol I thought that too

[@IAmTheNobodyYT]

Love the new logo! Looks very proffesional but it still looks fun and like the old fruit logo

[@YayDragons]

But where did lemon gooo

[@ThePixelMan626]

@@YayDragons”gone reduced to atoms”

[@metawarp7446]

I think it's kinda boring tbh

[@yakira-liroy]

For the farmers you can use the green ants since they're already a passive group, the green ants supply the brown ants with weapons so they can protect the colony. This system is already similar to that of a real ant colony, the only ants you're missing are the nursery ants that protect and care for the young, the queen ant, and the flying ant warriors. You'll also need a secondary queen ant or princess should the colony fall, and you need to rebuild. But hey, that's just my opinion.

[@BlackxesWasTaken]

The "bite" things on the new bugs image looks like ears to me

[@DasParedes]

happy that I'm not the only one that saw ears lol

[@jonp3674]

One thing that worked well in my game is to have competing goals. So in my game you wanted to trade to make money, buy art and then buy soldiers to protect your trade goods and art. Art is how you win and so you want to focus on that but if you don't buy enough soldiers that leads to trouble. I also had it that you can't control the soldiers they do as they want. So yeah maybe something similar will work here? You could have warriors be a drag on resource collecting so you want to make as few as possible, but losing buildings is also a drag so you have to balance it while working towards your economic goals.

[@bobjhon7391]

Something that will definitely help are small reactions even a simple flash and a sound effect when something takes damage will send a lot of feed back to the players so they know something is happening, even if they have a health bar, noises and obvious signs something is being damaged can also draw the attention of anyone focused on one part if the screen.

[@bobjhon7391]

The ants as they attack right now feel like they are lightly tickling the slugs as is, even if it does nothing and you change nothing, small changes like that make all the difference, like nerfing the sound a gun makes since people think it’s better than a different gun with the exact same stats. Changing the sound alone made players think the ‘better’ gun was more balanced.

[@Rogue64...]

I have an idea for the warrior ants I would call them soldier ants and they would be more red than orange they would be worse at building and collecting but they would be good at fighting but they would be harder to create slash they would have a cost to make/be born whereas worker ants would be quite cheap to be born/created worse at fighting and better at building and collecting . I LOVE YOUR ART ❤

[@mannelito11]

Add different types of ants (like red ants who do more damage but work worse, or slave ants who can enslave other colonies to grow)

[@duidiot644]

It'd be cool to see some sort of danger propagation between the ants, i.e., when one ant enters combat mode while others are out of the activation zone but close to an ant that is already in combat.

[@Noeyk200]

On the subject of warrior ants, I think something that would be cool moving forward would be the ability to create a whole different variety of ants. Ants in real life have extremely specialized jobs within their colonies. Some of the crazier examples are phragmosis, where certain members of the colony develop large, disc-shaped heads that they use as doors to plug up the entrances to the anthill (which I could see being implemented as an ant that just hangs out near buildings and draws enemy attention so that they'll attack it instead of the building), honeypot ants, which can eat an excessive amount of food which other ants then extract from them, exploding ants, which (as the name suggests) explode to defend their colonies, and more!

[@opossumboyo]

Patch Quest is my go-to game on the Steam Deck. If this is anywhere near as entertaining as that, you’ve got a day one customer.

[@dazcarrr]

cool seeing your process of drawing stuff for these games

[@rhyeen]

Love the use of Animate as a drawing tool! Cool to see I'm not alone. I always get some brows raised when I mention it as my preferred drawing software, but it is so so fast and I get those sweet sweet vectors. The "2d" layers (using the frames) is also super handy.

[@LycheeGameLabs]

Yes! I always found illustrator far too cluttered and complicated

[@wasbashing]

This game will be a banger once it launches. I can smell it

[@sarad2487]

Suggestion: you should make different types of ants, some that fight poorly but collect splendidly (aka the cute lil mossy ones) and others that fight well but collect badly (aka the ant-y orange ones) EDIT: look just please bring back the cute lil mossy ants aaa

[@phoenixaasted]

I thought those were brown vessels from hollow Knight.

[@hypnotunez]

You could also implement farming, some ants farm from smaller insects

[@pyrrhastarnes8976]

Honestly just listening to your problem solving in one of these videos got me through some SERIOUS creative block on my own project. Cheers for that

[@dennismylastname5031]

The bases in XCOM always reminded me of ant colonies on how they have all these different underground chambers with specific purposes. Might be something there. Just throwing it out there incase it sparks something.

