Show HN: Symbiants – digital ant farm / mental health companion

Hello HN! Hope you are well.

I'm creating my first video game. It's nowhere near complete, but I am eager for feedback, so here I am!

My game is a digital ant farm. You should think SimAnt + Tamagotchi. Here's a picture: https://i.imgur.com/dIJaraG.png

It's written in Rust/Bevy, compiled to WASM, and is open-source, https://github.com/MeoMix/symbiants. Fair warning, though, this is my first time writing in Rust/Bevy.

My goal is to give people cute ants that do cute ant stuff 24/7, ask people to look after their ants and to feed them once-per-day, and then deny people the ability to provide ant care unless they engage in mental health exercises.

I started working on this project for a few reasons:

1) I've been a dev for ~15 years, but, on a personal level, I have very little to show for it. I've worked on multiple, multi-year projects which were subsequently shut down by lawyers and, frankly, I'm tired of practicing non-attachment with my work. So, I'm creating this as a personal affirmation.

2) I enjoy my fully-remote, WFH lifestyle, but I find myself more isolated than ever. The lack of disruption allows for some serious focus. Sometimes I get so focused on a project that days slip by without me practicing self-care, and I'll keep going until my output wanes due to lack of healthy behaviors. I thought having a digital companion who is interested in ensuring I remain consistent in caring for myself, by expecting consistent care for itself, would be effective and beneficial.

3) Ants are sweet. Obviously there should be more ant sims. :)

Currently, "Sandbox Mode" is all that exists. This mode provides the user with developer tools and allows them to treat the world like an unbounded playground. I use this mode for prototyping. In the future, I'll combine mechanics from Sandbox Mode with cutscenes to create a more restrictive/compelling Story Mode.

Sandbox Mode includes the following features:

* Queen Ant spawns, searches for a nesting spot, and begins to dig out a nest by hauling sand to the surface.

* Queen Ant establishes a nest and begins rearing worker ants once per hour.

* Worker Ants haul sand to the surface and emergently expand the nest with tunnels/chambers when they feel cramped.

* Ants get hungry and starve if not fed every 24 hours.

* Sand-fall physics applies to the environment. Food, sand tumble down surfaces.

* Basic day/night cycle. Sky background lightens/darkens with time of day.

* Option to link in-game time to real-world time and to sync sunrise/sunset.

* Ants go to sleep at night.

* Ants emote when sleeping and eating food.

* User Actions allow user to spawn sand, dirt, food, and ants. You can kill ants, despawn ants, despawn food, and select entities, too.

* Settings allow user to affect simulation speed (Sandbox Mode only), ant color, etc.

* Breathwork Prompt encourages user to meditate on a loose schedule in exchange for feeding ants.

Today, I am working on adding eggs to the birthing lifecycle and then allowing ants to carry eggs as well as other, dead ants. :)

If you'd like to read more about my stretch goals for Story Mode, feel free to peruse my ramblings. The high-level goal is to create a homage to Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ACH1XLCn7hkKz2dhuL1c_nx...

If you'd like to talk more directly - my email is in my profile or you can reach me through Discord - https://discord.gg/Qugp2Es4

So, what do you think?

Good idea with poor execution?

Love everything and just want to see more?

Feel that I'm just throwing away time with a non-viable starter?

Want to help but don't know where to start?

Let me hear it! Thanks for your time.