In 1999 nearly every animated film that reached cinemas got a handheld tie-in, usually assembled quickly and sold on the strength of the poster. Antz for Game Boy Color is one of those, published by Infogrames and developed by the French studio Planet Interactive, following the DreamWorks film about a neurotic worker ant.

It is a side-scrolling platformer across nineteen levels, alternating between Z and Princess Bala, with stages loosely tracking the film's plot. The verbs are basic — walk, jump, pick things up, carry them. The one idea that belongs to this game specifically is ant-stacking: you gather other ants and pile them up so you can climb the stack and reach exits that are otherwise out of range. Later levels add escape sequences and encounters with other insects from the film's world.

The execution is competent within the limits of the hardware. Sprites read clearly on a small screen, the animation is adequate, the music stays out of the way. What is missing is ambition beyond the stacking gimmick; the rest is the standard platformer vocabulary of the period wearing an ant costume. Reviews at the time landed in the same place — playable, unremarkable, aimed squarely at children.

Difficulty is the detail worth flagging. It is pitched low enough that an adult will clear most stages without dying and without thinking, which is fine if you are buying it for a seven-year-old and pointless otherwise. It sold more than a quarter of a million copies, a genuine success by the standards of licensed handheld games.

Its interest now is largely documentary: this is what a fast, professional film licence looked like on Nintendo's colour handheld at the end of the nineties. As a platformer it is fine and forgettable, and the same library holds several clearly better options in the genre if challenge is what you want from one.