Ludum Dare 47: Ants, Inc.

I just finished my second Ludum Dare Compo! I approached this jam more prepared than last time: I started with a plan, tried it, failed miserably, pivoted, pulled an all-nighter, and finally produced... Ants Inc.

 

 

The day before the jam began I made myself an "ideal schedule", blocking off time for each discipline as well as food/sleeping breaks. This was a good exercise because it forced me to take into account everything that goes into making a game.

Of course, that schedule derailed almost instantly. To quote a certain Prussian general: "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy". 

I spent the entire first night stumped by the theme: "Stuck in a loop". I came up with a couple of concepts but didn't like any of them. At around 12AM, inspiration finally hit me and I started coding. I prototyped a game about identifying looping gifs. There was just one problem: it wasn't fun at all! 

 

When I woke up Saturday morning, I knew my idea was bunk. I was 12 hours into the jam and had no progress to show for it. At that point, it was time to K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple Salyh). I picked a minigame I liked and set out to make something similar. I coded a quick playable and sent it to my friend Wyatt for feedback. His verdict? It was decent. 

 

Hallelujah! 

The majority of my Saturday was consumed by animation. For gameplay reasons, I needed to make twelve unique animation loops. I gave myself one hour to produce each ant, and animated for 12 hours straight. That can't have been healthy, but somehow I got it done. By 6 AM, I'd finished the last ant and took a little nap.

 

The final day was reserved for audio. I don't know much about music so I took a quick online tutorial by Ableton. It must've worked because I wrote a catchy little tune. 

With all the pieces in place, I posted the game to itch.io at 3PM sharp. Absolutely nothing went according to my initial plan, but I'd finished my game regardless! That's the joy of jamming: you never know what you're gonna end up with.

Final Result

Ants, Inc. did quite well! I scored highly in the Overall, Graphics, and Humor categories. I'm especially happy with my Audio ranking too (I got whomped in Audio last time). On the other hand, my Innovation & Theme scores leave something to be desired. Let's see if I can do better in LD 48!

 

PS. Ants Inc. is a web game. Play it now!