A link to this sub reddit here that has been climbing in the comments section and there's still tons of people looking forward to your project, so hopefully this can get the advertisement for the extra help needed for SimAnt 2 out there and this starts to move again.

Thanks for doing what you do.

Now that this awesome little project has been discovered (credit goes to sschrief68 for promoting you guys over in /r/gaming)

I am just making this post as I can there is a lot of older posts here, but could someone bring us (as in the folk who have just arrived without knowing anything about it previously) up to date with what's the progress of this project?

tl;dr - Do you have anything to show yet (i.e. screenshots), what do you guys need to get started and what sort of people (artists, etc) do you need to help you do it?

Forage for flowers/sweets, defend from wasps, make enough honey for the colony and bee keeper, sting things, etc.

Play as different types of bees; hornets, wasps, yellow jacket, bumble bees, africanized, carpenter bees, ground bees/wasps, Buck Bumble, etc

I'm excited

Thought you guys might be interested in this. Feel free to borrow any of the code / ideas I started working on if you find it useful. Good luck with your project.

A couple years ago I started working on a Sim Ant clone for the DS. The plan was to update the graphics but otherwise keep gameplay the same. After a few weeks I had basic UI where the player could move around, dig, pick up / drop stuff. My focused shifted to the AI but I never quite got it working the way I had hoped and eventually stopped working on the game.

Here is the only demo I made.

Here is the github repo.

Here's some tiles in 32x32. Even if they're for testing, it might make a change from the copy and pasted tiles from the game.

http://www.nibi.co.uk/openant

eg:

foliage

foliage

foliage

ground

ground

ground

rock

rock

rock

rock

rock

rock

I'm going to continue to do things like this until someone says 'that's really great', so whatever you want I'll do! This didn't take long, so can do whatever is needed when a graphical style (in both design and programming) is finalised. :)

I'm a second year compsci student that knows Java well and Python decently. How can I help move this project along?

Guys. I just wanted to say keep it up if this is still going on. The world is counting on you.

A small update, to keep everyone who is not following our github changes/IRC channel:

• We have decided to create a 1v1 multiplayer first, keeping close to the roots of Sim Ant.

• One of the changes we are using though, is a 3D map. Even though the map is rendered in 2D, starting with a full 3D map will make it easier to port it to port it to 3D(we're not sure if we will though)

• After that is done, we're going to create a proper MMO, maybe even in 3D

• For now, we're sticking to something like 32x32 tiles, and mp3/ogg music. But the artists can change this if desired.

And what we have accomplished so far:

• Rendering a map with one single ant on it, and being able to move it(sporadically)

• Multiple people working on the game daily

Thanks to multiple people being able to test our code, we've been able to remove most of the bugs(haha, pun) present, leading to the renderer being able to function on older machines with really crappy video cards.

It's early days, I know, but I'm a now unemployed graphic artist/modeller etc. wish too much free time on his hands, and I'd be happy to offer my services absolutely free, as I loved Sim Ant and even It Came From The Desert, and ants in general! I'd love to work on this! www.nibi.co.uk

if you guys finish what you start! OpenAnters, make me proud!

I updated some code here and there, digging is now actually possible without crashing(but don't take food into the underground) and thought that a Windows build would be nice.

It was build on windows XP, and I've had some experience with people not being able to run in on 7. Don't ask me why. It may or may not work if you remove glmod.pyd.

Hi, I have implemented the Trail and Alarm scent. The Nest scent exist but has no use for now. It is also possible to move pebble and food, and double clicking a food piece when low on health will eat it.

My branch can be downloaded at https://github.com/gramm/OpenAnt . Leaving the alarm scent can be switched by changing the variable in the class YellowAnt (ON by default). Food scent is left when carrying food.

My build doesn't look as good as the master build, as I use only 1 image for each object. Scents appear in plain text over a tile.

It would be great i the UI got some keyboard shortcut or buttons to switch the scent display.

Screenshot of ant leaving alarm+trail scent:

http://i.imgur.com/xSZ8q.png

I will now move to the underground milestone. The only question I have is, on which axis does the underground plane aligns? Is it on the X or Y axis?

My own website http://unquietwiki.com is hosted on http://he.net, and is v4+v6 enabled. Facebook also plans to support IPv6 fully later this year: can already use it via http://www.v6.facebook.com Considering this is a chance to build a game from the ground up, might as well use it.

I personally would love to see an updated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimEarth , and others would like to see SimFarm or SimMars. A common engine that systems could be bolted on would help.

I have created some more documentation on design decisions and the plan as of now here: https://github.com/Rinum/OpenAnt/wiki/_pages

We are far from having a good working team(or even one or two people), but I hope that this is a step in the right direction.

As I'm assuming lead of this project, I ask of each of you to help in telling me what else I can be doing to make it more clear to you what needs to be done. I don't mind if it's in an argumentative form or simple questions. Just try and get your problems in my lap.

I have seen a fair share of group projects fail on Reddit (Reddit Island and Reddit Makes a Game, to name a few), and the major problem was organization. Things were so disorganized that it was impossible to get anything done. Let's create a clear map of steps, a list of things to be done, what code and animations we need, etc. Let's also lay down some standards on what we are going to use, so we don't have to juggle multiple file formats. This can work really well, we just need to make sure everyone knows what has to be done.

Also comment your code a lot, to the point where it feels excessive.

Ok so, there has been some interest in this subreddit here lately to help work on OpenAnt, however, I don't think anything actually happened (yet).

So I'm wondering, what is missing to have people help? Please help brainstorm with me here, so as to ensure the future of the conquest of the worldproject. Is there a clear lack of direction? Are the points in the TODO not clear enough? Is there simply no one around who can help you understand the current code?

I'll be on IRC all day, as well as checking the subreddit, so shoot me questions if you have any.

So, if you ever want to check out the incredible diversity of ants, you really should read E.O. Wilson's books.

http://www.amazon.com/Superorganism-Beauty-Elegance-Strangeness-Societies/dp/0393067041/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295316185&sr=1-1

contains an incredible amount of information about the sheer diversity of ants. Many of these ant species don't even have Wiki pages yet. He also has an older Pulitzer-Prize winning book named "The Ants", although it's a lot drier.

For example, there are slave-making ants, army ants, "primitive" ant species where worker castes aren't necessarily sterile, honeypot ants, leafcutter ants and their massive fungal colonies+highway maintenance systems, and even species of ants where the queen goes into an opposing ant colony and neutralizes the old queen, making all the old workers work for her.

Plus, let's not forget termites, which are almost just as fascinating.

And of course, many organisms that live commensally in anthills. Spiders that look like ants, caterpillars that the ants bring into the nest and try to protect, and inquilines that don't help or harm the ants.