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PICNIC TOGETHER's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Presentation | #670 | 3.796 | 3.796 |
| Overall | #1874 | 3.068 | 3.068 |
| Originality | #2081 | 3.130 | 3.130 |
| Fun | #3359 | 2.278 | 2.278 |
Ranked from 54 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
In the game, ants need to join forces and collaborate to help keep their colony from starving. There is a scout ant that if the link between the anthill and the food source (a tablecloth full of delicacies at the other end of the garden), and groups of ants that fuse together to travel faster once loaded with food. A spider is causing chaos on the path, so timing is key to make the crossing and come back with a full bag. If the scout ant is killed by the spider and the link (path) is decaying, you can't produce any new ants. If an ant carries a consumable by herself, she will be slowed greatly; but with other worker or heavyweight ants, speed can be mulyiplied and tactics begin to emerge (should I use slower but more bulky ants or tons of nimble workers?) The choice is yours.
Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?
We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam
Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?
We used pre-existing audio
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Comments
This was a really pretty game, but I don't think there was much there in terms of gameplay. Maybe some way to move influence the ants could have been good here? Either way, this was a gorgeous entry. The menus in particular really stood out. Nice work!
The idea is cool. I didn't feel like having a big impact on the success of the ants though.
It looks good, but the gameplay was a bit too hands off for my taste. Though as you mentioned this was the first experience with unity and/or gamejams for most of the team, so in that regard great job!
Fortunately for us, there are so much community resources online to get educated about Unity quickly! Easy to learn but hard to master 😁
Nice art, I cannot predict the spider attack so my ants died a lot.
Looks and sounds great but I struggled to work out what I was supposed to do.
The art is so cute ! I love the idea of controlling a colony of ants, but there is some twist missing in the gameplay to make it really interesting. As you have absolutely no control over your characters, it becomes quickly a bit repetitive. I suppose you got caught by time, and had to cut many features, that's the curse of a lot of jammers ! But don't hesitate to refine it further in the future, I think it might become really fun !
You're on point 😄 It was our first jam/Unity experience, so lots of stuff got cut. But we've already started working on the enhancement and would love to really put the finishing touches to the game over the summer 🙂
Thanks for your advice!
This is a bit of a mixed bag for me.
Some good things:
There is great presentation here without doubt. The music is quite pleasant but if there is anything lacking, it would be that there is not as much sound FX as I would have liked. From the ants, to ants picking up food. The lack of feedback makes it a bit confusing and detracts the experience a bit.
Biggest caveat:
The lack of a clear or understandable game loop. I don't think the game loop is very clearly defined or strongly communicated to the player. There is a vague 'timing your ant workers' but there is not enough feedback to keep me engaged.
In other games where player input is relatively limited to sending units, such as 'The Battle Cats' on the Apple Store, there is still some strategy involved in matching units you send to units the enemy sends with changing dynamics. Whereas in this game, there is no clear, or demanding strategy on the onset. We are only trying to get soldiers to the other side, with no clear 'conflict' with an enemy player, and deaths that occur seem to occur from an environment/external player not involved in the battle at all.
My opinion is of that the design should be revisited to an extent. For example, maybe add an element of combat where ants actively repel the spider (but never able to kill it), with soldier ants in the background constantly supplying food to keep soldier ants fed and capable to fight.
Thanks for your very detailed feedback!
Truth be told I had a pretty solid game design Friday night, but being most of the team's first game jam and first experience with Unity, we struggled to implement everything we had in mind.
There are 2 mechanics that are missing and would completely change the gameplay loop:
- choosing the kind of food the ants will grab, balancing weight (speed) and points (bonus points depending on the Queen's request)
- diverting the heavy ants to attack the spider (they will be a kind of shield and will keep attacking until the spider is down)
And of more, more food, more spiders and more perils!
I liked the idea, good graphics and good sound. Good game :)
Glad you liked it!
Really cool game! I loved the art style and the music. I do wish that gameplay-wise, you had a bit more control over the ants. I get that the goal seems to be changing your timing so they don't get eaten but that's mostly just down to a lot of trial and error that isn't mechanically very deep or interesting. With that said, the presentation is great, and the game is plenty functional as it is. Nice work, especially for 48 hours.
The original goal was to control the scout and trace a new path for your other ants to follow, and I also envisioned having multiple paths and let them decay if they were not walked by the scout after some time (less pheromones over time), but as unexperienced Unity developers it was a bit ambitious 😂
The plan is also to let the player choose the kind of food the ants will grab which will give different points/bonuses...
Thanks for your valuable feedback 😃
Relaxing and lovely aesthetic. Beautiful for a jam game.