Ant Colony

Eight ants underground, sixteen duties to finish, and one of them is not an ant

Single player
strategy
arcade

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About Ant Colony

A colony of eight works through chambers and tunnels, filling in the duty counter one station at a time. Sixteen completed duties and the colony wins. Somewhere among the eight is a parasite that finishes nothing, bites workers when nobody is close enough to see, and needs only to level the numbers to win.

You take one of the eight. Before the round you can ask to be a Worker, ask to be the Parasite, or leave it to chance, in which case the role falls to you about a third of the time. As a worker you see only a short way through the dark. As the parasite the fog lifts entirely — you watch all seven at once, which is the thing that makes that side playable at all.

Duties are a timing test rather than a menu: a pointer sweeps around a ring and you tap three times as it crosses the gold arc. Reporting a body, or ringing the queen's bell once per round, pulls everyone into a meeting where the other seven speak in turn and the vote runs for twenty-five seconds.

What is different about this version

The difficulty setting is asymmetric, which is unusual. Easy is kinder to you whichever side you drew, and it does it by changing different numbers depending on your role. Playing a worker on Easy, the other workers vote their true suspect nine times out of ten and half of them will follow your vote; playing the parasite on Easy, the same ants only manage it about a third of the time. On Hard those figures invert. The bots also run a real suspicion score rather than a coin flip — watching a duty completed clears an ant by forty points, seeing a bite pins the biter at a hundred, and a claim made out loud in the meeting moves the number for everyone else who heard it. Bot parasites on Easy are sometimes sloppy enough to bite with one witness watching; on Hard they never are.

How to play Ant Colony

Set Easy, Normal or Hard and your preferred role, then move out into the tunnels.
As a worker, stand on a station and tap three times as the pointer crosses the gold arc. Sixteen banked duties wins.
As the parasite, reach a lone worker with nobody nearby and bite. A cooldown runs before the next one.
Walk over a fallen ant to report it, or reach the queen's bell to call a meeting. The bell works once.
In the meeting, listen to the claims, then tap an ant to vote or skip.
Being banished or bitten turns you into a ghost — no vote, but you can still finish duties.
The parasite wins the moment its side is no longer outnumbered.

Controls

Desktop	WASD or the arrow keys to walk; the large button at the bottom of the screen does whatever the situation allows — Use, Bite, Report or Ring bell.
Phone or tablet	Drag anywhere to raise a thumbstick and steer with it; the same action button sits above it.
Players	One player. Any other characters on screen are run by the game.

Strategy

As a worker, the duty counter is a weapon and an alibi at once. Every station you finish clears you with anyone standing within sight of it, and drops the colony's requirement by one — so a round where the workers simply keep working is a round the parasite runs out of time in. The fog is short, so pair up: an ant that has been beside you for thirty seconds is one you can vouch for. Keep track of who you have never once seen, because that is who to name.

In meetings, vote early. A proportion of the bots will follow your vote, and that proportion is highest on Easy, which makes leading a vote genuinely effective there. On Hard almost nobody follows and you need a real accusation instead — a bite you witnessed, which carries enormous weight, or two ants placing someone in the same chamber as the body.

As the parasite the free map view is the whole plan. Do not hunt the nearest worker; watch for one that has drifted from the others and intercept it in a tunnel, where there are two exits and no traffic. You also move faster than any bot, so a bite followed immediately by a walk to the far side of the colony is hard to pin on you. Fake duties where somebody can see you standing, leave before the taps a real worker would have finished, and vote with the majority every time.

Mistakes that cost you the game

Banking duties in one chamber all round. Nobody sees you, nobody clears you, and the moment a body turns up you have no one to speak for you.
Voting whenever you are unsure. A banished worker is the parasite's cheapest win, and a skipped vote costs nothing.
As the parasite, biting the ant closest to you rather than the most isolated one. A single witness sets your suspicion to the maximum with everyone.
Forgetting the bell. It is a single use per round, and hoarding it usually means dying with it unrung.

Tips

Complete duties where other ants can see you. The clearing effect is worth as much as the duty.
The pointer jumps to a fresh position after every successful tap, so watch the arc rather than settling into a rhythm.
A station that has just been used goes quiet for over half a minute. An ant stood at one is banking nothing.
Track who accused whom. A bot that names someone and then switches target knows nothing.
As a ghost, keep working — those duties count, and sixteen is a win even with half the colony gone.
Parasite on Hard is the toughest thing here: the workers rarely follow your lead.

Questions about Ant Colony

How many ants are in a round, and how many are parasites?

Eight ants, exactly one parasite. Seven of them are run by the game.

Can I choose to be the parasite?

Yes, from the pause sheet — or leave it on Random and it comes up roughly one round in three.

What does the parasite see that a worker does not?

Everything. Workers get a short circle of vision in the dark; the parasite has no such limit.

Can a meeting end with nobody banished?

Yes — a tie, or more skips than votes for any one ant, leaves everybody where they were.

Do the other ants say anything useful?

Sometimes. They report who they saw and where, and clear ants they watched finish a duty. The parasite makes claims too, and it names whoever is already suspected.

Does it cost anything?

No. Ant Colony is free to play, runs in your browser, and needs no download, install or account.

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