Colony
(2007 - 2009)
Individual project for University of Southampton
Innovative open-source strategy game using simple stigmergetic, emergent and realistic behaviour of simulated amalgamated social insects.
Colony is a game where the player controls a nest of social insects called Zeits. A Zeit is an amalgamation of the characteristics of many different real life social insects, in particular Termites and Ants. The object of the game is to ensure the growth and success of your colony of Zeits against the elements, other insects and rival colonies. The game centres around players making subtle changes to the Zeits and their environment to implement large changes in their behaviour, nest and consequently the success of the Zeit colony. The game will also have a multiplayer aspect where two or more players can set their colonies against each other. In modelling the Zeit behaviour I will look to make use of the research done into Termite behaviour in particular the research done into nest construction.
Strategy for many years now have heavily reused the classic scheme of unit control where each unit has very little “intelligence” of its own and relies on the player for nearly all orders. With
this project I intend to turn this idea on its head by giving the agents emergent intelligence. I hope that this will make a new experience which will be unique for players. It is my belief that there are few more resourceful than gamers trying to win a game, and that we can make use of this resourcefulness to further the research with agent based, self-organising, emergent behaviour.
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