Ants Sandbox
Games
simulation game
SHOW HN2022
367points
61comments
#102of 2,570 in 2022
Top 4%of 2022 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
8 positive, 15 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 10 critical, out of 34 comments about the project. Thread score -0.06.
Execution: 1 for, 7 againstIdea: 3 for, 0 againstDesign: 1 for, 1 againstPerformance: 0 for, 2 againstPricing: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Nostalgia for SimAnt and fun retro vibe
From 3 comments
Also get this on Firefox on Android. Would love to restart the step but it looks like you would have to cancel the whole tour and start over. Really enjoyed it though! Love the…
floodle on HNSim Ant and Sim Earth are both begging for remakes!
wintermutestwin on HNBringing back childhood memories with those blue ant farms.. thank you
marclou on HN
Visuals and emergent behaviour are impressive
From 2 comments
Really love this, it can create such amazing visuals (before the ants erase them with the "no food left" signal!) Fun to read through the TS/Vue/PixiJS source as well, thanks for…
bcjordan on HNThis is great to see. Years ago I created a basic simulation using the same principles of pheromone gradients, one for the nest and one for food. https://youtu.be/VsHc91IhzdI It…
hughrlomas on HN
Objections
Touch controls break on iOS, iPad and Android Firefox
From 4 comments
The simulation works fine on Firefox on Android. But touching the map causes it to fly out of view and I can never get it back. Might benefit from a Centre View button for…
wdfx on HNWhen I touch the screen on iPad, everything goes black. Edit: it’s usable if I only use the gui element to zoom out one step and don’t scroll or zoom. I was thinking: what if…
drivers99 on HNSorry but this completely fails on iOS. Can't touch the controls, zoom in or out, etc.
geuis on HNThe tours are awesome! The last one (with soldiers) stops working after the first Next tap (iOS, Safari).
xixixao on HN
Poor performance on some browsers and machines
From 2 comments
cool, but this needs WebGL or something as I'm getting 8 fps
TruthWillHurt on HNI think it crashed my phone, froze between tutorial steps and when I looked back my phone, a galaxy note 10+ had restarted.
mywacaday on HN
Right-click drawing is not intuitive
From 1 comment
Yeah, right-click drawing is not the most intuitive. I found it purely by accident.
dylan604 on HN
Requests
Fix mobile and touch support
From 2 comments
The simulation works fine on Firefox on Android. But touching the map causes it to fly out of view and I can never get it back. Might benefit from a Centre View button for…
wdfx on HNWhen I touch the screen on iPad, everything goes black. Edit: it’s usable if I only use the gui element to zoom out one step and don’t scroll or zoom. I was thinking: what if…
drivers99 on HN
Add a centre view button
From 1 comment
The simulation works fine on Firefox on Android. But touching the map causes it to fly out of view and I can never get it back. Might benefit from a Centre View button for…
wdfx on HN
Let worker ants fight
From 1 comment
When I touch the screen on iPad, everything goes black. Edit: it’s usable if I only use the gui element to zoom out one step and don’t scroll or zoom. I was thinking: what if…
drivers99 on HN
Model ant homing vector navigation
From 1 comment
One thing that is missing from this simulation is that (at least some) ant species walk straight back to their nest once they found some food. They do this (as far as we know) by…
fho on HN
Questions
How does pheromone path optimisation work
From 1 comment
Would you mind describing the mechanism responsible for the ants optimizing the path? I would assume that once a path is established it become self-reinforcing as more ants…
ehzy on HN
How does the food trail direction choice work
From 1 comment
May I ask - in the early stages, when a wandering ant encounters its first food pheromone trail, is there a logic that dictates which direction it chooses to then follow? It has…
detritus on HN
Alternatives named
SimAnt
From 2 comments
Gives me nostalgia for playing Sim Ant when I was young. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimAnt
smcleod on HNI remember A. K. Dewdney introducing "Wa-Tor" in Scientific American in the 80's. I was fascinated by those explorations. (And SimAnt is of course the more obvious parallel to…
JKCalhoun on HN
Cities Skylines
From 1 comment
Even the spiritual successor Cities Skylines is getting old at this point. There's a few other city-building games that almost nail it but the devs always add in something that…
dawnerd on HN
Liquid War
From 1 comment
Really love this, it can create such amazing visuals (before the ants erase them with the "no food left" signal!) Fun to read through the TS/Vue/PixiJS source as well, thanks for…
bcjordan on HN