[@generrosity]

The idea of factorio style placement and using drones as conveyer belts, a well oiled machine... And the whole thing breaks apart as a angry horde of fire ants when an enemy is nearby dissolving parts of the factory and needing replacement drones sounds fun 😄

[@samhblackmore]

Love the idea of a colony that you can design and grow. Imagine different "rooms" connected by tunnels e.g. the nursery where larvae are growing and need to be fed

[@octia2817]

This is such a weird coincidence. I have recently (days ago) started work on an RTS, using DOTS, about spider colonies... And now I come across your videos! Aside from the ant/spider difference, and approaching my game from a fighting-first approach, it's surprisingly similar! I wonder where both of us are gonna end up.

[@pamelafornwalt9729]

I would love to watch a dev stream as you’re working on stuff. You have such a nice art style and chill vibe. It’d be super cool to watch you work! ^u^

[@SerafineSilverstream]

One of the major fun things in antkeeping is actually to watch the brood develop. The workers do feed them and clean them, and there's also this anticipation thrill of "this thing is one day going to turn into an ant". I'd recommend instead of making a simple ant castle that spits out ant people to maybe make something like brood racks with growing larvae (the castle has some, but sooner or later you need more of them), or maybe adding an underground map where an entire city-building aspect happens can work.

[@DasParedes]

it's getting very cute and good to look. I'm very interested to see what will be the direction that this will take. some ideas that I had while looking the video and reading the comments: - make the ants follow one another (pheromones) - one ant could see that other is on 'warrior' mode and go together to help, even if it is not in the range of the enemy (the 'ant' would 'call' for help from neighbor ants) - the path of the ants could be slightly curved, so they appear more organic, and also slightly random

[@BasketOfPuppies642]

I really like the implied depth on the destroyed castle.

[@ashermerrell1152]

Idea- your ants are separated into civilians and warriors, but there is an area around the center of the colony that alerts all ants to fight for the hive when breached. Make a wall able to be built around it, Badda bing badda boom

[@luconis158]

May i suggest a bunker or outpost like building where a set number of ants will gather and attack anything that comes near it?

[@Beets_Creations]

Very cool! I like the idea of different ant types! There's a lot of inspiration to be drawn from ants, like how they "milk" aphids and stuff like that.

[@SysFan808]

feels like the mosslings and the ants would be two different difficulty settings.

[@Terrahex1]

Got the last video recommended out of nowhere, bought patch quest, and now I'm super impressed. Looking forward to this game too. Pikmin 3 is one of my top 5 games

[@captainstroon1555]

A key feature of eusocial species like ants are different castes for different tasks. Besides the mentioned warriors, this could be a neat way to micromanage which tasks your antlings prioritize. A sort of specialisation chart might be neat, where basic allrounder antlings can evolve, or rather metamorph into more and more specialized castes, similar to the Zerg in Starcraft. Maybe the green mossling could even make a return as a farmer caste, exclusively focussing on harvesting plants.

[@Boomblox5896]

I definitely agree that you should make dedicated Warrior ants, maybe some that can chuck pebbles at the slugs using their pincers, and others that can attack normally by bumping into the slugs. I suppose having a barracks-type structure or guard tower can ensure that warrior ants will spawn there and be strategically placed to defend against enemies on the outer rim or interior of your colony.

[@ExploreImagineDefineCreate]

Some of the enemy ideas you had really invoked Pikmin to my mind. I love love super love Pikmin, so I'm really stoked to see this game sharing some elements, even if superficial.

[@boyinblue.]

I loved that beetle sketch, so cute. I do really enjoy ants so I hope you keep going forward with this game!

[@Theflit]

I am in love with this game continue with that ❤🎉😊

[@HidinginPublic]

Massive support! Love the way this game is going

[@kelpstorm]

i adore your art style man, its so clean!! i like both the old and new looks of the ants, but the new one definitely does stand out better in the environment. also those enemy designs are so cool :D

[@ebeeobee6103]

5:36 mini hollow Knight?

[@BillieB.]

Idea: Once the colony is big enough they should be able to produce majors (like some ant species do), they can be slightly larger and deal a little more attack damage.

[@coldchange]

Absolutely love the game concept! I actually have had an idea to create an ant simulation game for a short while and seeing someone else who consumes the same terrarium building content as me and is making a game with said concept is a great inspiration to me. Keep up the good work!

[@lucasspringe5052]

I literally came here to say the exact thing as you. Instead of gathering wood to make weapons, they should gather a specific type of pollen/nectar to feed the larvae and grow them into majors & super majors. They would be much better at fighting while also having a much higher carrying capacity than the normal ants. That would be super super cool. Ive been binging Ants Canada as well, and I also think it could give PQ some really great inspiration. Love the work so far! I’ll definitely play this game when it’s out on steam

[@cagiestquasar8784]

Go in the middle! This is glorious so far! I think it would be amazing to build a whole ant civilization with a variety of buildings and building tiers to satisfy different tiers of ants. Then have a variety of enemies that come in scaled difficulty waves, or they have their own civilization

[@patchesdog4330]

I would love to see different themed terrariums, maybe fire themed, jungle or more whimsical things

[@dudewithredhair]

The sound design of all the UI stuff is so good

[@TheBunnyHarvestman]

TBH I feel I like the Mosslings to be the creatures in your game, with some mix of your old mossy buildings rather than ants.

