Anteater vs. spiders and worms - AntEater arcade port released

February 23, 2021, 09:20 Mikhail Sudakov ред.

Stephen Koppak ported to the ZX Spectrum a not the most famous, but very addictive game AntEater that came out in 1982 on arcades. It was not a big hit at the time, but spawned many clones, although by a strange coincidence it never had any official port to home platforms. By the way, one of the aforementioned clones, titled Ardy The Aardvark, was released by the author of the original, Chris Obert.

The protagonist of AntEater, as it is easy to guess, is an anteater who sticks his long tongue into the ground and tries to devour the ants and some white dots crawling there. The latter need to clean up every single one, and for the ants the game simply gives you points. Our hero has enemies, too: thus, shoveling worms is bad for your health, and ants can not be allowed to the tongue side by side - they will bite. Finally, when the sun goes down, a spider appears from the surface, which is also very dangerous. Fortunately, the ant-eater can quickly shove his tongue into his mouth, and if you eat any of the two ant queens at the very bottom of the screen, the screen is cleared of enemies. However, not for long.

The game is very difficult - it requires excellent reaction, getting used to the controls and endless attempts to "try again, now I will definitely get it. You can download AntEater from official page or from "Perfect Pixel".