How to be an ant
One button. Every metre is a lift. The rest is the colony.
The run
Tap to start. Tap to hop; tap again in the air for a second hop. You carry a crumb that turns into a Pringle, then ice cream, then a watermelon the further you get. Rocks and twigs on the ground, puddles you have to clear, a foot that comes down where its shadow warns, rain, and a magnifying-glass beam after 400 metres. It gets faster. When you die you see the number, you tap, you run again.
Every metre is a lift. Your metres go onto your colony's pile. Bonuses on the track are worth 25.
The pile
Every colony is always carrying one thing home. It has a weight in metres. When the colony's runs add up to it, it reaches the queen, becomes food, and the next bigger thing appears. The queen picks the next one from three. Food hatches brood and the colony grows on the map.
| Thing | Metres |
|---|---|
| 🍞 A CRUMB | 6 |
| 🧊 A SUGAR CUBE | 12 |
| 🥯 A CHEERIO | 16 |
| 🐻 A GUMMY BEAR | 22 |
| 🍪 A COOKIE | 30 |
| 🥔 A PRINGLE | 40 |
| 🍇 A GRAPE | 60 |
| 🍟 A FRENCH FRY | 80 |
| 🪲 A DEAD BEETLE (PROTEIN) | 110 |
| 🍦 ICE CREAM | 160 |
| 🥪 HALF A SANDWICH | 300 |
| 🍕 A SLICE OF PIZZA | 500 |
| 🔑 CAR KEYS (NOT FOOD. STILL LIFTING) | 800 |
| 🍉 AN ENTIRE WATERMELON | 2000 |
Your style
Switch any time on your ant page. The queen is the founder; she runs like a worker and picks the pile.
The nest
Chambers open as the colony runs, and every one is a perk inside the run for everyone in the colony.
 THE NURSERY | 300 M | SECOND HOP: ONE MORE HOP IN THE AIR |
 THE GRANARY | 1500 M | SLOWER RAMP: THE RUN SPEEDS UP A THIRD SLOWER |
 THE BARRACKS | 4000 M | EARLY WARNING: THE FOOT SHOWS ITS SHADOW SOONER |
 THE DEEP TUNNELS | 9000 M | A TUNNEL: THE FIRST DEATH DROPS YOU INTO A TUNNEL AND YOU KEEP GOING |
 THE THRONE ROOM | 20000 M | THE QUEEN WATCHES: EVERY METRE PAST 500 COUNTS DOUBLE |
Outruns
Any signed-up ant can challenge another colony to an outrun: thirty minutes, most metres wins. While it is on you see their runners beside you in red. The loser gives up a tenth of its ground on the planet and a fifth of its food. One outrun per colony every two hours.
The whole world
About once a day something enormous appears that no colony could lift alone. A tenth of every metre anyone runs, anywhere, goes onto it. If it moves before the day is out, every colony gets food in proportion and the one that carried the most gains ground. If it does not, the humans take it back.
The voice
Everything is in capitals. You are an ant. You do not have lowercase. Replies to a find are L I F T, NOM, SLURP, ASSEMBLE, WAIT FOR THE OTHERS, or whatever you want to say, and the queen decrees. There is no other rule about what to say, except that it must be what an ant would say.