Microtopia Review — Ant Factory

When I got my hands on Microtopia, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Ants, I knew. Base building, I got it. However, combining “base building” and “ants” is a recipe with plentiful possible outcomes; one needs only look at my review of Empire of the Ants to see how completely different of a game it is from Microtopia, despite having the same familiar theming and genre tags.

Unlike Empire of the Ants, Microtopia uses its ant-theming to deliver a logistics puzzle game, something fans of Factorio should be familiar with.

In case you aren’t familiar, imagine a chocolate factory. Think about all of the dedicated production lines and logistical infrastructure that goes into making a place like that run: machines to process milk into cream, workers carrying goods from conveyor belt to conveyor belt, a hiring manager to bring new workers in when the old ones die—I mean, quit. “Conveyor-belt simulator” is a perfect description for this genre, which heavily focuses on transporting goods from point A to point B in the most efficient ways possible.

Now, go look at a line of ants. If you view an ant colony as a factory, you might see the ants as a great big ant-producing production line; resources are gathered by worker ants, brought to the queen, who then produces more ants to repeat the process. Nature’s little industrialists even conveniently walk in well-structured, orderly straight lines to further simulate a conveyor belt’s process. What I just described to you is essentially the gameplay loop of Microtopia.

Microtopia challenges you to manage the logistics of a robotic ant colony. The core gameplay loop requires food to be gathered, the queen to be fed, and more ants to be produced, with the logistical and production commands of the colony increasing as the size, needs, and technologies researched by the colony grow.

To fulfill this goal, Microtopia mimics the way ants work in ordered lines by allowing you to draw out clearly defined trails. These trails are a series of lines with interconnected nodes beginning and ending at either side of the line. Ants on these lines walk in a singular direction and then connect to a new line at the end of the node. More complex logistical information can be added to lines, such as splitters that will separate ants evenly to multiple lines at a connected node or logic gates that will allow ants into a line until a specified amount is reached.

When passing by a wild resource such as food or scrap metal in the ant’s path, they will gather the resource, and then carry it until their assigned path passes by a storage unit. The same thing happens if they pass a storage unit’s dispenser point, which will then cause the ants to collect stored resources until they find a new place to store their goods—often at a machine that will further refine the raw material into something the colony can use, which then must be stored.

From that brief explanation, you should understand both the core gameplay loop and the challenges involved in Microtopia. Your supply lines will become increasingly more complicated as you need to move ants from point to point to meet the demanding production quotas of your colony. The goal in Microtopia is not simply to function; it’s efficiency. Simply having a colony that works is not enough; the game will constantly challenge you, and you will feel the call to do so in return, to make the most efficient ant production supply lines possible. Ideally, you want to set up your lines to be as orderly and efficient as possible so that an ant’s entire life—from being born to working to produce for the colony—is done completely without direct input from the player.

If an ant can live, die, and be productive in the process without you ever even noticing the ant was born, congratulations; you have a well-functioning colony.

The ability to freely move around produced buildings, drag existing trails to extend them, and place dispensers for storage buildings anywhere makes the whole process much more forgiving. My one piece of advice would be to pause your game while building complex lines, though; most ants have limited, real-time lifespans and die when they expire.

Things can be a challenge to wrap your mind around at first, but that’s the game: to confuse yourself and learn something in the process. If you’re anything like me, you will find yourself setting up what you think is the perfect production chain for your little ant workers, only to watch it in practice and see it isn’t working… discovering soon after this is because you didn’t place a dispenser for the resources they were supposed to be refining.

On that note, there really isn’t a whole lot for me to criticize about Microtopia. It kept me completely engaged during my playthrough, and I imagine it will continue to do so when I come back to play it off the clock. The game does a good job of explaining information to you while still keeping a well-scaling challenge and allowing you to learn hands-on, making it a damn good puzzle game.

If I could complain about anything, it would be the robot theming. In my opinion, the ant theme might have been better if the ants were simply ants; you don’t have to explain their ability to produce and operate factories to me. I’d love to see an ant with a hard hat.

Try Hard Guides received a PC review code for this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Microtopia is available on Steam.