The game was created for Ludum Dare 56 - Tiny Creatures theme. But it has actually the mutation theme also included - so two themes covered in one game?

Goal

Attack or charm enemy bugs so you can grow your bug colony to be the biggest and single colony in the world! (Now ok, in this local hive or something). 

How to Play?

Left click to select your yellow bugs and then move them by left clicking neighbor cells. You can select individual bugs as well with right click.

When facing an enemy in the next cell, you can either ATTACK or CHARM them. You can switch between the sword and heart icon. The bottles outcome is decided by the gene codes owned by the two set of bugs. 

ATTACK

If you attack, the the black cells of the code will be used for battle. Your bugs will be randomly placed on the black cells (each cell can have maximum 2 bugs), similar to the enemy as well: 

In the above case two individual bugs battle. They are placed on the black cells (attack), but for the final results only the common black cells are counted (white highlight). As no bugs appear there, the score is 0-0. In case the battle cannot be decided, the defender wins. If you win a battle, you keep your original bugs plus you get the enemy bugs which were NOT in the highlighted cells. 

CHARM

If the yellow bug would decide to charm the other ones, the white cells would matter. We have much more white cells in common, so it's more likely both players will end up in the battle. The below match is 1-1 so the charmer dies.

An other outcome could be the following:

The gray bug in this case is very unlucky. It gets moved to the non playing field, so the end game score is 1-0, so the charmer wins. In this case the charmer gets both teams - so 2 bugs (even if the bugs would be on highlighted cells).

MUTATION

When the charmer wins, then the gene codes are combined to form a new gene. The mutation is an XOR between the originator genes (same color becomes white, different colors become black). So in the last charming, the charmer has 2 bugs now, and the following new gene is generated:

Developer Notes

For some time I wanted to test whether I can create the duality of not only being able to attack but also to charm enemies - and charming being a driver to make your own team become stronger.

I'm traveling tomorrow so could not polish the game before the jam ended - so really the game focuses on mechanics only and not so much on the rest. What I can offer:

• No music so you can listen to yours :)
• Not really tested maps - so you might not be able to solve the map
• A random map which can be totally unsolvable! Hit regenerate if it's not fair.
• No AI to move the enemy bugs
• Very basic sounds
• No animation