[@humble-hedgehog]

Love the in depth style of devlog! Keep it up, I'm learning a ton from them

[@cammanderdj146]

I feel like you can make the mossy guys a costume for the ants or a different character altogether

[@eboatwright_]

This looks soo goood!! I'm really loving the art style, it's reminiscent of Patch Quest, but new and a little more earthy, and less clean

[@puffaphish]

If your unsure about the direction of the game, maybe try all 3 with the new ants being a mix, moss ants being more construction and a new ant being combat related allowing starting options for players

[@hasyxd1671]

I definitely enjoy that kind of devlog and I find the direction that you're taking the game in really cool ! And for the upload schedule I think do what is confortable for you. I'd rather have less video with more content and quality than the other way around. Keep it up ! ^^

[@yiannchrst]

This new art style for the ants looks like Hollow Knight and love it!

[@nuclearpasta3307]

What if you did a swarm mechanics thing where whenever an ant detects an enemy in its immediate vicinity it also alerts all other ants in that same vicinity, and the alerted ants will also tell the ants around them so the attention is placed on the enemy without having to rely on multiple ants crossing the path separately. Love how it’s looking so far

[@tonyanimations5377]

Seing you draw the assets is so relaxing, i love it !

[@GamesBySaul]

Very cute! I think the combat looks super nice, and fits the game greatly, also the pathfinding you went for looks interesting, I'll have to read more into it at some point! :)

[@definitely-not-jeff-goldbl9962]

It would be cool if you used the old bug design as like a parasite that spawns and goes directly for the plants. Maybe there would even be specialized ants that can find these parasites. Or maybe they’re just fast enough that the ants can’t kill them immediately

[@madmanmax120]

I could see a similar design philosophy to Factorio's as being fitting for this game on the scale of "City Builder -> Tower Defence", in that when your base gets too big, it turns into a tower defence game, but otherwise stays pretty consistently as a building base game. Seeing all the little dudes run about is rather peaceful and fun, and having to worry about regular combat could remove that vibe. But also, it's your game and your vision, so you do you pal :P Lovin the videos and seeing the progress!

[@CrabQueen]

Wouldn't it be neat to have different ant castes? worriors more bug like, spiky, workers planty?

[@g4ldin091]

hey, i think i say for all of us viewer, but don't need to worry about keeping a busy video schedule! i really like this project, and i want to see the best of if, regardless of the frequency of devlogs

[@tylerburns277]

I think it would be cool to eventually have different skins the player can use including your original model, you can even monetize it by making it a dlc with multiple skins for the ants, the buildings, and the enemies

[@book-obsessedweirdo8677]

Some ants also farm aphids, that could be a fun addition! Maybe some enemies will try and kill the aphids?

[@fiestaskull1540]

I am def loving this video format. Very interesting and entertaining seeing your thought process come to fruition!

[@luigiawesome6587]

I'm really looking forward to the next episode of this series!

[@sebastianalegre7148]

I love this project! Was playing it last week and really wanting a combat system.

[@humblebumble2477]

Maybe you could take this game in a reverse real time strategy, where you’re adding things to the environment to help the ants. Like taking care of an actual ant terrarium!

[@Eutrofication]

it seems like you've made a decision about the ants, but I really liked the mossy creatures and mossy ant hill actually

[@ryanreed4698]

I really like the original ants and ant hill it was such a cool style and cute! You should have types of ants so you can use both sprites, like warrior / gatherer.

[@ding-hobba]

Reminds me of playing Ant Buster on ArmorGames back in the day☺looks amazing!

[@zejugames5045]

Ants have their own pathfinding system! The ants roam randomly in new territory, leaving a faint pheronome trail so they can find their way home. But when they find something interesting, they leave a strong pheromone trail all the way home. Then when an ant comes across a pheronome trail, they will follow it to the interesting thing! The pheromones wear off over time. The neat thing is it allows for emergent behavior. Ants don't react to something right away; it has to be discovered. Then the ants will swarm!

[@Nevir202]

I think a good way for this to go would be something like Tower Defense, where you build little barracks for the soldiers, so you can strategically locate them and then your worker ants could still attack, but ONLY do so if an enemy is actively destroying an infrastructure building in their vicinity. If you make the enemies fight back, and your workers quite weak, that naturally creates incentive to lay things out such that the workers stay protected. Not sure how much terrain you could handle without your pathfinding tanking the system, but getting fewer resource cards, which would then force you to push outward to claim more territory, creates a natural gameplay loop. More ants = more better, obviously More ants need more resources More resources means more territory More territory means that you need more soldiers to defend Upkeep of more soldiers means you need more ants.

