An ant simulator on PICO-8.
(This project is dedicated to the memory of all the fearless ants who lost their lives upon invading my home. May they rest in peace. 🥀)
Background
I created this project with the goal of simulating the way real-life ants find and gather food. It's fascinating that while individual ants have limited intelligence and simple behavior, they're extremely proficient at solving problems and adapting to changing conditions when acting as a group.
This all came about when I had some ants invading my house in May 2025, which simultaneously triggered both frustration and fascination as I tried to figure out how they kept getting in, even as I plugged up various tiny crevices they were entering through. I don't like killing things, but I eventually had to resort to using poison bait traps to keep them out of my home. While the fascination sparked by that experience is what inspired this project, I've come to feel it's also given me a way to honor the ants as living beings that I share the planet with (despite the killing). Maybe that's silly, but I think it's important to have a certain level of reverence for all life, and to contemplate the ways in which we're all interconnected.
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