Eerie robot insect colony sim Microtopia launches in February, with 'programmable' ants

rockpapershotgun.com:

Friend, I regret to inform you that ant nests are computers now. Which is to say, somebody's finally made a video game version of Hex, the sentient glass hive from Terry Pratchett's Unseen University. In spooky automation-driven strategy sim Microtopia, you manage a swarm of what could either be ants who've been to the ripperdoc, or PC components who've grown legs and antennae. Your goal is to expand an insect colony that is also a motherboard, where glittering pheromone trails double as silicon circuits.

The developers Cordyceps Collective have just announced a release date - February 18th - and what's this, there's a demo as well? Catch the trailer below.

I like the simultaneously brain-tickling and skin-crawling presentation, which reminds me a little of Darwinia. I also appreciate the developer's chutzpah in leapfrogging the surprising amount of competition in the ant-based strategy genre, which extends to scientists using Age Of Empires to monitor how ants "wage war". These ain't just your regular garden-variety formicidae - they're Zach-ass cyborgs. Amongst other things, you can "optimize your layout by using sensors and logic gates to sort your ants based on different properties".

I wonder if it'll be one of those games where you can build a functioning computer inside the simulation. Mind you, it also sounds like a traditional strategy game campaign in places, with a bunch of biomes to visit as you rear new queens and send them off to colonise the setting's "world of electronic waste".

Here are some bullet points from the Steam page. Read them quickly before they scuttle away.

- 30 different ant castes

- 45 buildings to construct

- 7 different types of trails

- 10 logic trails and gates to sort your ants

- 5 biomes to explore

- 44 material types to find and craft

- 3 full tiers of progression, each with their own missions

- 80 objectives to achieve

I'm trying to work out the implications of Cordyceps naming themselves after a fungus