Introduction
During the Ludum Dare 57 game jam, we created Antz vs Plantz. The theme was Depth, and we had 3 days complete the game. The team consisted of Myself (Viktor), Manisha and Keely. This is the same team responsible for bringing you the infamous RAMpage. Keely and Manisha are both gamedevs who live in Toronto, Canada area.
This allows us to meet up in person to collaborate which is a treat! All three of us are working on our own Steam games (links below) so this was a perfect opportunity to distract ourselves and inject some fresh air into what can sometimes be a very long process.
Timeline
Pre-Jam
Normally I like to prepare for Ludum Dare by creating a document allowing the team to brainstorm using the potential theme options. This time we didn’t do any pre-production. For shame!
Jam Begins…
As soon as the jam started we got into a voice call. It was night time and most of the time was spent doodling on a shared canvas via Discord Activities. Something that is noteworthy to point out is that the idea we ended up choosing in the end was a plinko/tower defense hybrid. The noteworthy aspect of this is Manisha’s reaction to the idea which you can see in this screenshot before i crossed it out. She said “nahhh”
Luckily Manisha pivoted quickly and decided to give the idea a shot! That means we were a few hours into the jam and we already had the game design planned. This is crucial for a weekend game jam. We had the benefit of having three full days of actual production…
The Development
The idea we settled on the night before was a game where you place towers on pachinko-style pegs as ants fall down. If an ant gets to the bottom, you lose some health. If a lot of ants get to the bottom, you lose entirely.
Our development was smooth and steady! We met up the subsequent morning on Saturday at a coffee shop and worked on the game. Part of the process involved a detour where we gobbled up some of Toronto’s finest momos. Shoutout to Loga’s!
Here is what an early build of the game looked like. The process was basically establishing what type of towers we wanted on the pegs and what types of ants we wanted.
Additionally we spent a bunch of time adding fun decoration to the level such as these two tree mascots. One is nice and helpful, the other one isn’t nice or helpful. This is what the game looked like after Day 1 of production was completed!
Day 2 and Day 2.5 (since Ludum Dare ends at 6pm on Monday) was spent adding new ant types, adding plantz, etc etc. A lot of busy work going back and forth on assets, sounds, music, and iterating as much as possible. This was all done remotely, so no dumplings for us :(
We published the game at the last minute and it was relatively bug free! Another solid 3 day development completed.
What Went Well
I think the entire process was smooth! We were able to get an idea agreed upon early and we benefitted from that tremendously. My deep knowledge of plants vs zombies and other defense games came in handy here too. It allowed us to use a lot of tropes and ideas from those games as a springboard for our own designs.
Comment from Keely (Art): Our ideation at the start of the jam was really productive. We came out of our initial session with a solid idea of the concept and an early prototype of the mechanics of it. I think we also coordinated well in terms of the design of the game. All three of us have a solid sense of game design so being able to bounce ideas and work through problems together made the project feel a lot more like a collective effort (rather than just a bunch of pieces being fit together). In terms of the art, I felt a little bit more confident in my ability to put things together in Asesprite than last time around. The trees also went well.
Comment from Manisha (Audio): Surprisingly, our brainstorming session was much quicker than I was generally used to and we settled on a game idea through a chaotically fun whiteboarding session the very first night. The team had great synergy, probably because we’ve worked together before and are all laid-back, open to feedback and comfortable sharing opinions when things need change. I personally had a lot of fun finding inspiration from the soundtrack on the song ‘The Ants Go Marching’ which I felt was perfect for our ant themed game.
Challenges
I came away from this jam having only one major complaint; I wish I had more time… This is the case with most jams i’ve done but this time i really felt like we could’ve done a much better job given a few more days. I think I’m starting to sour on the idea of doing an entire game in the span of a few days, especially while trying to do a day job throughout. It simply doesn’t leave enough time for proper onboarding, menus, settings, polish, etc.
Comment from Keely (Art): I felt like my workflow still needs some work in terms of how I put art assets together. Ideally I’d like to have a better structure to how I organize things so that my work is just getting plugged in, rather than needing to make adjustments to get it to properly work because of a lack of experience on that side of things. I had a lot of downtime towards the back half of the project that I felt bad about not being able to help during. I feel like we should have probably aimed to get a testable prototype working earlier so that we could test and get some more feedback before the final stretch.
Comment from Manisha (Audio): I only created one audio track this jam since I was a bit rusty after not making music for over a year and I was using GarageBand for the first time. I initially tried LMMS, which I’m more familiar with on PC, but it wasn’t cooperating on my Mac. I quickly adjusted and ended up having fun learning a new DAW! Once the inspiration hit, the process flowed smoothly. My approach is mostly intuitive and I let the music take shape naturally, but I know I need more structure to my process. The track is a short loop with very repetitive elements and I wish I had took the time to make it longer with more variety. With the static screen for gameplay, a music shift halfway through or gradually layering the track as the ant hole deepened might have also elevated the experience.
The Final Product
I’m very pleased with the final product. I’ve been meaning to make an homage to Plants vs Zombies and I think this is a solid homage. The game had a great reception so perhaps we’ll take it further, who knows!
Comment from Keely (Art): It’s the best game jam game I’ve contributed to. It’s a bit of a strange arrangement given that I’m not traditionally an artist - but I think we’ve found a configuration that works well for us for collaborating. I’m also happy that I got to put a bit more personality into some of the character designs towards the end. There was a bit where I liked the ant designs, but didn’t necessarily feel like the game reflected my own personal style. Putting some weirdo trees in there helped on that front.
Landing 14th place in fun was particularly wild - especially considering some of the competition we were up against. I personally think there’s a lot of promise in the game concept that could be expanded upon into a full version. Keen to see whether we end up taking it that direction!
Comment from Manisha (Audio): I’m really happy with our final entry and how the audio track turned out. It’s catchy and whimsical and I think it matched the visuals, though I wouldn’t blame anyone if it got a little stuck in their head (or nerves). I don’t usually play tower defense games but our game had me hooked. I might be biased though, right? Finishing 33rd overall, with 14th in fun was a great surprise and I’m proud of my audio ranking too, especially since I don’t consider myself a music composer. Proud of our team! Looking forward to how our development journey continues from here.
Reception
Final Game: We had 90 Ludum Dare participants try it out and leave lots of comments as well. Additionally, we logged 224 scores logged to the database. It’s unclear how many unique players we got because we don’t have any identifiable data, but it seems like somewhere around 200! A fantastic outcome.
In addition to lots of people leaving lovely comments and playing the game, we got great scores once the Ludum Dare 57 results were announced. This is one of my most successful game jams, and even moreso if you look at my Ludum Dare submissions exclusively. I’m very pleased with the outcome and I’m very excited to see how it plays out on Newgrounds.
Maybe even one day, we will have the opportunity to “make it into a full game.” The game jam cliche haha.
| Criteria | Rank | Percentile |
| Overall | 33rd | Top 3% |
| Fun | 14th | Top 1% |
| Innovation | 91st | Top 8% |
| Theme | 281st | Top 24% |
| Graphics | 262nd | Top 22% |
| Audio | 126th | Top 11% |
| Humor | 85th | Top 7% |
| Mood | 266th | Top 23% |
Links
- If you want to give the game a try, head over here:
- Wishlist Keely’s’s upcoming steam game here:
- Wishlist Manisha’s’s upcoming steam game here:
