Game Design Case Study: Leafcutters
My Roles: Lead game designer and project lead
University of Southern California, 2011
Windows, Mac
For my MFA thesis, I established my design challenge: How could I create an experience of playing with an ant colony in way that brought understanding and connection with these creatures?
I determined that allowing direct control of the ants would negate the sense of them as living creatures. Instead, I designed a system of indirect control, where the player teaches the ants what urges toward certain actions they should have in reaction to various situations.
For example, the player might dictate that ants who find food while outside should strongly desire to pick up a piece of food, and once holding food outside, should consider walking it into the nest. The player establishes these urges by clicking on an icon-based interface at the bottom of the screen.
Importantly, the player cannot change an individual ant's urges, but changes those of all ants. The forces the player to think at the collective colony level, and allows each ant to retain its autonomy.
To reach the objective of maximizing the population of the colony, the player must teach the ants how to become effective leaf-cutters—finding leaves, cutting off pieces to return to the nest, then pulping and adding the leaves to the fungus farm. The fungus farm must then be tended to keep it healthy, so that it produces sufficient food for the colony.
This game features interplaying systems of ant training and colony creation, which were very rewarding to balance and refine.
University of Southern California, 2011
Windows, Mac
For my MFA thesis, I established my design challenge: How could I create an experience of playing with an ant colony in way that brought understanding and connection with these creatures?
I determined that allowing direct control of the ants would negate the sense of them as living creatures. Instead, I designed a system of indirect control, where the player teaches the ants what urges toward certain actions they should have in reaction to various situations.
For example, the player might dictate that ants who find food while outside should strongly desire to pick up a piece of food, and once holding food outside, should consider walking it into the nest. The player establishes these urges by clicking on an icon-based interface at the bottom of the screen.
Importantly, the player cannot change an individual ant's urges, but changes those of all ants. The forces the player to think at the collective colony level, and allows each ant to retain its autonomy.
To reach the objective of maximizing the population of the colony, the player must teach the ants how to become effective leaf-cutters—finding leaves, cutting off pieces to return to the nest, then pulping and adding the leaves to the fungus farm. The fungus farm must then be tended to keep it healthy, so that it produces sufficient food for the colony.
This game features interplaying systems of ant training and colony creation, which were very rewarding to balance and refine.