[HN Gopher] Show HN: Symbiants - digital ant farm / mental healt...
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Show HN: Symbiants - digital ant farm / mental health companion
Hello HN! Hope you are well. I'm creating my first video game.
It's nowhere near complete, but I am eager for feedback, so here I
am! My game is a digital ant farm. You should think SimAnt +
Tamagotchi. Here's a picture: https://i.imgur.com/dIJaraG.png It's
written in Rust/Bevy, compiled to WASM, and is open-source,
https://github.com/MeoMix/symbiants. Fair warning, though, this is
my first time writing in Rust/Bevy. My goal is to give people cute
ants that do cute ant stuff 24/7, ask people to look after their
ants and to feed them once-per-day, and then deny people the
ability to provide ant care unless they engage in mental health
exercises. I started working on this project for a few reasons:
1) I've been a dev for ~15 years, but, on a personal level, I have
very little to show for it. I've worked on multiple, multi-year
projects which were subsequently shut down by lawyers and, frankly,
I'm tired of practicing non-attachment with my work. So, I'm
creating this as a personal affirmation. 2) I enjoy my fully-
remote, WFH lifestyle, but I find myself more isolated than ever.
The lack of disruption allows for some serious focus. Sometimes I
get so focused on a project that days slip by without me practicing
self-care, and I'll keep going until my output wanes due to lack of
healthy behaviors. I thought having a digital companion who is
interested in ensuring I remain consistent in caring for myself, by
expecting consistent care for itself, would be effective and
beneficial. 3) Ants are sweet. Obviously there should be more ant
sims. :) Currently, "Sandbox Mode" is all that exists. This mode
provides the user with developer tools and allows them to treat the
world like an unbounded playground. I use this mode for
prototyping. In the future, I'll combine mechanics from Sandbox
Mode with cutscenes to create a more restrictive/compelling Story
Mode. Sandbox Mode includes the following features: * Queen Ant
spawns, searches for a nesting spot, and begins to dig out a nest
by hauling sand to the surface. * Queen Ant establishes a nest and
begins rearing worker ants once per hour. * Worker Ants haul sand
to the surface and emergently expand the nest with tunnels/chambers
when they feel cramped. * Ants get hungry and starve if not fed
every 24 hours. * Sand-fall physics applies to the environment.
Food, sand tumble down surfaces. * Basic day/night cycle. Sky
background lightens/darkens with time of day. * Option to link in-
game time to real-world time and to sync sunrise/sunset. * Ants go
to sleep at night. * Ants emote when sleeping and eating food. *
User Actions allow user to spawn sand, dirt, food, and ants. You
can kill ants, despawn ants, despawn food, and select entities,
too. * Settings allow user to affect simulation speed (Sandbox
Mode only), ant color, etc. * Breathwork Prompt encourages user to
meditate on a loose schedule in exchange for feeding ants. Today,
I am working on adding eggs to the birthing lifecycle and then
allowing ants to carry eggs as well as other, dead ants. :) If
you'd like to read more about my stretch goals for Story Mode, feel
free to peruse my ramblings. The high-level goal is to create a
homage to Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky,
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ACH1XLCn7hkKz2dhuL1c_nx... If
you'd like to talk more directly - my email is in my profile or you
can reach me through Discord - https://discord.gg/Qugp2Es4 So,
what do you think? Good idea with poor execution? Love everything
and just want to see more? Feel that I'm just throwing away time
with a non-viable starter? Want to help but don't know where to
start? Let me hear it! Thanks for your time.
Author : SeanAnderson
Score : 6 points
Date : 2023-11-01 16:47 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ant.care)
(TXT) w3m dump (ant.care)
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(page generated 2023-11-01 23:02 UTC)