Flea Patrol by Sviborg
Flea Patrol is a fun and fast-paced arcade game where you control an army of cunning fleas! Your mission is to reach the furry giant while avoiding obstacles and the dog's defenses. Navigate through the fur, plan your attacks, and land as many bites as possible before you're discovered! Are you ready to become the dog's worst nightmare? Jump into the game and find out!
| Link | https://ryabchenko.itch.io/flea-patrol |
| Link | https://github.com/V0000/LudumDare56 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/flea-patrol |
Ratings
| Overall | 113th | 3.661⭐ | 328🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 99th | 3.637⭐ | 328🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 88th | 3.728⭐ | 326🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 21th | 4.288⭐ | 328🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 106th | 3.791⭐ | 327🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 198th | 3.014⭐ | 322🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 62th | 3.648⭐ | 316🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 117th | 3.573⭐ | 323🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 327🗳️ | 431🗨️ |

- However I never really feel like I am in much control of the little fleas, obviously controlling so many entities is never going to be exact, but I feel I should feel like I have enough say over their actions such that I *am* in control - this is especially true of platform games.
- Without that feeling of exact control, most of the game devolved into just smashing space over and over. Most of the game is me going left to gather up a pile of them and trying to control the blob of fleas with some kind of hope lol
- The art is adorable :)
- I think perhaps the little fleas stacking up too neatly ruins a bit of the feel of them being a chaotic pile of little things. I think maybe they're on square colliders? Maybe if they were on circle colliders they would appear more chaotic.
Would love to see how many fleas I have lost, as some missions I went straight to the dog, igoring the losts. :smile:

I love this type of graphics, it's original and I could see a whole game hand drawn !
PS: We have exactly the same fleas in our games :D
+ It felt like some levels were very similar and some of them could be bypassed with little nooks or space spamming.
+ Loved seeing them crawl up the slopes
+ The collision with the wolf sometimes felt lacking as the fleas would just pass him
this game is genius !!! ,LOVE this game idea so much,this game is perfect this this game jam
A fail condition would have been nice I think. And the music gets kind of annoying and repetitive after some time :D
Overall its a great game tho! Good job!
The fleas' unpredictable jump and movement makes it so you have to account for this whenever you make decisions in a level. I think this is a good take on the platformer genre!
Not sure if this is intentional, but I found two levels with easy solutions that considerably trivializes the level:
- A level with a sawblade moving up and down can be cleared by just holding right. Some fleas may die, but eventually the dog will get enough fleas.
- A level with an obstacle course in front of the haystack where the wolf sits directly above the haystack can quickly be cleared if the fleas jump through the tiny gap and bypass the entire obstacle course.
That said, I quite enjoy the audio here. It's just the same 16 beats over and over again for the entire game, but it's so catchy that you forget it's looping until you sit down the write the review.
Awesome work out there!

Perhaps having some kind of indicator as to which fleas are frontrunners (i.e. ones that will begin the jump) would have been helpful in feeling in control? And/or a way to stop and start the flow of fleas so that you don't end up with a bunch of them bundling into corners at the bottom of a jump puzzle? (Though that might reduce the effect of the fleas visual.)
Anyway, cute art and great visual/animation, and some interesting level design for the mechanics!
There were a couple of times where colliders didn't seem to line up - either there was a gap in the collider that seemed like it shouldn't be there, or a time where the art showed a slight gap but there wasn't one in the colliders. Aside from that, though, solid game! Good work!
The amount of levels was really good for only 48 hours!
The graphics were a bit rough around the edges. Good job overall :smile:
Levels had good variation and you came up interesting challenges for each.
Controls felt little janky but it was not a big deal, really. What can you expect when controlling tons of fleas at once.
Good work!
Great work! I think it's a fun and surprisingly challenging game. The musical loop did start to grate after a little while, but that's my only complaint. Good one!
Can't finished the last level, I got a life to live.
I don't know why but it's a bit addictive. Some levels can be cheese. Sometimes we can jump several times, sometimes not I d'ont really know why. Art is pretty good with its own style, it feels good.
Nice, enjoyed playing it!

