The ant colony that won't let you sleep
Build the production lines of a backyard ant colony. You never command an ant directly: you lay scent, dig furrows and place the rooms, and hundreds of ants work it out from there. Clay becomes brick, sand becomes glass, and in the end the colony builds an Ark to leave the garden.
How it plays
Antsomnia starts messy. Ants wander, trails fade, haulers bump into each other in busy tunnels. Research gives you steadily better ways to route them, from a sprayed beacon to painted trails, overpasses and bridges.
Ants follow pheromone gradients. Beacons pull foragers to food, water or material; Avoid and Rally beacons push and gather them.
No goods teleport. Transporters haul every crumb between rooms along the routes you lay out, and the traffic is part of the puzzle.
Production rooms, kilns, smelters and acid vats turn raw finds into bricks, glass, iron and sealant. Each one is fed by belts, crews and haulers.
Seasons turn, toads hop in, birds swoop and raids are announced ahead of time. The fun is getting ready before they arrive.
Two worlds
Scouts fan out across plantain, violets and stones. You dig water furrows, bridge them with twigs, herd aphids on flowers and stake quarries on clay banks. Each bank runs dry in time, and the next one is always further out.
Below the mound, every hex gets a purpose: nurseries, gardens, workshops, stores. Floors stack downward, a winch lift joins their power, and a water wheel on the surface drives the entrance floor.
The year
The colony runs whenever the game is open. Winter is hibernation: the work stops, unless you have prepared for it.
The colony wakes. Water wheels turn at full strength on the spring flow.
The dry spell. Cisterns built against the mound keep the nest's water topped up.
Flow returns and the piles grow bigger. The last chance to fill stores and charcoal.
Wheels freeze and ants hibernate. A compost heap or a glass greenhouse keeps work going through the cold.
Field guide
A few of the surface structures, in their own words from the build menu.
Production
Hot and acid works keep ants at a distance, so goods ride belts in and out from a dock.
The goal
Five stages, each one a test of the whole factory. Every stage asks you to hold a steady flow of goods for three minutes.
A brick platform, sealed against the wet. 20 brick · 10 sealant / min
A glass-and-iron dome rising. 12 glass · 8 iron · 10 lacquer / min
Green inside the dome. 30 fungus · 20 water · 10 honeydew / min
A silk envelope filling over a wax burner. 10 silk rope · 6 springs · 8 wax / min · 6 power
Life support again, plus food, while the lizard comes for it. + 40 food / min
Join the colony
Antsomnia is being built in the open. The Discord is where new builds land first, where playtesters report what broke, and where you can tell us what your colony needs.
Press and questions: antsomnia.game@gmail.com