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Ant Attack is a ZX Spectrum computer game by Sandy White. It was published in 1983 by Quicksilva, and converted to the Commodore 64 in 1984. It is notable for having the first playable female character in a videogame (the player starts by choosing boy or girl).
The same type of isometric projection was used in Sandy White's later Zombie Zombie.
[edit] Gameplay
The player controls either a boy or a girl (the game allows you to choose at the start) who has to enter the walled city of Antescher in order to rescue their significant other who has been captured and tied up somewhere in the city. The city is inhabited by giant ants which chase and attempt to bite the player. The player can defend themselves by throwing grenades at the ants. Once the hostage is rescued, the two must escape the city. After this, the whole thing starts again with the hostage located in a different part of the city, with each location being progressively more difficult to reach than the previous.
[edit] Trivia
A female player figurine jumping near the cube (ZX Spectrum version).
- The game was written in a mixture of BASIC and machine code.
- In the ZX Spectrum version, by exploring the empty area outside of the city walls to the southeast, the player can discover a cube with 'ammo' written on its sides. The cube can be turned by throwing grenades at it. This was a spare sprite with no part in gameplay. In fact, one can walk through the cube as if it did not exist, and it is not possible to jump on top of it.
- The ZX Spectrum version of Ant Attack has complex keyboard controls that were not intuitive. Because of this, a hacked "new keys" version (using standard "left, right, up, down" controls compared to the original's "rotate and move forward") was created and released on the internet.[citation needed]
- The code for the ZX Spectrum version of Ant Attack contains graphics depicting a plane although these were not used in the final game.[citation needed]
- The city name of "Antescher" used within the game is a reference to the work of artist M. C. Escher
- While both Q*bert and Zaxxon used isometric projection to good use, the shading and extra degree of freedom (ability to go up and down instead of just north, south, east and west) introduced in Ant Attack were innovative for personal computer game of the time. The author himself has proposed that it "...was the first true isometric 3D game...".[1]
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