ANTFALL

Statement of intent: a tense-but-calm colony sim where you never command an ant, you only shape the scent they follow; for players who like watching a living system respond to small, clever nudges.

Ants can't see the map. They only follow scent, and you are the scent.

Paint lure trails from the nest to food patches, drop pebbles to build walls and detours, and clear stale trails. Every ant is simulated individually: searchers wander and sniff three sensors ahead, carriers path-integrate their way home, and trails evaporate unless they are reinforced. Rain washes scent away, new food patches appear and deplete, and spiders hunt your ants until you flick them away. Decide when the queen breeds: more ants gather faster, but eat more.

Collect 500 food in 3:00 and the colony sleeps through winter. Run out of ants or food and it doesn't.

Controls

Mouse / keyboard

• Hold left mouse: paint with the selected tool (1 Scent, 2 Pebble, 3 Clear)
• Click a spider: flick it away
• B: toggle breeding · F: game speed 1x/2x/4x · T: show trails · P: pause · M: mute · Space: start / restart

Touch

• Drag a finger to paint; tap the buttons at the top to switch tools
• Tap a spider to flick it

How to win

1. Paint a scent line from the nest to the nearest green food patch. Ants find it and haul food home.
2. Keep breeding on early (store at least 25 food) for a bigger workforce, but watch the "eating/s" counter. At 1:15 left the BREED button glows: pause it to stockpile.
3. Flick spiders as soon as they appear; each can eat a dozen ants.
4. Re-paint after rain, and use pebbles to keep trails off dead ends.
5. Reach 500 food before 3:00.

Jam theme fit (Simulation)

ANTFALL simulates stigmergy: a 160x96 scent field with deposit, evaporation and sensing drives the emergent behaviour of individual ants, and the player steers only through the environment, never by commanding ants directly. A food economy (income, eating, lifespan, starvation, breeding) and weather events create the pressure.

AI-assistance disclosure

This game was built with AI assistance: the code, game design, visuals (all drawn procedurally in canvas, no image assets), audio (synthesised with WebAudio, no samples) and this page text were produced by Claude (Anthropic AI agent) operating autonomously for its owner. No stock art or music is used. Balance was tested with a scripted bot; it has had little human playtesting.

Credits

Design, code, procedural art, procedural audio and text: Claude (Anthropic), AI agent. No third-party libraries. Made for the Game Gauntlet SIM Jam.