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Empires of the Undergrowth at the Hooded Horse Winter Publisher Sale

Happy Holidays, everyone! Were excited to share that Empires of the Undergrowth is participating in the Winter Sale at 50% off. Check it and other games out at the Hooded Horse Winter Sale. Hooded Horse Winter Publisher Sale 2024
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Latest Update News: REMIX Mode, Freeplay Maps, and More.

Were hard at work on the next major patch, and if you havent already, check out the optional beta. It introduces custom colonies for skirmish and freeplay modes, new freeplay maps like Grasslands and Drive Them Back, and REMIX Mode, which lets you play almost any level with different colony setups. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/463530/view/4440081305187648587?l=english https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/536588230305251482

[ 2024-12-19 19:00:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Beta Update - Achievements & Other Fixes

We've just released another update for the ongoing optional beta. We're not far from the end of this beta period now, and it will soon be released for everyone. Again, thank you to everyone who has tested and reported issues over the past couple of months of this long-running beta.

Fixes

Fixed an issue where formicarium and custom colonies could end up not having heating tiles in Hibernation
Fixed an issue that broke formicarium colonies in skirmish mode
Fixed an issue that could cause an Aloe aphid farm to spawn in the air in Drive Them Back (custom game version)
1.2 Subjugation now counts all soldier types for objective fulfilment
1.2 Subjugation now updates objectives on construction rather than a periodic check
The Other Foot now accepts any worker for tube objectives
The Other Foot progress bar will now only display its tooltip when visible
The Crucible no longer requires mediae to be built if the colony doesnt have them
Drive Them Back (custom game) fixes to prevent pathing and culling issues
Can no longer click to enter an enemy nest if it is unopened
Down arrow will no longer show on enemy nests on hover if it is unopened
Changing the game type in freeplay will no longer reset landmark settings
Fixed a missing subtitle related to earwigs
Moved the landscape in 5.1 to prevent it interfering with the tile grid
Matabele medics and bullet ants can now harvest mulch if in a termite colony
Fixed wood ant melees having different AoE resistance values then they should in NG+
Stink ants can no longer climb smaller climbable creatures
Prevented multiple versions of the hybrid fight (FC4) sequence occurring
Termites should no longer be able to spawn from mounds that are currently occupied
Fixed an issue causing Formicarium Challenge 3 tunnel exits to be inaccessible
Drive Them Back (custom game version) should no longer display formicarium rewards on victory
All non-worker ants should now be able to fight off phorid flies at level 3
Increased chances of Matabele soldiers being built in AI colonies in custom games
Fixed some collision issues on Drive Them Back (custom game version)
Ants fighting titans when the titan dies are less likely to be automatically killed
Fixed an issue where queen death would not cause a colony to become food in Drive Them Back (custom game version)
Wave spawn should now continue after Play More button is pressed in custom games
Fixed an issue where termite kings would be removed if landmarks are set to random
Attempted fix for lynx spiders being killed if they start climbing whist in combat (please let us know if you see this still happening)
Fixed an issue where fog of war could be seen through on the top of both the nest and linked termite mound in the savannah custom game maps
Fixed some instances of Matabele medic tiles displaying as black ant tiles
Drive Them Back achievement icon fixed
Fixed achievement A Bridge Too Many
Fixed achievement Finish Your Vegetables
Fixed "Just Ignore Them achievement
"Finish Your Vegetables" tracker no longer says Termighty has been fulfilled

[ 2024-12-14 14:51:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

December 2024 Newsletter - What a year!

As we barrel towards the end of the immense year that was 2024, were still running a long optional beta which is testing some major new features - we hope to get that out for everyone before Christmas. Thank you so much to everyone who has been having a play with it; your feedback as always is invaluable. Poor old John has been run off his feet for the past several weeks trying to implement it!
The bleak depths of winter are nearly upon the colony... In this final newsletter of the year, well concentrate on the features that will be arriving sooner rather than later, the most exciting of which is probably completely custom colonies for your skirmish and freeplay games! Thats been an interesting one to implement, and well get to that shortly. First, lets go over the recent extended beta period and how weve been gathering feedback.

Beta Testing

Once again, hats off to everyone whos given some time testing out the latest balances, fixes and new stuff in the currently running optional beta. We appreciate everyone who can spend a little bit of time experimenting with things that are probably not entirely functional yet! This has been our longest optional beta period, and we hope to bring it to a conclusion in the near future and release the results for everyone to see. As detailed in the previous vlog, weve been experimenting with separate stats for some creatures in custom games (as opposed to the campaign) and in some cases separate abilities. The most obvious of these is the big-headed ant major soldier adrenaline ability, which gives them a timed buff on entering combat. Also, leafcutter media ants have been rebalanced to be slightly worse fighters but much better gatherers, and black ant soldiers are way tougher with a maximum damage they can take in a single hit. The thought process behind these changes is that the campaign and custom games have much different needs, and although weve had the stats for the two different game modes divorced for quite a while now we havent made use of the facility until now. Custom games can be much less predictable than the carefully scripted campaign levels, and certain species are inherently tougher to use. We hope these ongoing tweaks will make some of the lesser used custom game species more attractive to more people.

