Vermin by Hertz14
You are the King of Rats, destined to lead your subjects to glory through fields of plenty and joy. Keep your rats alive and well-fed and your swarm will grow in number, but be warned - the more rats you have in your swarm, the harder it will be to keep them all fed and obedient! Your goal is to survive as long as you can. Forward, sire!
This was originally intended to be a compo entry and as such, all assets and work were done from scratch. I just overran with time.
Instructions:
WASD to move. Survive as long as possible.!

| Windows | https://14hertz.itch.io/vermin |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/vermin |
Ratings
| Overall | 53th | 4.071⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 108th | 3.905⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 100th | 3.881⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 87th | 4.143⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 76th | 4.452⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 57th | 4.048⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 170th | 3.714⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 149th | 3.857⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 18🗳️ | 29🗨️ |
Edit: Nevermind I get it. Very nice game. Difinitely 5 starts.
Took me a couple of games to figure out how to control the herd? pack? group? Whatever rats are called in a group.
Fun!
Overall really cool piece of game, great graphics and sound design.
Great artstyle, Great Sounds, Fitting music, Gameplay rocks! (Even though sometimes the generated terrain screws you over at the very beginning)
I rate it very high! Thank you for making this
My only concern is that the tutorial text doesn't pause the movement so you can read it. Makes it hard to catch what's written there.
Other than that, great job!
Now, this was a completely different and clever type of experience than the one I was expecting. The concept of being the king in-control of a hoard of vermin and being responsible for their survival is definitely an interesting take on the theme, and one that made a very different experience. Never thought commanding rats around would be something I'd be doing anytime soon. :rat:
The gameplay was pretty fun, although the only thing I didn't really seem to get at all was really the follower's behaviour. For most part, it seemed like a group of mice would follow me closer than others if I accelerated, while others would have a more noisy and random movement pattern. I didn't feel like I was in control sometimes, and even if that lack of the control was part of the theme here, it put me into questioning if at a certain point I couldn't just get a game over because all of the mice would just decide to run into a building. However, reading the other comments, it seems that understanding the movement comes with practice, although, to be honest, even after a few playthroughs, I really couldn't figure out most of the ways they moved.
I also felt slightly confused in regards to what the different icons over each of the mice's head meant. Some of them were easy to figure out, such as when the mice were hungry, or when their speed was increased, but some like the... vampire teeth? and the power icon weren't as obvious for me as despite the intention. I can assume what they probably do, but I didn't really get to a point where I was able to clearly be sure of it.
I found the game to be quite pleasing when it came to the graphics and the audio. Everything in terms of graphics really popped out and there was a really humorous (and disturbing) tone with running over the humans and proceeding to get a nutritious meal out of them. Presentation was really a forte in this one.
[In behalf of our team](https://twitter.com/WhalesAndGames), thank you for this mousy and funny experience, but I personally think I'm going to keep sticking it to whales. Thank you! :whale:
@jorgegamedev Wow! Thank you for such a detailed review! You raise some good points and in fact, your two main complaints are the two things I wished I'd dedicated more time to addressing. In general, the rats have a maximum speed that they can keep up with you - this is randomly assigned when they are first spawned. Faster rats will be able to follow you further to the right of the screen, while slower rats will hang back. It was intended to make the horde feel more organic, but unfortunately, it was implemented a bit hamfistedly and it doesn't work as well as I'd like.
In terms of the icons, that is another thing I didn't have time to properly explain in-game but tried to make them more or less self-explanatory. Evidently I failed :D The vampire fangs power-up make rats cannibalistic and allows them to eat the corpses of their fallen companions. The shield allows the rat to survive running into one fence, instantly breaking it. The lightningbolt allows the rat to attack and kill a human (if it can catch up to him). If I take the game further I'll be sure to explain that better, thank you.