SimAnt (1991)

Preliminary: (I played a 1991 DOS release, I believe it was v1.6?) Hmmm usually sim games don't hook me but cool that there's an Experimental mode, Quick Game mode, etc. So I don't have to fully commit. Plus the music is interesting. I love the yard and house views too.

Resizable windows within the game, fun to just watch the ant colonies build and tried my own a bit. A bit slow moving but very interesting for such an absurd concept.

Nice the full game is actually enjyoable too (I wanted to experience going to another patch in the yard). It is more interactive but still lots of automation possible. I actually had to pick the spot and dig. And start my colony :-p

Look: 8.5/10 Classic DOS Look, impressive for a strategy game, and love the House/yard Look.

Sound: 8/10 Fun enough tune.

Play: 7.5/10 Probly the best of the sim/strat games so far imo, thanks to a lot of automation and just observing while also having option to straight up control. But alas, it just doesn't seem sim/strat games will ever fully hook me like a platformer or action adventure.

Feel: 7.5/10 The concept is quite... well, silly. But somehow it's executed really well. And the Sound and Look culminate into a great Feel.

Attachment: 7.5/10 If there's an early strat/sim game I'd replay, it'd be it. But I don't see that happening much. If the concept was more epic or hooking maybe... I might show my brother this just to show the cool Yard/House screen and maybe to set it to Ultra speed and get a sped-up glimpse of the game :-p

Overall: 7.8/10

I own the cartridge (well technically my sister owns it, I think, even though I clearly owned the SNES because it was in my bedroom growing up). I played this a lot as a kid and mastered the game. I did not like the scenario mode as much as invading the house. I beat the game twice. The first was normally by slogging through each territory until I took over the entire yard and house. I liked to use the trick of digging deep to find the secret tunnel to the red nest and trying to assassinate their queen, or at least swipe stuff.

The second time I beat the game was unintentional because I was fooling around with different ways to play. At the start when you are the lone worker, if you take the egg outside and get killed before the next egg is laid, you will become the queen. The queen can do everything other ants can and is pretty good in combat, but she can't lay eggs when outside and if she dies it is game over. So I stayed in the nest not doing much and never attacked the reds. A few breeding cycles went by and I checked the world map to be shocked that I controlled most of the yard already and the reds were only in both starting squares. More sitting around doing nothing and the entire house was taken over and the red starting square was contested. All I had to do then was finish off the reds as the queen leading a massive army, and then take control of the colony in the red start to finish the game with almost no effort and much quicker than playing the game properly.

Good game that is very novel but it is not as much fun as other more strategic/simulation Sim titles.