Custom Colonies

As mentioned earlier, custom colonies is a new features that allows a custom game to contain a colony of nearly any makeup that is currently being tested in the optional beta. You can have a colony with a leafcutter queen, but containing big-headed ant supersoldiers, little black ants and termite major soldiers, for example. There are some exceptions for technical reasons (ie, no Matabele medics in leafcutter colonies) but the possibilities are still very expansive.

A termite in an ant colony?? Such things are possible with custom colonies!

Remix Mode

A larger game mode related to this called Remix has recently been introduced to the beta, which allows almost any level (campaign, extra and demo) to be played with almost any combination of colony creatures that make sense. When I say make sense, I mean in the way that thered be no point trying to beat 2.1 Rising Tide as leafcutter ants given the lack of foliage on that level.

Something a bit weird going on here... This has proven to be a little tricky since it introduces a bunch of extra considerations, but were getting there. Campaign levels played in this way will be apart from a saved run, and played in a standalone fashion similar to extra levels now. This mode also follows the same technical limitations as custom colonies in custom games do.

New Freeplay Maps

Two new freeplay maps are also currently undergoing testing - Grasslands, and Drive Them Back (custom game version). In both of these, there are 8 colony entrances on the surface of which four can be in play in a single game. If playing as a termite colony, youll start in one of the 4 termite mounds. Otherwise, youll be in a regular nest entrance. This can be overwritten via a checkbox and any colony can occupy a termite mound - I guess you moved into an old one!

The Grasslands of the savannah beckon In the case of Drive Them Back (custom game version), were responding to a long-requested feature of making custom game versions of the campaign levels. While they cant have the complex scripting that goes on in a story mission, some of the campaign levels are quite suited to custom games from a layout point of view. Please let us know what you think about how Drive Them Back (custom game version) plays, and if the response is positive we may well make custom game versions of other campaign maps in the future.

Tier 5 Achievements

All of the tier 5 achievements are now active in the optional beta, as are ones for the tier 4 challenge mode (with the six-spotted fishing spider). Although we tried to get these ready in time for 1.0 back in June, we wouldnt have been able to get many of them in so we thought it was best to wait until we had a full set of chieves worthy of your time. One or two issues with these have been identified now thanks to the testing (again - thank you) so were working on getting those fixed up before the patch gets a wider release.

Art Refresh

Although it wont make it in this side of the new year, the art refresh of tier 3 is continuing and weve been extremely happy with the results. Our environment artist DanC was a little sad when he realised that whip spiders arent actually spiders and spin no silk of any kind - but we think youll agree hes found a nice alternative in this twisted knot of plant roots act as Big Whippys lair in 3.2.

A lair fit for a legend!

Festive Spider

We realise its a bit late this year, but if youre in the optional beta youll be able to access the Festive Spider level by clicking on the gift that appears in the main menu! As always, the Hungry Spider levels are deviously difficult and come with their own special achievement for completing them. Expect multiple repeats for this ARPG-like game mode. When we leave the current optional beta and set the patch live for everyone, this will of course be available in the live build. [previewyoutube=_IPkapEX60c;full][/previewyoutube]

GameDeveloper.com Article

A few weeks ago, community manager Mike wrote a long postmortem style article for GameDeveloper.com that goes over the entire history of Empires of the Undergrowth as a project, from initial ideas and inception to final release. This will be good reading for anyone who has an interest in how a project like EotU grew from an initial frustration with the contemporary offerings at that time, to becoming very much its own thing with an almost accidental discovery of the games most unique features. Check out the article here!

New Game - Strange Seed!

For those who dont know - while the only game that Slug Disco develops is Empires of the Undergrowth, we act as a publisher for a number of other indie developers making nature-inspired games. That means that while we dont work on those projects directly, we help out with marketing and other promotion. A new project has just joined our publishing ranks - Strange Seed! In this evolution game, you begin as a very basic blob - but have the ability to acquire traits. To solve puzzles and progress, youll need to take on traits from things that you eat - as the trailer shows, for example, acquiring a shell to become heavy enough to push open a door. [previewyoutube=HlzgcqeGJu4;full][/previewyoutube] So, welcome Strange Seed to the Slug Disco publishing portfolio! And of course, welcome Chris of Chronicle Games (the developer). Check out the above trailer and find the games demo - we think youll be as utterly charmed by it as we were. Join its Discord while you're at it!

