(Intro music playing)
I think you could make a fairly good argument that pretty much everybody that knows about games knows about The Sims,
but there were a whole line of awesome games before The Sims.
And one of my favorites is SimAnt...
...especially on the Macintosh.
This was actually the first Sim game I think I might've played.
I don't know remember if it was that or SimCity,
but I know I've played it on a Macintosh a lot like this one at the local public library.
Most people remember the box art looking like this.
This is the version from the Maxis Classics line, which came out right around SimCity 2000,
but this is the original one and the one that came out on the Macintosh first,
as it was designed on the Macintosh in 1991.
And this is, of course, one of Will Wright's pet projects,
and interestingly enough, it's what gave him the idea for The Sims
because of the house and social simulations that are in the game, with the human and his family.
Yeah, this guy. The plaid pants, knee-high black socks...
Oh, I wish I could be this guy... I really do.
Because he has a very, very decent house.
It may be small, but you can see by that look on his face that he is an owner,
not a renter...
...living the American dream.
It comes on two floppy disks, but they're actually,
a single game is on each disk.
There's just a version for color, as well as monochrome Macintoshs.
It'll pretty much work on anything, from a Mac Plus,
or Macintosh SE, and upwards.
Of course, it comes with the Software Toys Catalog,
which catalogs all of their software toys.
And then you have this manual.
You probably have about a third of it
which actually goes into the game itself,
but the last part of the book is all real information about real ants,
going really, really in depth into foraging theory and trophallaxis,
everything about ants, really.
I mean, this is much more in depth than some biology books that I've read.
I'm running this on Mac System 7.5,
and it does run in 16 color mode.
(game music playing)
That's one huge reason that I like the Macintosh version of this so much:
the music and sound quality.
Let's go into "Experimental" mode here.
This is what most people ended up playing, at least from who I've talked to in my own experiences...
...where you just have several windows here and you control,
well, everything at the same time,
even the spider if I remember correctly.
Essentially, this is just messing around,
where you can lay down different ants, watch them get eaten by the spiders
and watch them get eaten, torn apart, by the antlions--it was just a lot of fun.
And who could forget using the insecticide on all the different creatures?
Much enjoyment to be had.
Nothing like a bit of sadism in the classroom.
Add some red ants in there to get the fighting going...
Oh yeah, you have a intense rivalry: red ants versus black ants.
So, you get to learn about racial relations as well.
Maxis did not leave out anything.
Oh, yeah and there's no shortage of ridiculous sound effects
and all sorts of weird little quirky things like that.
Maxis was always about making their games really fun,
but yet educational at the same time for kids.
There's not many things more fun than burping and vomiting sound effects.
I always loved, too, whenever you'd get eaten by a spider or eaten by an antlion, or something,
it would always tell you, in graphic detail, how you died...
and what happened to your body.
It's really quite graphic.
There's also the "Quick Game" mode,
which is essentially a death match or a gang turf war, or something.
Red versus black, where you try to take out the opposing team by building up your own army.
However, most of it was just foraging, collecting food...
so it got boring
really fast.
So the real fun, at least for me, came from the "Full Game" mode.
In this, you start out as a lone female ant ready to lay eggs.
You choose somewhere for your nest, dig down, and start breeding.
Git right down to it, like a woman should. Yee-haw.
JK. LOL.
From there, you turn into the regular ant--
the yellow ant is always the one you are just to differentiate yourself.
At first, you'll want to collect a bit of food
for you and the queen, most importantly.
Hugely important in this mode is the "Behavior Control" and "Caste Control".
For me, at the beginning, I usually have a bunch of ants foraging and also nursing, as well as,
mostly workers and soldiers being made.
Really, you don't have to do too much else once you get those two control things down
cause the rest will happen automatically.
Your ants will start being produced in larger numbers and doing all of the foraging and everything for you.
Just don't run out of food or you'll die.
And if there is no food, you can always have your friend regurgitate some for you.
(vomiting sound)
The entire point of this game is to take over all the yard and the red ants
but also drive the humans out of the house.
That means taking over all of the house.
(cat hiss) And yes, the dog and the cat, too.
They all need to leave.
In order to do that,
you'll want to get your ants to mate.
Once the mating process is started, they will produce some new queens.
The blinking square on the map is the current location of your colony on the grid.
You want to take over as much of that grid as you can.
Once you have mated and made a queen,
if it's on manual mode, you can place that colony as far away as you can,
and then you can move to that location and play from there if you'd like.
At this point, I usually change the controls again
to more foraging, more nursing, as well as much more breeders and workers and hardly any soldiers
because, at this point, all you need is a lot of food
and nursing to go on to make the workers and the breeders,
and slowly, but surely, your empire will grow and grow,
eventually making your way into the house,
which I always liked.
This here is the kitchen floor,
and also, up above on the counter, where you have electrical outlets
and the kitchen sink,
as well as, underneath the living room chair on the carpet.
And then, usually, if you've done this right,
in about ten or twelve minutes, you will have taken over just about the entire area
and there should not be too many red ants left
and their inferior selves should be rather easy to squash.
Once the house has been taken over and the humans have been kicked out,
you can take over the last red ant colony
and you will win the game.
(game victory music playing)
Once you do that, you'll get this awesome little animation screen
showing the psychotic effects that you have bestowed upon your former omnipotent landlords.
And really, that's about it.
There's not a lot much else to the game,
but there's lots of little things to play with.
So if you've never played SimAnt or it's been awhile,
why not pick up a cheap copy on eBay or something like that?
It's one of the best classic Maxis titles and it's a fun, relaxing way to just waste a bit of time.