This game was born from our favorite inside joke: “Automatic Spider Machine. You insert a banknote, and the spiders don't come out. For a while. Then they come out again, of course.”
In ASM game, you merge spiders with your mouse while new ones crawl out of the spider machine in the corner. You can pause the machine — but it’ll cost you (20$).
Earn money by selling spiders, but be careful: sell too many and you’ll trigger spider inflation. Let too many roam free, your Terror Level will rise - and you lose.
Merge your way up to the final, ultimate spider to win. 🕷️
Game by: Lily: art and everything beautiful (including spiders). Kabbi: engineering and everything that works. Sylf: game design.
Assets used: jhaeka - vibe background music. FilmCow - for sounds we used for interactions with objects. Tldraw - for great and free collaborative whiteboard. friendly scribbles - friendly scribbles font by kmlgames.
Сloser to the end I was ready to burn my computer, cause it was full of spiders! But then I realized that this was an allegory for my life: don't avoid or fear problems, COLLECT THEM AND SELL THEM!
Wonderful graphics and humorous settings! Gameplay is pretty interesting, just a little bit difficult for me as spiders hatches continuously. Definitely worth playing.
I like this game, the first game I feel good when playing this jam! Cozy visuals and sound fit good this art style. A nice detail about the game, is the game feel - you can click room objects and they tremble/crumple, it makes the game feel polished. I lost the game about 2-3 minutes after start, it's a bit hard to catch all the spiders. I think slightly bigger collider would help a bit, not sure yet that you can collect all the spiders as their spawn rate increases. Very nice done, thank you!
Wow I'm glad that I don't own a automatic spider machine in real-life. Got completely overrun with spiders fairly quickly. Found it a little difficult to know when my merges registered fully and a few times felt a bit annoying when I merged spiders for them to instantly disappear behind some furniture.
A nice quality of life feature would have been to be able to click on a specific point on the furniture to have the spider run away from that point. Maybe that already exists if so I failed worse than I thought.
Overall I really like the graphics and thought it was a fun like jam game.
Cool and interesting game, I enjoyed the art, the real sensation of having to deal with things going in inaccessible places. I think you really nailed the concept. The jazzy/funky music reverses that vibe like everything is chill, whereas it's more and more uncontrollable. Indeed with a trackpad it's uncontrollable, grasping the spider is almost impossible. I ought to find a mouse to try again, I think flicking the spider in the top right corner might be a strategy.
In the end, a enjoyable entry! Congrats
--- I myself collect GitHub entries: So it's super nice to see you have used GitHub during the development process of the game (29 commits from multiple people). I have started collecting entries backed up by GitHub! I have also collected a few tricks to make the repos shinier across my Ludum Dare participations
Repo name and Description
You can update the repository name (I always name my repo ldXX and I rename when I have found a name for my game) without breaking links (GitHub redirects old names to new ones), and add a description for inclusion in the list ( still redirect to my repository)
Readme and Badges
Add a README.md and Include the link to your ldjam entry in the Readme. I also have created badges that you can use to decorate your README:
```
```
Topics
Consider using these topics on your github description to make your Ludum Dare entry more discoverable: - `game` - `game-development` - `ludum-dare` - `ludumdare` - `ludumdare58` - `ludum-dare-58` - `ld58`
Cover Art
You can also use your cover art for the ```Social preview``` image in the repository ```Settings```
Stars
I have starred and added your repository to a list of ld58 compo:
(Also, I am on a quest to collect 10 stars on my repo. If you play my game, consider leaving a star on my repo as well.)
Beautiful game with an interesting idea — I actually played it twice!
The first time, I couldn’t finish it. Since the prices for spiders keep dropping, I fell into a trap where I had to sell rarer and rarer spiders just to afford the pause. By the end, I had no real chance to win — every time I sold a rare spider, it pushed me further away from victory than the pause bonus could compensate. So yeah, that run ended in frustration.
The second time, I changed my strategy — I saved up about $80 early on by selling only tier 1 and 2 spiders (to afford pauses later in the game), and after that, I stopped selling altogether. I managed to beat the game without pausing even once.
Conceptually and visually, the game is excellent — but there’s something fundamentally off about the pause mechanic, since paying for it actually moves you further from your goal.
Comments17
But then I realized that this was an allegory for my life: don't avoid or fear problems, COLLECT THEM AND SELL THEM!
Great game, great visuals, great team!
The game looks visually very pleasant; the gameplay is simple but addictive)
A nice quality of life feature would have been to be able to click on a specific point on the furniture to have the spider run away from that point. Maybe that already exists if so I failed worse than I thought.
Overall I really like the graphics and thought it was a fun like jam game.
In the end, a enjoyable entry! Congrats
---
I myself collect GitHub entries: So it's super nice to see you have used GitHub during the development process of the game (29 commits from multiple people). I have started collecting entries backed up by GitHub! I have also collected a few tricks to make the repos shinier across my Ludum Dare participations
Repo name and Description
You can update the repository name (I always name my repo ldXX and I rename when I have found a name for my game) without breaking links (GitHub redirects old names to new ones), and add a description for inclusion in the list
( still redirect to my repository)
Readme and Badges
Add a README.md and Include the link to your ldjam entry in the Readme. I also have created badges that you can use to decorate your README:```
```
Topics
Consider using these topics on your github description to make your Ludum Dare entry more discoverable:
- `game`
- `game-development`
- `ludum-dare`
- `ludumdare`
- `ludumdare58`
- `ludum-dare-58`
- `ld58`
Cover Art
You can also use your cover art for the ```Social preview``` image in the repository ```Settings```
Stars
I have starred and added your repository to a list of ld58 compo:
(Also, I am on a quest to collect 10 stars on my repo. If you play my game, consider leaving a star on my repo as well.)
Very cool game! Sometime I failed to took a spider, maybe a hover feedback would have helped, but overall I really liked it! Thank you!
Love the sfx and music, and especially love the animation and color scheme!
Would be cool to see some visual feedback on hover, just so I know what I'm able to interact with.
Nice work!
The first time, I couldn’t finish it. Since the prices for spiders keep dropping, I fell into a trap where I had to sell rarer and rarer spiders just to afford the pause. By the end, I had no real chance to win — every time I sold a rare spider, it pushed me further away from victory than the pause bonus could compensate. So yeah, that run ended in frustration.
The second time, I changed my strategy — I saved up about $80 early on by selling only tier 1 and 2 spiders (to afford pauses later in the game), and after that, I stopped selling altogether. I managed to beat the game without pausing even once.
Conceptually and visually, the game is excellent — but there’s something fundamentally off about the pause mechanic, since paying for it actually moves you further from your goal.