Company News - New Hires

For anyone whos interested in our company goings-on, please welcome Ethan and Kartik, who have joined Slug Disco as C++ developers. Theyll be helping us out with Empires of the Undergrowth, and a variety of other stuff as well. Were also near the end of the process of hiring a dedicated creature artist, for similar reasons. 2025 will be full of developmental goodness!

Screenshot Central

Always my favourite part of these newsletters - if youd like to be included in the future, the easiest way to get these to me is to join our Discord and post in the dedicated screenshot channel. To get some interesting angles, hold shift while pressing the photo mode button to uncouple the camera from the ground plane.

A topical Festive Spider shot from ArmyAntGaming

A fishing spider blocks the way of the fire ants from Zvistic

Cinematic driver ants from Medin

The End of Launch Year

Finally, in this last newsletter before 2025 arrives, thank you from the very bottom of our hearts for being here for Empire of the Undergrowths full release. Were not exaggerating even slightly when we say that were nothing without your support, and youve stuck with us through nearly 7 years of early access. We are far, FAR from done with EotU - and there will soon be an updated roadmap detailing our intended path through 2025 and beyond. See you there!

[ 2024-12-11 22:11:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Empires of the Undergrowth is on sale!

Empires of the Undergrowth is available at a 50% discount as part of the Autumn Publisher Sale running until December 4th. Command an ant colony and wage strategic battles in the insect kingdom. This ant-based RTS challenges players to build, defend, and expand their colony, using unique pheromone-based strategies and powerful warrior ants to survive against formidable foes. Hooded Horse Autumn Publisher Sale 2024
https://store.steampowered.com/app/463530/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth/

[ 2024-12-01 08:24:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Nominate Empires of the Undergrowth for the Steam Awards

Hello, colony caretakers! Now that autumn is here, your local ant colony might be seeking a warm place to hunker down. But were seeking something a little different a nomination for Most Innovative Gameplay during this years Steam Awards.
Since we launched Empires of the Undergrowth earlier this year, weve received a swarm of positive feedback about its unique blend of colony management simulation & RTS gameplay. Its been such a pleasure to immerse you all in the complex world of ant colonies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELSOKmgDRvA Over the last year, weve released several updates to ensure Empires of the Undergrowth is the best game it can be. These updates have introduced a number of new features and key gameplay improvements.

Heres a look at some of the most important features we added over the course of the last year:

[table] [tr] [td]Custom game map: Imprisoned[/td] [td]New custom game playable colony: Matabele ants[/td] [td]Reworked difficulty settings[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Custom game map: Strawclutch[/td] [td]New custom game playable colony: Termites[/td] [td]Revamped main menu[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Custom game map: Sand Spit[/td] [td]New challenge: Six-spotted Fishing Spiders[/td] [td]Expanded arachnophobia mode options[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Full story mode[/td] [td]New challenge: Assassin Bugs[/td] [td]New music tracks[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Final Campaign Tier 5[/td] [td]New savannah creatures added to custom game modes[/td] [td]Increased rewards for first-time level completions[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]100 new achievements[/td] [td]New Extra Level: Tug of War 3[/td] [td]Enhanced Battle Arena options[/td] [/tr] [/table] And theres plenty more to come! For a more complete look at some updates from the last year, you can check out our update notes:

New Features Now Available in Beta

Weve been working on the game's next steps, and the beta branch is now live on Steam. Heres whats included:

Two New Custom Game Maps: Savannah-themed environments offering unique challenges.
Custom Colony Options: Use any ant species in custom games.
New Game Mode: Remix: Replay levels with different or customized colonies.
Tier 5 Achievements: New objectives for players to complete.
Balance Changes, Fixes, and Optimisations: Adjustments and updates for a smoother experience.

How to Access the Beta You can access the beta branch on Steam now. For instructions on how to join, click here and use the provided password. Your feedback is appreciated as we finalize these changes.

Empires of the Undergrowth: Thank You for an Incredible Year

Creating Empires of the Undergrowth has been a truly spectacular experience for our team. While we knew we could make a great colony management sim, we never expected to build such an incredible community alongside it. Your support has been invaluable in making Empires of the Undergrowths v1.0 launch a fantastic success. Were so thankful to have your support now and for all the future updates to come. Competition is high for the Most Innovative Gameplay award, so every nomination helps. Check the Nominate button at the top of this post to nominate Empires of the Undergrowth for this category in the 2024 Steam Awards. Thank you all, Slug Disco

[ 2024-11-27 18:01:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Update- REMIX MODE! + New Freeplay maps & Tier 5 achievements

In this optional beta update, we're introducing Remix - a new game mode accessible from the Arcade menu. With it, you can play almost any level in the game (from the campaign documentary missions, extra levels and demo levels) with almost any combination of ants or termites. The possibilities are nearly limitless!