[@JubulusPrime]

It'd be cool if there was a final boss like an ant eater that slowly gets closer to the colony over time like a looming threat bigger than any foe the ants have faced before. Compare the size of an ant fo an ant eater, ant eaters would be like a eldritch horror to them, ant eaters are even dangerous to animals of the same size so for mere ants to defend against it would be a legendary epic.

[@TrueSlugcat]

I would love to see this game with full 2.5D, though I get that’s a lot of work. It’d totally take it to another level though. Loving it!

[@Bobmoment123]

I think the creatures should have more fleshed out animations because right now they just wiggle or contort I think it will make it look a lot more polished

[@maplefoxxo]

I think it would also be good that the normal ants could still attack! Because it could be a backup when the army ants aren't there/dead. Just the warriors are more skilled/have higher view perception. I don't know how you plan on making the enemies, but anyway i imagine would be epic! Like a dedicated camp for them or they burst out/or backup warriors burst out when an alarm is raised, or warrior ants patrol or help other ants when idle

[@mushymush6902]

I kinda liked the lil mosslings- maybe you could implement different cosmetic skins for the colony sometime in the future. So people can customize their lil guys!

[@the_vine_queen]

I think a question you can ask yourself to clarify the city builder-tower defense spectrum is: What is the main goal of the game? What are you building up towards? Is it the absolute conquest of the entire race of slugs, taking over habitats and nests? Or is it production towards more advanced buildings and self-sustaining functions, where the slugs are only a hurdle to defend against? That will let you know which buildings and ant types to prioritize, and which of the two styles should have more depth.

[@CardboardBones]

I really enjoyed seeing the behind-the-scenes. With thay said, i kidna miss the moss people/the moss on the buildings. I felt it added a lot of personality and color to the art that i feel is missing with the redesign. Though having the ants be orange is probably better for cokor blind folx

[@Sh1penfire]

This is turning out really cool, and i never knew you knew about Mindustry! Been trying to break the mould with a Mindustry mod where Combat isn't the end goal of why you build things, wish me luck :D

[@thatprogramer]

Can't wait to see the new balanced system between Fighting and Building.

[@shrewkit]

i wish tou could like peek inside the colony and see the ant set up, i lnow they probably dont really have one due to how it is but when i think of ants i think of thise cross secrions of their habitats

[@shadamethyst1258]

On alternative for pathfinding is to leave pheromone trails on the ground. Funnily enough, this is also known as an ant simulation :p

[@axolotl482]

I think for the combat focus part, maybe you could just add a slider for the spectrum so if a player wants a combat focus, they could slider it over to that side obviously it isn't that simple, balancing would be a nightmare, but it seems like a good middle ground

[@Just_Chuk]

Man I'm seeing the vision in this game, it's got potential.

[@theothetorch8016]

Awesome progress! It looks confusing that the castle has this animation for taking damage, but also the same animation for recieving resources.

[@LycheeGameLabs]

Good point!

[@preuuu]

I can't wait to see how this game continues to develop

[@anthonyrohleder8840]

suggestion make patroling lines for warriers and workers run from enemys realeaseing pheramones whitch could make the ants deploy soldiers and maybe enemy colonys whitch could add a multiplayer battle section to the came or many players building or observing one colony

[@funlandbuilder]

dont forget to add a gigantic enemy which is a ant eater! (probably) also i dont mean try making it as soon as possible just keep that idea in your head so when the game is more finished you can make it

[@derstreber2]

A variation of flow fields can be used to path to multiple destinations. For example the ants could use flow fields to path to the nearest slug instead of using a bubble around the ants. This way ants can attack sooner rather than be merely defensive. The game could also send out a different number of ants depending on the amount of enemies. (This will prevent massive resource gathering interruptions.) For example send out the 5 closest ants for one enemy, or send out ten closest for 2 enemies. It won't be perfect because of the flow field, sometimes 8 ants could attack one slug and only 2 ants another, but after one slug dies the flow field will update and the ants will adjust. In practice if computing the flow field is too expensive, a hybrid approach may be necessary, where the flow field brings the ants to the last computed location of an enemy, and then the bubble around the ant is used for targeting. This way the flow field need not be computed every frame.

[@alonsoriera7066]

Instead of each ant searching arround it, search from each enemies arround it. There will be more ants that enemies so its the same logical check but less times, just cast from the enemie to the near ants.

[@gresenolpholt354]

The game youre building so far is giving me strong "the wandering village" vibes. So it may do you some good to check it out!