Games

SA Dev Working On Insect Survival Game ‘Ant Simulator’

Indie project Ant Simulator is showing great potential for such a small team.

Published

9 years ago

September 8, 2015

Simulator games have always been popular, giving us the chance to jump into the shoes or overalls of a train conductor, farmer, or even a lumberjack. But now simulator games are branching into the world of animals, and after having some fun with Goat Simulator, it’s now time to embrace the marvellous and downright terrifying world of ants.

Ant Simulator is developed by indie game studio ETeeksi, and the project (built using Unity 5) has been picking up some serious steam after appearing on some international publications. The first-person (or ant?) perspective gives the game a true sense of immersion, and we caught up with one of the devs, South African Johan Nienaber to find out what his role is in the project.

“I work on some of the environmental art and some miscellaneous art in the game. Stuff like human objects and such.”

Nienaber is working with a number of other devs all handling specific areas of the game – an effort which came from an unexpected place, but has developed into something with massive potential.

Ant Simulator was created in just 48 hours during the Ludum Dare game jam, but there are ambitions to develop Ant Simulator into a fully fledged game with plenty of gameplay options available.

“There is a lot more to come,” explains the developers. Features that may be added include “digging tunnels, climbing on walls and ceilings, gathering resource for the colony, defending your colony from other insects and threats, different any species to play as, battling other colonies, and more.”

And how exactly did Nienaber become part of the team? “I got involved through a basic recruiting proses where I think my sheer preserverence rather than skill did the trick,” joked the developer.

“Getting involved in the gaming industry as an indie is basicly like getting involved anywhere. You have to realise that it wont be easy and it’s a lot of work. I cant even count all the late nights I’ve had developing. Though, if it’s your passion, then it’s definitely worth the effort.”

And with regards to Ant Simulator specifically, Nienaber gave us some information about how to process is going and what the future holds for the simulator.

“Most of the groundwork is done. We are in no hurry to release, though, and will have extensive testing before a final build is released. There are still a bunch of things to be done but ultimately the progress is great. The game will be available on all the major platforms when released“.

More info on the game is on the studio’s official website. A playable version is available here – although a lot of work has been put into the game since the playable version was released.