How do you turn a nest of ants into a factory? A discussion with micro -2 -micro -producer producers

Last weekend, as Monster Hunter Wilds We threw us down on us, like a stamp, my eye was caught by the stealing movements under the feet. Here is the frightening extravagance of MicrotopA strange and awful factory builder in which your factories are driven by Cyborg ants.

Created by Cordyceps Collective, based in the Netherlands, offers you landscapes of diodes similar to bugs that are thrown on pins, harvesting screws and other debris for a queen that resembles a condenser-pregnant agglomeration. Insect strategy games are amazing abundant At this time, but microtopia goes a little further than many of both of them Darwinian Presentation and in trying to show how ant colonies “think” while meeting SIMS management expectations.

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While you can direct individual ants, the game refers to the establishment of pheromone routes that connect the resources or facilities together, while dictating the behavior of the ants that follow them. Echo Academic research In the way the ants of ants can be with computer networks – aka “Anterior” – Micro -shop presents these routes as circuits, with logical gates that, say, limits how many ants can join a certain route or send an equal number of ants on each branch on a strength.

Cordyceps developers prevented itself by the concept of “anternet” of care a series of Kurzgegt documentationAnd they were immediately captivated by the way in which the “natural” perfume routes organize the behavior of individual ants. “The” Explorer “ants are wandering until they find food or another point of interest,” they told me by E -Email, answering properly as a group. “Once they do, they follow their own smell route back in the colony, strengthening the way to follow other ants.

“The more successful travel, the stronger the route,” the developers continued. “As foods are exhausted, the perfume fades, and the process naturally redirects resources elsewhere. In essence, this behavior works as an algorithm, where the simple rules lead to complex and adaptive solutions, similar to how the slime molds find efficient ways. It seemed to be the perfect match to replace this algorithm.” Meanwhile, the idea that they are Cyborg ants, coming from the old film project of Floris Kaayk art director The control electrodea fictional documentary about the mechanical insects created by abandoned industrial areas.

As an occasional fan of the factory SIMS, I appreciated that I am Hivemind Tycoon Micro. While there is a lot in the game that you will recognize from other SIMS, with stocks, workshops and sadness who form the hierarchies of increasingly specialized building goods, the “Logic of the Feromon” puts a turmoil on the foundations and invites the reflection on the conventions of factory management games.

Before entering all this, with a few more observations. First of all, the controls are beautifully elastic: once you have removed a pheromone route, you can confuse nodes and wires and pull them, which makes it easy to adjust the appearance of the factory and to confuse yourself.

Secondly, an important structural element is that your ants are mortal, different categories of workers with different lifespan. As a result, your perfume routes will eventually develop a wrong embroidered and wavy shells. If you are passionate about the factory SIMS, this might sound like a frustration recipe, but in practice, you can configure things so that newly grown ants are joined.

If microtopia rises well as a gender piece, which makes it intriguing as a story story is how the cordyceps understanding of ants worked with or against these gender expectations, let’s not say anything about the idea of ​​ants.

Sometimes, the mixed inspiration of the game agreed with each other. Take those categories of workers. They are not only German in the needs of a factory sim, but derived from “ants, a unique feature for Eusocial insects in which members of the same species look different from each other.” Also, the DEVS dressed their campaign around the real life process of queens that produce younger gines or queens, to fly and form colonies in other biomes.

At the most ambitious project, Cordyceps experienced, as it was, letting the ants take over the simulation. “For some time, I initially went to make the game revolve around the realistic ants and I went through a few iterations,” they said. “Although from the perspective of the game they were forced to build buildings, to mix iron and the like.” They also thought about giving ants “culture and intelligence”, a fascinating perspective, although I am not sure what these terms mean in context – how to define or measure the culture or intellect of an insect collective?

Finally, however, the Devs decided to set limits on the ants of ants for practical purposes. The perfume routes of micro -theopy consist of straight paths between knots, for example, because the “anterners” in real life are too “organic and painting” for people to follow, bump and grind through soil, bark and leaves. “He allowed the easier adjustments and made the bigger and more intelligible networks,” commented Cordyces.

Cordyceps also decided against martial elements or simulating real -life confrontations between colonies of rival ants or other insects. “Even if the ants with robot soldier were very cool, microtopia is not a game about destruction,” they explained. “Constructing the interior functioning of a colony requires time and is a very involved process. After hours of work, it would not be fun to start after a rude neighbor had to come to attack your larvae.”

Although I don’t think micropia needs a conflict element, this feels like a slight missed opportunity – I can’t help but think of scientists Who used the age of empires as a reference point for “invading” ants behavior. I am also curious about how the element of competition could have affected the portrait of micro -paths as an algorithms: apparently, certain ants of ants can hijack the ants from other nests, rather than to hunt food sources. Supply by hackers, maybe?

Above all, however, I am interested in discussing what it means to understand our ants to depict these creatures and their houses as motherboards or factories, with all associated cultural baggage. How does it contribute to combating all these ideas to our ability to live with them?

Cordyceps hopes that microTopia resists the “more classic vision of ants” as “pests” and presents them as “” working “beings -” an interconnected structure of different ants within a colony, all cooperate with such grace, as if it were a great body. ” But it is not just about modulating our attitudes towards ants. At another level, micropy is, of course, perioduming the effects of the effects of human beings. It takes place against the background of a stretched neon warehouse, and the ants themselves are pieces of self-propaging electronic waste.

For Cordyceps, micro -opia “is a satire in a way, in which even in a polluted environment, life will find a way to survive and prosper.” Suddenly appreciated and caution, “presents the incredible achievements of nature and holds a mirror for our own human society, both in the successes and in its failures.”