Pheromander

A serious real-time strategy game to teach users about pheromone-based systems. The player is in charge of a colony of ant-like agents and has to help them to collect resources and fight enemies.

This was a project work of a colleague and me as part of the "Interactive Simulation" lecture at University of Augsburg. We also published an article about Pheromander at the VSGames 2016 conference.

• VSGames 2016 paper (PDF) >
• Project website >
• Source code >

Gameplay

In Pheromander, players are in control of a swarm of agents behaving similar to ants. Instead of direct communication, they use pheromones to tell each other about resource spots and the location of enemies. This also reflects in the players' interaction methodologies: In contrast to other real-time strategy games (e.g. Age of Empires) they cannot select individual agents and assign a target destination to them. Instead they have to use the same pheromone vocabulary as their agents and have to place pheromone trails to which agents react.

This interaction method leads to a unique user experience which allows players to learn about pheromone-based systems. Tools to visualize pheromones and the agents' perception are provided to make their behavior more transparent. Furthermore, various parameters like pheromone evaporation or agents' perception range can be altered to experiment with different configurations and their effects to the efficiency of a swarm.

Features

• Unique controls: Command agents via trails of digital pheromones.
• Experimentation: Change various parameters of pheromones and agents and observe related effects on the simulation.
• Two game modes:
  • Simulation mode: Place and remove enemies and resources to create custom scenarios.
  • Challenge mode: Collect as many resources as possible before the timer runs out.
• Tutorial: Get started by learning the basic controls and features.

Screenshots