ANT ATTACK CLONE

In Ant Attack you play as a boy or a girl who moves around in an isometric 3D landscape made from large blocks. Ants are chasing you. You can throw grenades at the ants. The ants can not climb up on boxes, but they might surround you, stranding you on an 'isle' of sorts. The goal is to avoid the ants and find a boy or girl hidden somewhere in the block world. Once found, this person will follow you back to the start of the level, which is also the end goal.

Graphics

• Ground (Concrete, grass?).
• Blocks (Beveled boxes, separate meshes for each block?).
• Statues (?).
• Girl (Girl-ant robot).
• Boy (Robot?).
• Ant (Bloodhound).
• Font.
• Logo.
• GUI elements.
• Weapon(s?).
• Weapon projectile(s?).
• Explosion(s?).
• Pickup crates with weapons or artifacts?
• Special effects for taking hits or whatever? K'POW!

Necessary game verbs

These would enable the basic Ant Attack gameplay, including multiplayer. They could also be combined into a totally different kind of game.

• Blocky environment (generated from 3D array?).
• Actors moving and colliding with the blocky environment.
• Actors standing idle.
• Actors falling when not standing on anything.
• Actors taking minor damage.
• Actors fainting.
• Actors dying.
• Actors shooting different weapons (Aim & Throw strenth).
• Actors spawn position (player start, ants on ground, partner on high ground).
• Bullets moving and colliding with the environment (bouncing).
• Bullet-Actor hit detection.
• Explosions with splash damage (LoS, diffraction, pressure calc?).
• LoS check between actors?
• Multiple instances of actors and bullets.
• Player control linked to the methods of an instance.
• AI control linked to the methods of an instance.
• AI following on ground only (2D pathfinding).
• AI following and climbing (3D pathfinding).
• AI wandering about, patroling (pathfinding to a random spot)?
• AI spotting (LoS, hearing, guessing).
• Score and timer junk.

Additional game verbs

These could open up a lot of possibilities, like tons of robots defending an outpost from invading Bloodhounds. Maybe some friendlies that follow the player around as bodyguards.

• AI aiming and shooting.
• Destructible terrain (easy if we're dealing with boxes and a lowrez 3D array).
• LoS fading of NPCs and/or the environment (Would make things scary).

Uh oh, starting to feature creap

• The start end patch is made from grass, providing a familiar anchor in this abstract block world. Grass=Friendly for the feet.
• The robot is slow and has a powerful limited use weapon which can destroy the environment. He's a nut! Crazy in the coconut!
• Random seed for generated environments (Replayability).
• Weapon pickups vary between maps. Grenades, Machineguns, Sniper rifles, Bazooka, Dynamite... (Replayability).
• Special items like Jumpshoes, Speedshoes, Shields, Teleport... (Replayability).
• Different mission types: Find partner or artifact, Warzone, Survivial, CTF... (Replayability).
• Color overlays for multiplayer avatar customization.
• I love corpses that stay, it creates landmarks and gives the map a history. Maybe a low poly corpse (or gibs) can be used to prevent bad framerates.

Gameplay comments, Negative feedback

Negative feedback. The player will start weak, but can find powerups. However, looking for powerups will attract Bloodhounds. Also, once the player has found the partner, the partner will slow him down, making the game harder.

A finite supply of Bloodhounds could give a more realistic feel, but create a problem with game balance. Finite ammo could be a fix for this. Time limits feels like a shoddy solution. There could be other ways to press the player into action. Berzerk used Evil Otto.

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- by Niklas Jansson, 2008