A real-time ant colony simulator you can play in the browser.
Inspired by Pezzza's Work and the public MIT-licensed johnBuffer/AntSimulator. This is an original TypeScript rewrite — not a port of Ant Simulator 2 (those sources live on Patreon).
- Food (F) — paint a food pile
- Wall (W) — block a path
- Erase (E) — cut a door through a wall
- Nest (N) — plant another colony
- Pan (H) / middle-drag / right-drag — move the view
- Scroll to zoom
- P pause · M trails · A ants · S speed · R reset · L lab
Four maps: open field, maze, two colonies, chambers.
Open the Lab to retune scent, fade, sight, walk speed, and colony fights.
Each ant is a tiny agent with two jobs: find food, or carry it home.
- Walking out, it drops a to-home scent that fades with time.
- Walking back with food, it drops a to-food scent.
- Every fraction of a second it samples a cone ahead (~28 random probes) and steers toward the strongest matching trail it can see without walking through a wall.
- When the last crumb of a pile is taken, a repellent is left so the next wave stops mining an empty patch.
- Shorter routes get walked more often, so they stay louder as longer ones evaporate. A path appears.
- Rival nests that share a cell fight. Losers die after a few hits; carried food is dropped.
That is the same idea Pezzza popularized: no central planner, just markers and many bodies.
npm install
npm run devVite serves the app. The simulation lives in src/sim/ — that folder is the interesting part.
| File | Role |
|---|---|
src/sim/simulation.ts |
Ant SoA, steering, markers, fights, colony growth |
src/sim/world.ts |
Grid: walls, food, pheromones, nest masks |
src/sim/renderer.ts |
Canvas: trails, dirt, ants, nests |
src/sim/scenarios.ts |
Starting maps |
src/sim/constants.ts |
Speeds, intensities, colors, lab defaults |
src/components/lab.tsx |
Live parameter panel |
Tweak LAB_DEFAULTS in constants.ts, or drag the Lab sliders while it runs.
Pezzza's original uses intensity = MARKER_INTENSITY * exp(-coef * timeSincePickup). Trails evaporate linearly each tick. Sampling is a random cone, not a neural net. Wall distance weights markers so ants prefer the middle of a corridor.
Pezzza's Work (Jean Tampon / johnBuffer) is a French YouTuber who made the videos that defined this genre:
| Video | What it added |
|---|---|
| C++ Ants Simulation 1 (2020) | First public build, source |
| Path optimization, editor, bigger maps | Shorter routes win by evaporating the long ones |
| Ant Simulator 2 (2025) | Remake; sources on Patreon |
| Bigger Simulation | Multiple food sources, larger worlds |
| Ants vs Maze | Obstacles |
| Path Optimization | Lane switching |
| Multiple Colonies | Rival nests |
Public clones and cousins:
- johnBuffer/AntSimulator — C++ / SFML, MIT. The original.
- SebLague/Ant-Simulation — Unity, after Pezzza
- StrandedKitty/ants-simulation — Three.js, GPU trails
- bones-ai/rust-ants-colony-simulation — Bevy / Rust
Ant Simulator 2 is not public. Forage is an original rewrite of the 2020 algorithm, plus walls, rival nests, fights, and a live lab.
MIT. See LICENSE.
Pezzza's original is also MIT (Copyright 2021 Jean Tampon). This project does not copy his source; it reimplements the published behaviour.