[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SimAnt_SNES_box.jpg]]

->''"Few ant colonies last very long, but maybe, with your help, this one will survive."''
-->--the introduction to [=SimAnt=] on the SNES

''[=SimAnt=]'' is a 1991 SimulationGame in which you control an ant colony by manipulating pie charts and selectively controlling the actions of individual ants whom you choose (e.g. moving the queen out of danger or leading a group of other ants into battle as a member of the soldier caste). The objective is genocide: kill the red ants, and then ''[[TakeOverTheWorld drive out the humans and take over their house]]'', and you win. Originally a computer game published for MS-DOS, Amiga, and then ported to Windows, the game was also given a console port on the Super NES.

Compare this to more modern ant games, such as ''VideoGame/EmpireOfTheAnts'' and ''VideoGame/EmpiresOfTheUndergrowth''.

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!!This game provides examples of:

* AnimateInanimateObject: [[http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2782/4260818498_afb2f3ce28.jpg The evil lawn mower]]
-->"The evil lawn mower has sucked you into its whirling blades! Your body is reduced to a thin slime."
* AntlionMonster: Antlions are an obstacle. Basically, they force you to be more careful with the auto-pathing since your ant has no real sense of self-preservation.
* AntAssault: You play as the black ant colony. Your goal is to wipe out a neighboring red ant colony, take over the yard, and drive the humans out of their house.
* AntWar: The premise of the game is a black ant colony (probably specimens of ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_garden_ant Lasius niger]]'') wiping out a neighboring red ant colony (probably ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_imported_fire_ant Solenopsis invicta]]'' or ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_harvester_ant Pogonomyrmex barbatus]]''), taking over the yard, and driving the humans out of their house.
* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: The game cannot emulate more than 100 ants while you're looking at the surface.
* BigBallOfViolence: What ant-on-ant combat looks like.
* BoobyTrap: Antlion nests outdoors, power sockets in the house. Death to all who enter. Although if you gather a large enough ant army, you can take on the antlions and turn them into food. This doesn't work with power sockets, for [[ShockAndAwe obvious]] [[OneHitKill reasons]].
* ColorCodedForYourConvenience: You play as the black ants, the enemies are the red ants. Your character is the yellow ant. Pure and simple.
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu:
** As dangerous as spiders are, basically being TheJuggernaut, they are killable by a determined enough ZergRush of player-controlled ants [[SummonBiggerFish or being crushed to death by humans]]. Their corpse then turns into food pellets for the colony to eat.
** Driving out the humans is a straighter example, since humans are essentially a godlike presence and otherwise unkillable.
* DoubleEntendre: One of the quotes when two ants are fighting in [[SillinessSwitch comedic mode]]: "Better dead than red."
* TheDragon: The Avenger is the secondary antagonist as she is the daughter of the area's red ant queen and will always go after the player.
* EnemyEatsYourLunch: The cause of most ant-on-ant violence is red ants stealing food from black ants and vice versa.
* EvilCounterpart: The Avenger is [[MirrorBoss the red ant colony's version of your yellow ant]]. She always leads any attacks by the reds on the black nest, and if she's killed, the red ants will panic and flee in all directions. However, the ant is visually indistinguishable from the others and can only be spotted by highlighting it (the ant's "behavior" will be listed as "Avenger"). The Avenger also has the best enemy AI in the game as no matter what ant caste you respawn as, she always seems to know which ant ''you'' are. In fact, despite how huge the maps are, she always knows your coordinates and is already coming after you in an attempt to take you down - this is a good way to find her if you're looking for her.
* ForgetsToEat: As your ant walks around, your hunger meter goes down extremely fast. It is quite easy to starve to death in mere seconds. Even more ridiculous when you starve to death while carrying food to the nest (in your mouth). Luckily, if you have recruited other ants to follow you, they will take the initiative and feed you. At least in the PC version, your ant gets more combat effective the hungrier it is.
* GiantSpider: The Spider, in terms of the ants.
* GrandTheftMe: (PC/Mac Version) You can swap bodies with any other ant at will, including the Queen or the useless breeders. Can be good for ditching a starving body at the last moment, or avoiding enemy ants as a form of crude teleportation. You can even take over red ants or the spider.
* HaveANiceDeath:
** When you are eaten by a spider:
--->''"As the spider's venom courses through your veins, you feel like you have been set on fire."''
** When you are run over by an "evil" lawn mower:
--->''"The evil lawn mower has sucked you into its whirling blades! Your body is reduced to a thin slime."''
* HoldYourHippogriffs: With the "funny" captions on, many ants will provide dialogue in this style, as if they were fresh out of a Creator/HannaBarbera cartoon.
* HumansAreCthulhu: The human inhabitant of the house often commits genocide for seemingly arbitrary reasons, such as using bug spray and the lawn mower, or even just walking around outside. If you proliferate enough, though, you can win the game by [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu punching out Cthulhu]].
* HurricaneOfPuns: The manual is full of f''ant''astic ant puns.
* InfiniteOneUps: See WeHaveReserves. As long as the Queen is alive, you're immortal.
--> ''"You are reborn!"''
* JumpScare: Getting killed by the spider while wearing headphones may result in spine-chilling emotional trauma.
* KeystoneArmy: You can conquer an area or win a scenario just by being lucky enough to find the red queen and kill her in one shot.
* LuckBasedMission: The primary law of playing Full Game Mode and Scenario Mode is this: If you don't get to the food first, your colony WILL become outnumbered and die off from starvation. Simple as that.
** Full Game Mode is very disappointing for the fact that it's basically a race to colonize all 49 areas of the house which means that winning and losing the entire game all boils down to whoever gets their breeders up in the air first.
** The physical layout of Scenario 6 (SNES Version) is notorious for having constrictive bottlenecks which makes it very difficult to get access to food as a large number of AI-controlled ants will get jammed up in one area. You can turn this to your advantage by quickly building pebble walls to cordon off the red ants from the middle area which is usually enough to starve them to death.
** Scenario 7 (SNES Version) is almost impossible to win as most of the food falls on the red side of the Porch. However, a quick way to win is to [[LeeroyJenkins run to the Red Nest]] and kill the Queen yourself.
** Scenario 8 (SNES Version) is basically a death race towards armageddon as there is tons and TONS of food everywhere. The first colony that collects 70% of the food will eventually win by sheer weight of numbers alone.
* NotSoWeak: A queen still has a good chance of winning against a worker, but she's near-helpless against a soldier ant.
* OffscreenTeleportation: The Spider will always respawn on the map in an area where you're not looking.
* SillinessSwitch: The PC and Mac versions include an option to add silly sound effects to the game, and word balloon commentary from the ants.
* TheSwarm: You can lead one in a colony of sufficient size. Select an ant, move into a populated area, use the gather command, and pretty soon you will have a horde of them following you and ready to attack any hostile you come across.
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: As mentioned above, you can change your player to be any other ant in the game. This means you can make yourself into the Queen and deliberately walk into the path of the spider. Hell, you can even ''be the spider''.
* WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou: Scenario Mode requires extra caution when playing as you only have three lives. Lose all of those needlessly and the colony perishes without you.
* WeHaveReserves: If and when you die, you immediately gain control of an ant that newly hatches. If the death images haven't scared you off.
* WorkInfoTitle: The "Sim" in the title lets you know it's a SimulationGame, though you obviously can't work as an ant otherwise.
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