Amazing Ants reminds us a bit of the game Lemmings: You tap the ants on the screen to get them moving, and they don’t stop until they reach their goal. Along the way, you can use different items, obstacles, and abilities to help see them through their goal of collecting all the fruit in each area and proceeding to the exit in an orderly fashion.
Amazing Ants reminds us a bit of the game Lemmings: You tap the ants on the screen to get them moving, and they don’t stop until they reach their goal. Along the way, you can use different items, obstacles, and abilities to help see them through their goal of collecting all the fruit in each area and proceeding to the exit in an orderly fashion.
The game features a pleasant, perhaps even cute aesthetic and the core concept is enjoyable. When it works, it works well, but there are some hiccups which prevent the game from being as enjoyable as it could be.
One of the larger nuisances is how it can be difficult to achieve the effect you want at a given time. Jumps (performed by tapping the desired ant on the touch screen) require precision, and with the physics engine at work, can feel largely inconsistent. When it comes to gaps, much of the time the ant will only just make it, and sometimes even give up and go in the other direction – and that’s if he makes it at all.
This wouldn’t be so bothersome, except that jumps are as much a resource as they are an action, meaning you only have a given number of them to use in the level. A missed jump, be it from not quite clearing the gap, turning around, not responding when you tap, or even just moving differently on an incline can mess up the entire stage for you, necessitating a restart.
Similarly, we’ve witnessed inconsistent behavior in other stage sections where some ants will move where you need to, while others won’t climb the same obstacle and simply turn around, sometimes making the placement of objects more difficult. Another instance involved laying down a speed pad for the ants to boost up a wall and return the way they came; one ant made it with ease, while the other simply could not get up the wall far enough to clear the obstacle. Both were carrying fruit, for what it’s worth, with the one who made it carrying a pineapple and the one who didn’t carrying a cherry. Despite the fruits all being the same size, if it was a matter of weight at play, it’s probably not supposed to work like that.
As noted before, when Amazing Ants works, it works well, but these types of hang-ups can grate on one’s nerves a little bit. Some can be surpassed, although it requires a certain level of patience with the game; whether you’ll have that much patience with its inconsistencies and nuisances is another matter entirely.
“