Desktop Ant Farm Simulator

Official v1.0 Release Available Now!Hey all,I took the past few weeks really polishing up the code behind the scenes, making it ultra stable, ultra slick. This is in addition to the smattering of new goodies throughout the experience, and some nice text and UI clean-up. This is a polished realization of the original idea I set out to make and I feel happy and comfortable to say it is a finished complete idea.Off the bat, right out the gate, I'll comment and add that development is not over! It's just different. There are things I still want to add and tinker with over time, but they fell outside the scope of my original concept. And rather move the goalposts of that original scope, I am celebrating the victory of finishing the original idea now. And I'll continue tinkering as I see fit. And work on other fun ideas as well. I just like making games.Thanks all who joined me in this Early Access, I've never done this before. Release an un-finished game, that is. I'm not a multi-million dollar developer, the concept of releasing an unfinished game doesn't come naturally to me. But the process was great. I got some great feedback, was able to implement some great community thoughts. And I was able to finish my own thoughts.To celebrate the release, Desktop Ant Farm Simulator will be going on it's first ever sale! If you've had it on your wish-list, I hope you take the time to consider hopping on and supporting the studio. This was a completely solo project behind the screen, a departure from Beef Cat Ultra (our previous team project). There's another team project gearing up it's Steam Store page, but that's for another day.Anyways, thanks again everyone. This was a niche little passion project and I'm very happy with what I put out. In Early Access, I included on the store page that the price would increase after Early Access. I changed my mind. I want to keep it very affordable, very impulse buy. It's a niche little app of a game and I want people to feel like the value...

Desktop Ant Farm Simulator is Leaving Early Access in AugustHey all,I want to do a devlog on my current thoughts for Desktop Ant Farm Simulator. As I've been tinkering with Update #10, cleaning up text issues, adding another dozen lofi tracks, a new font option, etc, I've realized that the rough edges that were intentionally left rough so that I could start Early Access have been smoothed.I set out to have a rich full lofi soundtrack, which is as of the current status of Update #10, sitting at 36 tracks. I set out to create an Idle Mode that stood separate from Productivity mode, and the Forager Ants/Nutrients/Age System all went an extremely long way in making a satisfying loop This whole project started as an idea to make a digital distraction. Something my ADHD coded brain could stare at while I did my real job. The original concept was completed to my level of desire months before Early Access even started. To release it to an actual audience required some basic needs, like settings and controls info. Easily the most boring part of game development. Just writing code to accomplish basic features that exist in every game.What was left on the drawing board at Early Access launch was that next brush of creative development. How can I make it look better? Make it easier to work on any monitor so that it could just run idly while people do their own thing? What ways can I expand the Idle Mode without making it require *too much interaction? It needed to stay minimal, it's a distraction not a focus.Over the course of the 10 Early Access patches I addressed nearly all of my thoughts about how to polish this project off, and took several great suggestions from the community to heart. Early Access was the perfect choice for this project. How else was I supposed to focus on making more without it also running in the corner of the monitor as a distraction?Version 1.0 is not the end of my time working on this. It just marks that level of polish that I feel comfortable selli...

Hi all,The Jukebox update is here! This one doesn't have a lot to explain. I added 12 new Lo-fi tracks by artist Redlight Chill, and added a new "now playing" banner that pops in when you are in the ant farm and a new track starts. So you can see the song name and artist of the new track. Fairly simple concept that proved more difficult than I thought to create with modular window sizes and screen layouts. Creating a one-size fits all approach to a nice little track window took some trial and error. The 12 new tracks are excellent vibe-y lo-fi and fit in well with the existing roster of tracks. On to the patch notes.v0.6.0Added a Now Playing Banner to the ant farm that displays when a new track starts playingAdded a page 2 to the Jukebox menu that matches the page system seen in the Stats menuAdded 12 new lo-fi tracks from artist Redlight Chill, bringing the total track count to 24 lo-fi beatsThere are some small additional features I want to add as v0.6.x patches here but I wanted the brunt of the patch out now since the core elements of it were done. I'm gonna stick with version v0.6.x for around a month here. Do some small iterative clean ups and improvements before heading to the next title update which will again re-focus on expanding the depth of gameplay in the Idle Mode.Thanks all,Kyle