Plants'N'Ants

by mads

co-authored: @fakodan, @m0dsat

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.65

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.28

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.60

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.00

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.60

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.65

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.54

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.74

Gameplay

Defend and upgrade your plants and flowers to keep the ants out as long as possible. Build shooting plants, barricades, healing plants and more to combat the swarm of ants, that gets bigger and stronger over time. Rotate the planet to access different plants and flowers. Each lets you build different defences and upgrades to aid you in yours struggles.

Hints

* Click on the big flowers and build on E (or the UI button). Different flowers build different defences
* Build defences around plants early. Shooting flowers and cacti FTW!
* Shooting flowers are fragile but powerful
* Cacti are tough but sacrifices themselves to deal damage

Highscore

Plant'N'Ants have a highscore system. Can you make the list?

Controls

Mouse and keyboard

Story

In a far away galaxy, war is raging on the small planet Ludum. The giant plants and flowers that have inhabited the planet for millennia, are under attack from a deadly enemy, as swarms of ants have taken to the planet surface, to fight for domination. You must keep the plant and flowers alive at all cost!

Comments22

kr4xkan21 Apr 2020, 10:16

I love the whole gameplay of the game, I would have personally added some post processing. But the game was really fun to play :D

Morriekken21 Apr 2020, 10:30

Hey,

I like your game! Putting these plants on the planet makes it actually challenging to play - such a simple, yet great solution. The music is soothing and complements well the theme. I enjoyed it and after one play I feel, I could have done better and want to play some more - so here is the re-playability value for you.

I would love to see the ants a bit more - I had a hard time to spot them at first. Also, the small flowers - the ones which you plant are hard to recognize. Those are the only things I can point out, otherwise aa fun, slow, satisfying game to play.

Best regards,
Anna from 4boa team

Dining Philosopher21 Apr 2020, 10:30

Very nice, I love the rotating world idea and the plants are super pretty! The big problem for me was performance though, the stuttering made it quite a frustrating experience in the end where I couldn't plant new flowers or rotate the planet properly. And I tried WASD/arrows to rotate the planet but this did not work - what are the key controls? I think hotkeys to auto-rotate to a particular plant would be useful.

SassyKeys21 Apr 2020, 10:42

It's like having my own private outer space garden! I dig it a lot. Great concept, great look, great mood. I think there's really something to this game, a lot of potential, well done!

m0dsat21 Apr 2020, 12:36

@dining-philosopher Currently the only keyboard input is the purchase hotkey. So no WASD. Sorry to hear that performance was poor, as the ability to quickly rotate the world is essential to the gameplay. Thanks for the feedback :smile:

MadEwink21 Apr 2020, 12:41

Lovely game ! I enjoyed playing it, despite some lag. I agree that the ants are a bit small, and it took me some time to understand that one of my big flower was attacked. I also think it would be great to have a visual hint on where the ants spawn from, since it would help placing some flowers (a range of shooting flowers behing some cacti as instance). The relaxing music made me want to enjoy the game without ants, and just relax by placing flowers on the planet. Maybe a no-ant mode would be great too. :purple_heart:

Mircea12321 Apr 2020, 18:50

Neat gameplay. And the guitar added to the whole experience.

Rusty Jim22 Apr 2020, 13:52

This was just great. I don't think I've ever played a tower defence game on a sphere before but it's a great twist. Engaging and challenging game with a great soundtrack. You've done really well here!

multiplexor22 Apr 2020, 16:25

Nice, I like the planetoid tower defense concept! I enjoyed playing it quite a bit! although some of the plants did not seem to work for me (the healing plant).

Also, the first type of Ants you fight are very hard to see and it took me a while to understand what was going on, but after seeing them, everything clicked.

All in all, very cool game

Madsauthor22 Apr 2020, 17:34

@multiplexor the healing plats heal only the big four flowers you start with and slowly so you might not have noticed it. But im glad you enjoyed the game, and thanks for the feedback!

Indie Dragon22 Apr 2020, 18:14

I don't was understand the game well, but the concept is very cool.

LucasP822 Apr 2020, 18:21

Nice game I loved defending those plants. I didnt understand the first few minutes because I didnt see the ants, but then I enjoyed playing. I didn't manage to win a game though. Good game you made here!

zguba22 Apr 2020, 18:28

Sound of selecting the flower really hurt my ears :(

Also, you should use UI bars in screen space so they don't get enormous size when you zoom in :D

Depiste that game is quite nice, cheers :)

Attala22 Apr 2020, 18:32

Neat spin on the tower defence genre. Really liked the guitar soundtrack. Made the game very moody combined with the simplistic use of colour. Solid submission!

Madsauthor22 Apr 2020, 18:37

@zguba whoops that is a large health bar, did apparently not catch that, thanks :)

Madsauthor22 Apr 2020, 18:38

@lucasp8 Actually you cannot win, that is what the score is for. To see how far one can make it :) Thank you for your feedback!

olafstromberg22 Apr 2020, 18:48

Took a while to work out what was going on but it was a nice idea. The stuttering performance was a bit offputting, and I also didn't realise there were any ants or that the plants were shooting for a long while. I would put in some sound effects or make it more visible that there is shooting happening without zooming in. The music was nice and relaxing. Good job.

Mika la Grand22 Apr 2020, 20:02

Okay, I was expecting there to be aliens coming to the planet to attack it. So, I was like "Where are the enemies is this game also bugged?" XD. Yes yes, I know it says "Ants" in the title, but who says it can't be space ants? On to the game. I would like to drag by holding down the RMB, since I'm already placing plants with the LMB. Also, I didn't really understand how you can change the type of plant you're seeding. It seems that you have to click on a plant on the world to select that species. This means you first have to find it somewhere and I think most people expect this to be done through the UI. I did like the music and the star background though.

m0dsat23 Apr 2020, 07:39

@mika-la-grand Thanks for your feedback. Definitely it would make sense to rotate world by RMB so you can have a plant selected and ready for placement with LMB. Should have done that.

Sorry for the lack of space ants. I guess instead of spawning as if coming from the underground, they could drop from space as planet invaders. Maybe only be the endgame bosses (the yellow ones if you got to those) should do it. Hmm... many ideas here. Thanks! :smile: