Currently, the game feels somewhat dull. The back and forth just gathering honey to feed the queen is kind of boring.
I think you need to reward sleep upgrade more, other than just adding additional eggs. Otherwise, there wouldn't be much point in feeding the honey other than fetish reasons.
How about increasing the max spawn capacity? Make it go like +2 or +3 each?
I think adding elite units will be more fun as well.
Make them:
- Cost more than 1 egg
- Cost some action/time to spawn, instead of free spawning
- Locked behind sleep upgrade tiers, so that sleeping actually has more impact
- Might even make some of them ranged if you have enough time
That should at least keep me engaged enough.
However, if you want to actually continue making this game and go further beyond, you can:
1. Include some artillery units as well. Make it so that they can only attack if they haven't moved that turn yet.
2. Add some special abilities for the queen. And make those abilities exclusive (for example, different queens or queens with different doctrines/stratagems/ability decks).
Example of abilities are:
- Acid artillery -> deals X damage to units in 5 blocks cross/plus shape
- Healing wave -> heals X amount to units in 5 blocks cross/plus shape
- Toughen carapace -> select an ant, and that ant gains X amount of shield points which absorbs that much damage.
- Tunnel deployment -> deploy an ant anywhere in the map that is a valid terrain
- Reserve ants -> Whenever any ant is lost during this turn, an Argentine ant will spawn near the queen (up to X limit).
tactics game enjoyer spotted!!!
this is a game jam submission, so the scope is limited by the dev time of 1 month. I already spent a lot of that time on the artwork, and the remaining time was spent fitting as much content as I could from my original design doc.
from your suggestions, I think i can fit some things before the deadline. the issue with sleeping ->> upgrading max spawn slots is that it gives an advantage to whoever is already winning, which is against the spirit of competition (and therefore the theme of the jam). i may instead use sleep upgrades to unlock more fetish content, like new expressions in gooning mode for instance.
I am also limited by the fact that every ant species described here is a real creature, though i don't mind taking some liberties like, for example, making fire ants that spew fire. acid artillery may be a bit much. if you want to play a tactics game with a more diverse roster of creatures and don't mind that it's not fetish content, you can try the tactics game I uploaded on my non-NSFW account: https://baconfry39.itch.io/benthos
I just want there to be a reward to being able to out-produce the enemy, other than trying to achieve 99 eggs or bonus gooning stuff.
It is very annoying after being able to complete the first sleep before the enemy, just to be outpaced by the enemy in the rest of the game because they were able to steal your honey while you are sleeping (could be a skill issue on my part).
There are so many eggs that wouldn't be spent (I know, the main goal is to get to 99 eggs but still...). I want to have an expensive elite ant (locked behind first sleep) that acts as a security/insurance against the enemy trying to invade me.