I'm glad there is no detriment to dying 'cos let me tell you, many, many a brave flea was lost in the level with the moving saw blades!
I have 2 questions:
1. Why dog
2. How many fleas I kid along the way hahaha. And fleas do have nest?

Overall a cute game with a straightforward idea that I liked ;)
Wish the music was a little less repetitive.
- I loved the concept. Fit the theme really well, and the gameplay really matched well to it
- The art was great. I love the personality the hand drawn nature brings
- The mechanics were interesting. Having all the fleas climb over one another was a lot of fun
What could be improved:
- The music was fun, but the clip was a bit too short and got a bit repetitive
- I wish the puzzles had a few more elements. by the time I finished I had already learned and mastered the wall climb, and i could have used one or two less levels
Love your drawn art and the control and grouping works really well. Loads of fun!
The levels are super well designed, they get quite tricky quite quickly and I found the challenge to be really surprising while still super fun.
The art is also beautiful! I think it fits the goofy vibe really well, and the little animations on the dog are really cute!
I really liked this entry, nice job! I hope you take this idea further, I'll be watching for an update or full release!
I think it would be good if there was a reason why you need to make the fleas work as a group. As it stands you can basically do the level for each flea you need, without considering the other fleas: like if you need 20, then do it 20 times as one flea and ignore the others
The music is nice but get repetitive, the art style remind me of children book that would be about flea and wolves, and it fits very well.
Congrats on an amazing entry!
The art is very simple and charming. I particularly like colored pencil art. The music is well done, but a little repetitive. Normal for puzzle games (it doesn't distract you), so it's ok.
Maybe to make the game more challenging it would be interesting to limit the number of fleas per stage. Just like in Lemmings. This would make the player have to think and not just randomly press buttons. Another thing, climbing up the corner of the screen makes things much easier. I got through several stages just climbing up the left corner.
Good game! Congratulations! You're very brave to make a game alone.
There were some cheesing techniques like having the fleas crawl up walls but that also felt good to do. Well done!
I should note that the game got stuck in a loop on this level:

I'm using Firefox in Linux. Perhaps it is just low memory on my part. Anyway, very creative. Thank you kindly.
I think it would do good to the levels and feel if you couldn't climb on the bare edge of the screen. Some levels can be circumvented this way and even if it's part of the intended path it feels a bit off to do it. When a vertical wall is needed for a level on the side, you could put the same brick element there but otherwise fleas could just despawn if they go out of the screen.
Cute and funny game!
I love marching all my little dudes around, although I got a stuck on a couple of the puzzles. Very cute and fun!

I really enjoyed how completing the puzzles sometimes made me "break" the game. Like, awkwardly stacking jumps to reach a platform almost felt like cheating against the engine, but in the best way! And definitely felt the Lemmings vibe.
Honestly, my only critique is that the fleas didn't explode more dramatically when they died. :rofl:
it plays awesome, a unique idea that is executed well and has enougn playability for the lenght of the game
overall, it well deserved to be one of the top (overall and for now 2nd on the reveuwes)
I didn't like the unresponsive controls. I get that that's the point, and I get that the fleas being hard to control is the point, but it was still annoying.
Sometimes, the dog's hitbox was too high and I'd slide right past him on on the ground. This frustrated me quite a few times on the level with two sawblades on the ground where if you run straight right, you die. I'd make it to the dog, but then slide past him and not score for those fleas.
Overall, cool concept and good game!
Great entry well done :)
However, the unresponsive controls took away from the experience a bit. Instead of focusing on the level design, I found myself fighting with the jumps, which was a bit frustrating. Fixing this issue would make the game so much more enjoyable.
Overall, it’s a really fun concept, and with more responsive controls, it could be fantastic!
I was a little worried at the start, but it got more interesting in later levels. I feel like you could have cut out some of the earlier levels, so we would jump in to the interesting levels sooner.