SimAnt
| Developer: Maxis | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Ocean | Sound: |
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| Year: 1992 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Strategy | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 1 | Rating: |
7/10 | |
Following the success of Sim City and the more modest reception of Sim Earth, the developers at Maxis strike again with this ant colony simulation…
Help! Buttons everywhere! Windows! Spiders!
And even more terrifying, I imagine: the 200-page manual that comes with it!
The principle of the game is to lead a black ant colony against the red ants, who are contesting your territory (a charming suburban garden). Battle on each plot of land, and once you’ve become master of the garden, invade the house and drive out its occupants!
You operate either underground (cross-section view) or on the surface (top-down view), and the screen showing the house and garden, viewed at a 3/4 angle, strangely resembles the early stages of The Sims (by the same creator).
Your first priority will be the quest for food, followed by colony defence. Then, you can start mass-producing ant units (reproducers, soldiers, workers). When everything is ready, you’ll launch a devastating attack on the enemy anthill with the objective of killing the queen! Unless she finds you first?
Your ant can perform all sorts of useful activities like leaving pheromone trails to guide its companions, digging tunnels, moving pebbles, eating a friend’s vomit (trophallaxis, yum yum). But keep in mind that the local fauna is rather malevolent and many other more exotic dangers threaten you (human shoes, lawn mower, rain, insecticide…).
To summarise, it’s a very original game, educational and not without humour, though slightly less well-equipped in terms of “accessibility” despite the presence of a tutorial. A multiplayer mode would have been interesting, wouldn’t it?
Note: It was released a year earlier on PC (and Mac) and in 1993 on Super Nintendo. I’d recommend the first version.
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