Step-Squish by NumNumDude
A small game for Ludum Dare 38
A simple game taking place of a dining room floor. You play as a small ant trying to gather crumbs to eat for dinner with their family, while avoiding being stepped on by people. I developed this much faster than I thought, I should have gotten more ambitious with this like my first Ludum Dare. Hope you like this though, I enjoyed making it.

Instructions:
Use the arrow keys to move.
Grab crumbs.
Don't get squished.
Collect 20 crumbs to win.
| Windows | https://xephyr.itch.io/step-squish |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/step-squish |
Ratings
| Overall | 389th | 3.04⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 267th | 3.16⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 426th | 2.64⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 103th | 3.84⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 333th | 3⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 310th | 2.72⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 96th | 3.333⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 355th | 2.87⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 20🗳️ | 21🗨️ |
Great game overall, congratulations!

I wanted to play some more and get a high score. This was addictive. Just ramp up the difficulty over time and add an online scoreboard. Good job !!!
Couple of issues:
- The ant can die just by touching the part of a foot and not when actually being stomped. Which, I dunno, in a *realistic* perspective, makes no sense. I did find myself losing a lot because I was touching the side and wasn't even under it. You did allow plenty of space so that this wasn't too huge of a problem, but I imagine it would be if you were to continue this and the feet stomped by faster, etc, then it would be frustrating for players to have clipped the sides but not actually get stomped on (and die in the process).
- I have to admit, I don't think I won the game the intentional way. Since it's way easier to dodge just after the foot stomps down, I lingered more to the right and stayed there for the majority of the game. The crumbs that fell to the left stayed there permanently, so I waited in between stomps to collect all the 8 or so crumbs I had remaining in one fell swoop. I suppose, to make this more of a challenge, crumbs can disappear in between waves, or maybe the feet stomping down can move the crumbs around? Those are two things you can consider.
The game was worth playing for a few minutes of enjoyment, and is generally well put together for a 48 hour Compo entry.
Maybe you can improve collision box, and create a little background music.
The antr is so cuteeeeee!! I love it ^^
I like to dig more on the artistic side of the games (since I am our team's artist), and I must say, I really liked the design of the ant and its small animation. As I said before, it felt very retro, so it went well with this simple game. Sometimes, too much detail can be a negative, so keeping things simple on a simple experience was the right way to go.
As for the game itself, well, it's nothing that hasn't been done before. There's no annoying bugs nor unnecesary material on the game though, so, face value, it shows all there is to see very soon, without clunky interfaces or things that get on the way. Mechanically, it feels right.
If I could give you some feedback with which to improve this game in the future, it would be to either remove jumping or give it a reason to exist. Since the feet come from above, jumping doesn't really do much. Heck, I found some fun in trying to jump over the crumbs before picking them up, or make it so more crumbs fall, and a bit slower, and that give you points if you catch them in the air. I dunno. Go nuts with the additions and balancing.
Got to say, this game is simple, yes, but it doesn't try to be something it's not nor adds anything that detract from the experience. It's not particularly outstanding, but, well, depending on how you decide to tackle it, you could keep adding to it until it becomes it's own thing. I personally would like to see more of this, since it's the kind of games I like to play on my mobile device.
If you happen to have a Twitter account, please share it with us, [Whales and Games](https://twitter.com/WhalesAndGames). We're following the people we've commented on, since we like to stay in contact with people that like participating in gamejams like us. We'd like to see what you can come up with in future entries! :whale:
And let me know what you think of my game!