How to play
Learn the colony.
Controls, nest and brood. Everything you need for your first match.
In the game, press H or the ? button to open this guide as a card.
Kill every enemy queen.
That is how you win. There is no time limit.
If both last queens die on the same tick, it is a draw: “Mutual destruction”.
Select.
Pick the ants you want to command.
- Left-click
- Select one of your ants.
- Drag
- Draw a box to select a group.
- Shift
- Hold while clicking or boxing to add to the selection.
Give orders.
Fighters do what you tell them. Workers run themselves, but take orders too.
- Right-click
- Move there, or attack the enemy you click. An attack follows its target, even through a nest entrance.
- A, then click
- Attack-move: fight whatever you meet on the way.
- S
- Stop.
- G
- Hold position.
- Enemy mound
- Right-click it to raid the nest. Your ants dig through any seals in the way.
Move the camera.
Look anywhere, at any zoom.
- W, D
- Pan up and right, always.
- A, S
- Pan left and down only while nothing is selected. With ants selected, they attack-move and stop.
- Arrows, edges
- Pan with the arrow keys or the mouse at a screen edge.
- Wheel, pinch
- Zoom from 0.5× to 4×.
- Minimap
- Click it to jump the camera there.
- ⛶
- The button beside ? toggles fullscreen.
Hotkeys
Rebindable hotkeys and control groups arrive in a later update.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| A | Attack-move (pans left when nothing is selected) |
| S | Stop (pans down when nothing is selected) |
| G | Hold position |
| Q /W /E | Brood, Chambers or Tools tab |
| Tab | Cycle views: surface, your nest, breached nests |
| H | Open or close the help card |
| Enter | Open chat. Enter sends, Esc closes. |
| Esc | Cancel attack-move or placement |
Three views.
Press Tab to cycle the surface, your nest, and any enemy nest you have breached. The nest is side-on. Your selection stays selected when you switch.
- Soldiers hatch underground. Press Tab to find them.
- The enemy nest mirrors yours across the map. Look on the far side.
- Breach it and its nest joins the Tab cycle.
Food you bring home shows as piles in your store chambers.
The sidebar.
Three tabs. Press Q, W or E to switch.
- Brood (Q)
- Click a caste to queue an egg. Right-click a queued egg to cancel it.
- Chambers (W)
- Pick one to open your nest and place it. Workers dig it out.
- Tools (E)
- Tunnel paints new tunnels. Seal plugs a tunnel cell. Unseal digs a plug back out.
The egg queue.
The queen lays one egg at a time. The queue decides what each egg becomes.
- Egg
- Larva
- Pupa
- Adult
A clock-wipe shows the egg being laid. When the queue is empty, it reads “Queen idle”. Queue more eggs. Larvae need nurses and food.
Three resources.
Everything runs on protein, sugar and water. Workers forage and haul on their own.
-
Protein
From dead bugs, hunting and seeds. It feeds larvae.
-
Sugar
From honeydew, nectar and crumbs. It feeds adults.
-
Water
From ponds and puddles. Run dry and ants die.
On a tablet.
Formicide runs on tablets as well as desktop and laptop. It is not made for phones.
- Tap
- Select an ant.
- Drag
- Box-select.
- Two fingers
- Swipe to pan, or pinch to zoom.
Coming in a later update.
These are locked or do nothing yet. The game says so wherever you meet them.
- Research
- The Research chamber can be placed but does nothing yet.
- Majors
- They unlock through research, so they wait for it.
- Barracks, Sump
- Placeable now. Their jobs arrive later.
- Job sliders
- Workers choose their own jobs for now.
- Hotkeys
- Rebinding and control groups.