Few games are genuinely scary, and a truly terrifying title in the 8-bit era was a rare
thing indeed. In this video we're looking at a game that
might be the very first in the survival horror genre.
'Ant Attack', as its title adequately explains, pits you against a horde of formidably formic
foes. Set in the city of Antescher, named for its puzzling Escher-esque structures,
and aforementioned insectoid inhabitants. Armed with a limited supply of grenades, and
facing a swarm of unrelenting enemies, discretion was the key to success - the quicker you were
able to complete a rescue the easier the task would be.
The process itself was simple - you need only lead those in distress to safety outside the
city walls. Linger too long inside, and the ants would
swarm, bite your character, and sap your health - take too many hits and you'd succumb to
their sting. Released in 1983, near the start of the ZX
Spectrum's rise to popularity - Ant Attack was produced by one man development team Sandy
White. With a degree in sculpture, White was an unorthodox
candidate for games programming - with similarly unusual methods. The entire 'Soft Solid 3D'
engine was hand-written in machine code to fit in a paltry 4 kilobytes of space.
With an early working title of '3D Ant', and also later known as 'Ant Terror' before release
- the final title 'Ant Attack' was eventually decided by the publisher.
Although the publishing industry was then-nascent, built on a fledgling gaming scene - far from
the big business it is now - White secured a deal with QuickSilva, who had scored a string
of early successes with titles such as 'Mined Out' and 'Velnor's Lair'.
They were also one of the few publishers to use colour cassette sleeves - a step above
the usual monochromatic fare at the time. Of course, Ant Attack was innovative beyond
its box, and can lay claim to a number of firsts:
On the face of it, the game seems almost misogynistic - you have to rescue your seemingly-helpless
girlfriend from the horde of ants - but the game actually offered you a choice of gender,
so you could reverse the roles and play as the girl.
Character names were unimaginative, to say the least - the male and female characters
were dubbed 'he' and 'she' respectively. No choice of a same-sex rescue, however - but
I suppose gender equality at least was a step forward in 1983.
The unique 3D presentation of the city really set the game aside - it was arguably the first
isometric video game in the world. Some might say arcade title Zaxxon was the
first, but the scrolling shooter lacked some degrees of movement, so it becomes a question
of semantics. In any case, for the home system Ant Attack
was remarkable - and allowed full freedom of movement about the city, even allowing
you to climb the fanciful structures to escape the mandibles below.
It wasn't until over a year later, with the release of 'Marble Madness' and 'Knight Lore',
that isometric games started to become more common.
Sandy White went on to release a sequel in 1984's Zombie Zombie, although Ant Attack
would be the game he was most remembered for, and would be later ported to the Commodore
64, with improved graphics. Quicksilva remained active during the 1980s,
although post-1984 their output slowed. That year saw the acquisition of the company by
Argus Press Software, later known as Grandslam Entertainment.
The Quicksilva name was last seen on the 1989 home releases of Pac-Land, after which it
was quietly retired, never to be seen again. Ants remained a moderately popular topic for
games of the period, and perhaps Quicksilva's finest was the inspiration behind other ant-based
games, such as 'It Came From The Desert', 'Sim Ant', and the appearance of giant ants
in more recent titles such as the Fallout series.
There's no doubting that Ant Attack was a pioneering title, a technical triumph for
its small size, and oddly terrifying despite its simplicity.
Join me next time when we'll be delving into the delights of another hidden gem from yesteryear.
Until then, farewell.