AntEater

[scoppack]

Hiya, I've been at it again. This time with some gratefully appreciated help for the playtesting and tweaking. A huge thanks to Stu!!


https://defb.itch.io/anteater

[R-Tape]

Fantastic. It's pretty hard (only completed one screen so far), but I assume that's comparable with the original. I can't find anything wrong with it, the 'AI' of the tongue (if that makes sense) is particularly impressive - it's as if it knows what I want it to do.

Well done to everyone involved.

[cmal]

This is excellent news - thanks for making this game [mention]scoppack[/mention] and thanks [mention]Rev_Stuart_Campbell[/mention] for the cool looking box. Just a few months ago I opened a thread on this forum on whether such a game exists on the Speccy. Glad to see it's now become available. Off to download it now...

[cmal]

Just been playing this for a while and I'm happy to say that it is very faithful to the original. I spent quite a while playing the original a few months ago and this feels very like that experience. If you told me that this was an emulation of the original game, I would have almost believed you, except that the Anteater walking animation on the Speccy is a tad better than the original animation. The tongue action feels exactly the same as the original. The game is hard as hell, but so is the original. I just managed to slip past level 1 by the skin of my teeth.

Very well done

[R-Tape]

[mention]cmal[/mention] please note that I was very carefully to avoid 'tongue action' innuendos in my post. Please do the same otherwise the barbarians are well and truly through the gates.

[cmal]

@cmal please note that I was very carefully to avoid 'tongue action' innuendos in my post. Please do the same otherwise the barbarians are well and truly through the gates.

Yes, right - Oops Point noted! Thanks for the heads-up!

[R-Tape]

Yes, right - Oops Point noted! Thanks for the heads-up!

No problem. I just don't want it shoved down my throat is all.

[TMD2003]

The Speccy was the only machine of any note that never got a conversion/clone of the game...

We did... sort of. It's one of the sub-games in Gamex. Start at 22:27 and you'll see it.

https://youtu.be/0ZCjkRaQ0Bk?t=1347

[Sparky]

Love the game! It is very difficult, maybe a little too difficult.
Thanks for converting it!

[Ast A. Moore]

Gave it a go and liked it! Over 30K of code, though. Did you write it in assembly, or was it compiled from a higher-level language? (Some oddness in the ISR, too.)

[stupidget]

No problem. I just don't want it shoved down my throat is all.

I though you said you didn’t want any innuendoes

[R-Tape]

I love this game! I can still only reach the second screen.

I though you said you didn’t want any innuendoes

Hehe. That was late night Saturday silliness. Blame lockdown, nothing to do with me

[Lethargeek]

nice game, but very hard, and even worse - sometimes it's plain impossible to avoid death, this needs to be fixed

[Lethargeek]

It's never impossible to avoid death, any more than it is in any other game. In Pac-Man you can get yourself in a corridor with a ghost at both ends and no escape route, but your problem was getting yourself into that situation.

Never say never. For example, it happens when you cannot retract the tongue to avoid ants because of the spider. You die either way. And there might be not enough time already when the said spider just enters unpredictably (unlike Pac-Man where the ghosts are visible all the time).

[scoppack]

The spider only comes in at night when the sun gets to the left, or straight away if its already night

[Lethargeek]

The spider only comes in at night when the sun gets to the left, or straight away if its already night

So what? Are you implying that the player must win before the sunset every time?

[Lethargeek]

No, the player should not put themselves in a situation where they can be trapped between the spider and the ant. They are entirely different types of danger. The appearance of the spider is SUPPOSED to greatly increase the difficulty

and NOT supposed to immediately make a postponed inevitable death situation
more difficult means harder but still technically possible

it's a form of timer.

with too little time left sometimes when some ant enters at the top after
or retracted tongue tip immediately caught between a worm and the spider

Clearing a hill quickly to prevent the spider appearing is one possible strategy.

only that "possible" strategy is sometimes impossible

[gabriele amore]

LOVELY LOVELY GAME! I love it!!

[Lethargeek]

There is never a situation where the appearance of the spider makes death "inevitable" unless you've played badly and created that situation for yourself. The position of the sun tells you exactly when the spider will appear. Be prepared.

How exactly? When the spider appears, if you keep the tongue long, some ant might appear at the top too soon and you're screwed. If you keep the tongue retracted, a worm appears at the top and you're screwed. You cannot prepare for everything.

[Lethargeek]

When the spider appears, ... If you keep the tongue retracted, a worm appears at the top and you're screwed.

You know that worms don't kill you unless you hit them head-on, right? A worm will pass right through your extended tongue doing no harm at all.

you know what "retracted" means, right? the spider on the one side, a worm on the other, nowhere to extend (actually happened to me)

I mean, do you think death is inevitable here, for example?

it would be if there was no queens left to eat (or a queen was blocked by a worm)

[cmal]

Good thing it’s the weekend. Stayed up til 3am playing this.

[Lethargeek]

Well, no. That situation should still be survivable without queens, though it'd be a tough one and you'd have to be very fast and accurate to get out of it.

doubt that very much, the topmost ant is just way too close
actually even without him it could be hopeless if the next one below moves too fast
and it may, given the random speeds of these ants

But the point is, it's up to you not to BE in a situation where you're there with no queens left.

the point is it's not always up to you
you might get unlucky and need queens several times in a row
or have a queen blocked with a worm as i said

It's not a bug in the game or a failure of design. It'd have been bad play on your part.

maybe not a bug, but deliberately "bad" (for a player) design
arcade games weren't supposed to be played indefinitely you know

[cmal]

doubt that very much, the topmost ant is just way too close
actually even without him it could be hopeless if the next one below moves too fast
and it may, given the random speeds of these ants

Well then, y'know, you're just wrong. But again, it's on you for getting into that situation in the first place. Play better. There are no unavoidable deaths in the game.

I think this is what makes this game so good. When I first played it, I felt that the game was overly difficult and absurdly unfair. No matter what, those bloody ants had no mercy and got me every time. Then I eventually developed a strategy and got better (but not perfect) and was able to easily make it to the second screen and sometimes to the third. Now I find that I mostly die near the end of a stage because I'm fumbling with the keys trying not to miss a tunnel when frantically trying to get to one of the queens. You have to be quick and if you miss those turns on your way down you can easily die an avoidable death.

I take my hat off to Stu - he must've done a heck of a lot of play-testing to get this game to where it is now.

[Lethargeek]

Well then, y'know, you're just wrong.

i just don't see where i'm wrong since the ants' speed is random and quite varied, and the more of them, the more chances one will be too fast
your own screen (w/o queens) is an example of inevitable death unless both top ants crawl at the slowest pace (and even then it's questionable)

But again, it's on you for getting into that situation in the first place. Play better. There are no unavoidable deaths in the game.

there are, no matter how good you may play, the randomness will get ya sooner or later

[hikoki]

Thanks for the game. It's really infuriating and fun to play. I think the original arcade has a button to automatically back up. Call me slow if you want but I feel the tongue is a bit slow to pull it back manually when these fast basterds go ut from nowhere