PwerlvlAmy

User Score
8.5

Presentation - 8.0
Gameplay - 7.5
Value - 8.0

Is this game something to be....ANTicipated? 

Antventor is a point and click puzzle adventure game by LoopyMood Games. This is the first chapter in what seems like it will be an expanding story that goes well beyond this one entry. Join your ant friend on his quest to fix his machine and fulfill his life long dream of exploring the world.

Story:

Join in on the story of Florantine as he strives to achieve his life time goal of becoming a flying ant and finally being able to explore the entire world. As the smartest ant in his ant hill colony and with all the crazy machines that he builds, his dream is that much closer,until disaster strike and leaves his new machine worthless. It is now up to you as the player to navigate Floratine around the ant hill and also to the outside world in order to find the items you need to repair your machine. Do you have what it takes to help him? I hope so, you don't want to be a weak peasANT. 

Game play:

The game of Antventor involves you and Florantine exploring around his ant hill home and the nearby surrounding area of the the park that the hill is based in. It is your job to help him fix his broken machine by searching around and finding different items to use and combine together. Wait a second, didn't I say that part already? curses,now I'm just being ANTnoying,ha ha,ok moving on,ahem.  The game doesn't have as much depth as a game like Enigmatis has that I just reviewed,but it does just enough to keep you interested in what is going on.

When you start playing the game you'll immediately notice that there is virtually no dialogue spoken in the game and all verbal communications are boiled down to growls,grunts or gasps. The only exception to this rule is during the opening game cutscene where the narrator tells you about the ant hill residents and the overall story,but other than that, no dialogue is spoken and it works surprisingly well. Think back to old Looney Tunes cartoons.

Since this game doesn't use any verbal ques to let you know what to do, it relies on you  as the player to watch Florantine's body language and determine when he wants you to do something,when he can't do something and when he's thinking or scared. If you get stuck with trying to figure out just what in the heck is going on in his little brain, you may press the hint button(Y on a xbox style controller) and it will give you a bubble hint pop up above Floratine's head with a picture of where he wants to go and what your next objective is. I admit I used this more than I needed to.

Antventor requires the player to also use the environment to his/her own advantage as well. In the game you aren't just required to walk around and pick up items or combine items and then call it a day,that would be too simple,instead the game offers you ways to interact with the environment. For instance in one specific part of the game there's a big ant guarding a passage way you need to get passed,but you can't while hes there, so its your goal as Florantine's friend to distract the guard by turning off the light,wiggling a branch and then placing a swimsuit picture on the wall to make the guard fall in love with it. It's simple but it will crack you up upon seeing it. There are a lot of these types of scenarios and puzzles and each one got a chuckle out of me.

The game overall wont take you very long to beat. If you already know where to go and what to do then it should only average you around 40-50 minutes on a good day. But your first time playing through it like me, it took roughly 2hrs for me to completely get through and figure everything out.  It's definitely a good game to sit back and relax to when you have some spare time just for a nice casual fun game to play. There's really no difficulty level to be found here,it's just one consistent play style and I'm confident that anyone of any age would easily be able to pick it up and play.

There aren't really a lot of negatives I could say about the game other than the game's overall length being shorter than I would have liked it to be and that maybe some of the hints were a little too much on the vague side in order to understand at times. But other than those two gripes, I can't off the top of my head after playing it actually think of other negatives I could list about the game at this point in time.

Environments/Other:

The graphics and environments in this game are pretty damn amazing. It seems like its a pre-rendered background/photo realism approach that was used in this game, which involves taking real world pictures and blending them into the game play. It seems to have worked out absolutely splendidly. Outside of the environments themselves,the character designs and the game animations themselves are top notch as well. Every character looking distinct with their own personalities and with the way their character animations move, let's you know exactly what they're thinking and wanting to say just by their gestures and the way they interact with you. I loved it.

Overall thoughts:

My final thoughts after playing Antventor is that it comes off as a very funny and charming game that will offer the player many chuckles due to the sarcasm used by the main character. The game is not that long at all,but it does everything it can with the little time you do have with it and makes the most out of it. The characters are funny,the puzzles are decent and the environment really makes you feel like you're a little ant in a big world. Sure it may be short and some of the hints are vague,but If you have $5 to spare, I say give this one a go because there will be another chapter coming to this story in the future. 

Antventor is currently out now on Steam

https://www.gamenchickgaming.com/blog/antventor-review-steam-pc