Rules |
|
| The Ant Farm is made up of different types of ant: |
1) The Queen. |
| The Queen is always present and cannot die. When the program starts she enters the Ant Farm at a random position and immediately gives birth to 10 ants including at least one Drone. Normally she is coloured blue but when she is near the nest she will turn pink signalling her willingness to mate. She will normally stay close to the nest but she can sometimes lose interest, in which case, she will turn back to blue and start wandering around. The Queen will produce a new ant each time a Drone succesfully mates with her. |
2) Drone |
| Drones are coloured green but will turn red if the Queen's presence arouses them. If they become aroused they will attempt to mate with the queen. Once they have mated they will try to run away until they are ready to mate again. You can add more drones by holding down the Shift key and clicking the mouse inside the Ant Farm. |
3) Worker |
| These make up the majority of the ants on the farm and are coloured black. Generally, they content themselves with looking busy but like all the other ants they will attack any wasp who gets too close to them. You can add more workers by holding down the Ctrl and Shift key and clicking the mouse inside the Ant Farm. |
4) Killer |
| Once the colony reaches a certain size the Queen will give birth to two Killer ants. These are coloured yellow with a black X. They will eat any Worker or Drone who gets too close, although, as a rule, other ants will try and run away. Killers cannot harm the Queen. You can add more killers at any time by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking the mouse inside the Ant Farm. If there are not enough ants for the Killers to eat they will die of starvation. |
| The total number of Workers and Drones will never exceed 500. |
| In addition to the ants, sometimes a wasp may get into the Ant Farm. Any ants who are near the wasp will attack and consume it. Unless they have enough wasps to feed on, workers and drones will eventually starve to death. You can add more wasps at any time by right-clicking the mouse inside the Ant Farm. |
| You can restart the Ant Farm at any time by clicking on it with the left mouse button. |
| Tip: If the Queen starts away from the nest she will never reproduce. You can either keep restarting the ant farm (left-click) until she ends up in the nest, or if you're more patient you might try luring her there with wasps (right-click) |
