Tired of living in a hyper capitalist hellscape?
Want to just DESTROY everything you come across?
Boy, do I got a deal for you!
MÄNTEATER by TEAM 404 lets you do just that. Based on the arcade classic “Rampage,” Mänteater lets you grab the controls of the titular Mänteater and wreak havoc on all polluting factories you can get your claws on. Eat your opponents, smash a spider-tank into pieces, collapse a building or two or twenty—how far can you go before you get overwhelmed?
Download the game at [itch.io]!
Developing Mänteater
“Mänteater” is a game by “Team 404” of Tampere University of Applied Sciences Games Academy Autumn 2022 season. Based on the classic arcade game Rampage (1986), the player takes control of the titular “Mänteater”, a giant man-eating anteater, and works to tear through the industrial area of a polluted city.
The team landed on Rampage as their base game early on. There were other strong contenders as well, such as Joust and Gauntlet, but as the team discussed their ideas for the game, Rampage emerged as the game each team member showed interest in. Thus, choosing Rampage as the game the project would be based around felt natural. One of the artists suggested a playable anteater; anteaters are very unique animals, and you rarely see them in games. They also make a lot of sense, as they are naturally found destroying “buildings”, namely termite mounds. The anteater tongue would also be a fun, iconic feature. Sometimes good ideas take iteration, sometimes you land on inspiring ideas straight away, and Mänteater was in the latter category.
Progress on the game was variable; we started out strong, struggled in the middle and then really found our stride after the second mid-season presentation, carrying the game into a strong completion.
Building a game was a learning process for the whole team. Everyone learned a lot during the project—how to scope, how to version control, how to work as a team, not to mention all the individual learning everyone gained from their personal area of responsibility.
The value of good teamwork and communication was something we found greatly useful during the project.
Maybe the real Mänteater was the friends we made along the way.
Team 404
Programming: Eetu Hentunen, Jesse Leppä, Kristian Törmä
Art: Nika Toikka, Ronja Heimonen, SM Aho