Widgetry / Ant Empire
Ant Empire, a living ant farm for the XENEON EDGE
A colony that keeps digging while you work.
On day one it's a queen, a few workers and a single shaft. Leave it running for a week and you come back to a nest you didn't dig: tunnels branching deep into the soil, a nursery full of eggs and larvae, a store room, a waste pile, and a sand mound growing on the surface. Drop a seed on the grass and a scout finds it, runs home, and a line of foragers follows her scent trail out to haul it in.
Running live. Tap to drop food, drag to look around. Your colony is saved in this browser.
How the colony lives
- Every ant has a job. The queen lays eggs, nurses raise the brood and feed her, scouts search the surface, foragers follow their trail, and diggers grow the nest.
- It looks after itself. When food runs low, the colony moves workers from digging to foraging on its own. Food left out too long rots away.
- It grows over real days. Close iCUE or shut down your PC and the colony catches up when you come back, with a note of what happened while you were away.
Things you can do
- Drop food. Crumbs, seeds, berries, honey or a fly. Tap the surface and watch who finds it first.
- Draw a trail or a tunnel. Ants follow a trail you draw, and diggers dig a line you draw through the soil.
- Zoom all the way in. Drag to look around and pinch or use + and - to go from the whole farm to a single worker. Tap an ant to follow it, or take control and drive it yourself.
Trouble on the farm
- A rival colony across the farm: peaceful neighbors, raids on your stores (your queen stays safe), or full war
- Rainstorms that soak the topsoil and flood the low tunnels
- A spider that hunts on the surface, and the odd lawn mower
Make it yours
- Four farm styles: Classic Sand, Garden Soil, Red Desert and Blue Gel
- Red, black or amber ants, and a name for your colony
- Real time, 3x or 10x pace, and a sky that follows your clock
Slot sizes
Made for Large and Extra Large horizontal slots. See every slot's pixel size in the XENEON EDGE slot size guide.
Requirements and privacy
CORSAIR XENEON EDGE with iCUE 5.47 or later on Windows. Made for Large and Extra Large horizontal slots.
Ant Empire makes no network requests. No analytics, no telemetry, no account. Your colony and settings are stored on your PC.
Questions
When is Ant Empire out?
It is in review at the Elgato Marketplace now. Leave your email on the home page and we will tell you the day it ships.
Does the colony keep going when my PC is off?
Yes. When the widget starts again it works out what the colony did while you were away, and tells you.
Can I start over?
Yes. Press and hold Start a new colony in the info panel.
How do I add it to my XENEON EDGE?
Get it on the Elgato Marketplace. Then in iCUE, open XENEON EDGE, pick the widget in the Widgets panel and choose the slot size. Its settings appear right next to it.