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A jam submission

Picnic's OverView game page

Flick the ants off the picnic leftovers before the family gets back.
Submitted by CocolitoCollective — 7 hours, 18 minutes before the deadline
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Picnic's Over's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Human Polish#13.8003.800
Fun Factor#14.0004.000
AI Innovation#14.4004.400
Aesthetic Cohesion#24.4004.400

Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

  • Well done within the 48 hours, really got me hooked right away. I love the aesthetic and overall look of the game, runs very smooth. Though i felt the ants went a tad bit too quickly but maybe its the lack of my game skill too lol, definitely good for some experienced arcade gamers. Overall i think this was great and it makes you want to keep on playing!
  • This is a strong entry, and, another good example of how AI-assisted game development doesn't have to look and feel ugly. Looking at your comment on this entry and getting a look into your methods boosted your overall score for me, as it proves you go well beyond a few prompt iterations and call it good. Polished overall, but could use a little more balance as it does get hectic to the point of unmanageable after a while. Many others seemed to to gravitate to "don't wake the cat", which is very evident of AI decision-making, so your choice of a dog, and a lazy little hungry dog at that was nice and refreshing. I'm looking forward to see you push AI even further in the next jam!

Toolkit details
Claude Code ([CODE MODEL]) for all code: the game, every sprite drawn in code, every sound synthesized with the Web Audio API, the bot players that tuned the balance, and the automated Firefox checks. Claude Opus 5.5 in a Claude project for the game idea, batch plans and briefs, concept art drawn in code, the family's dialogue, the pixel logo and the itch page art. No image, audio or music generators. Plain JavaScript with HTML5 Canvas (no engine), Node.js for the local server and tools.

Flavor Cards attempted

Roll the Dice

Chance decides at least one important thing.

Don't Wake It

The player has to stay quiet or careful around something.

Discord username
cupcakenichan

Rules attestation

Agree

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Comments

Submitted

Great work! Love the progression!! The HUD elements get in my way sometimes. Ants holes could be in different spots so they don't match to the HUD elements. Apart from that, good job!

Submitted

VERY GOOD, though ufff it gets crazy when the ants pile up, but I loved how hard it gets later, I would honestly play this for hours

Developer

Thanks! I have three Claude profile to try out the game - Casual/Mid/Pro and they also struggled at higher level! I tried myself and it does get hard which why I added some more "indicators" of where the ants were going and who had a piece. With more time I would have balanced it for sure. Thank you for playing.