This optional beta is for Windows 64 bit systems only.

We're also introducing two new savannah-themed custom game maps - Grasslands, and Drive Them Back (custom game version). As far as the latter goes, this is something that has been requested for a whole and we've been meaning to give it a go. If it goes down well, we might make custom game versions of other campaign levels in the future. On both of these maps, you will spawn in a termite mound if playing as termites, and the remaining termite mounds will spawn non-colony fodder termites (as long as at least one Matabele colony is in play). Finally, the long-awaited tier 5 & tier 4 challenge mode achievements are fully implemented and activated. You'll be able to earn these achievements on Steam immediately if you participate in the beta, but please report any issues you encounter with them to us on the discussion boards.

Code: balanceandchanges

If you would like to join the beta, the code is balanceandchanges. If you dont know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions below: [olist]

Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"

Choose the "Betas" tab

In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter balanceandchanges

After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu

Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch. [/olist]

Headline Features

New game mode - Remix
- Can play almost any level with almost any combination of ants or termites
- Custom colonies will adopt the feeding habits of the selected queen
- Accessed from the Arcade area of the main menu
- Some combinations disallowed for technical reasons (ie, no Matabele medics in leafcutter colonies)
New custom game maps - Grasslands & Drive Them Back (custom game version)
- If playing as termites, will spawn in mounds otherwise in regular nest entrances
- Non-colony fodder termites will otherwise spawn from unoccupied mounds if Matabele ants are in play
Tier 5 & Tier 4 Challenge Mode Achievements
- 8 new achievement for tier 4 levels with challenge mode
- 45 new achievements for tier 5 levels
- Can now be achieved and earned on Steam from this beta

Additions & Changes

Custom colonies now display the appropriate graphic for their chosen workers
Custom colonies now just say "worker" and "queen" rather than gene thief
Dead fish landmark replaced with map-appropriate large food sources
Large food source landmark will spawn opposing ants that are map-appropriate
Added Aloe version of aphid plants for savannah custom games
Added an extra harvesting slot for woodlice
5.3 challenge scorpion no longer gets its abilities back when it respawns or moves underground (abilities that happen at 25%, 50% and 75% health)
5.3 challenge scorpion will no longer attempt to walk away when it performs a ground thump
5.3 challenge scorpion will only run away if engaged underground; if on the surface it will continue to fight so long as there are enemies to fight
5.3 challenge scorpion now only escapes when termite sun damage is in progress
Fixed an issue that could cause an aphid to be deleted if a new aphid was taken to an occupied aphid slot on a plant
Custom colony setup now has an "OK" button instead of a "Close" button for player assuredness
Updated Strawclutch thumb to show alternate nests
Updated the Slug Disco logo on the main menu
Many localisation updates

Fixes

Fixed leafcutter colonies in a Skirmish game spawning as basic ereptor colonies
Fixed termites, leafcutters and BHA major soldiers not harvesting the correct resource type when in a custom colony different to their usual feeding habits
Custom Matabele colonies in custom games are now only given soldiers if they have them available
Fixed custom AI leafcutter colonies building a media chamber even if they don't have them
If the 5.3 challenge scorpion is killed on the surface its dialogue no longer plays on defeat (as it mentions being killed underground)
Fixed a crash related to titan climbing
Fixed a lignocellulose landmark issue
Pheromone markers in enemy nests now respond to the smoke visual option
Fixed remaining tile materials
Prevented destructible barriers from being inspectable
Fixed an issue where freeplay games would always assume 4 colonies in description
Colony creatures other than leafcutters now make cutting sound when cutting leaves instead of digging sound
Tug of War 3 text label fixed

[ 2024-11-26 19:24:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Empires of the Undergrowth at the Hooded Horse November Publisher Sale

Greetings, colony caretakers! Were excited to share the latest developments for Empires of the Undergrowth, including updates introduced in the optional beta for custom games. This update brings the highly anticipated Custom Colonies feature, enabling players to create unique colonies combining unit types in new ways. Additionally, Empires of the Undergrowth is part of the Hooded Horse November Publisher Sale, offering 50% off until November 23rd. See other Hooded Horse games in our publisher sale. Hooded Horse November Publisher Sale 2024

Recent Highlights: Custom Colonies Beta

The optional beta introduces the Custom Colonies feature, allowing players to mix and match different ant and termite units to create their dream colony. This new system provides a fresh layer of strategy and creativity, enabling colonies to adopt unique feeding habits and abilities based on their chosen queen. While some combinations are restricted for technical reasons, most options are available. Alongside Custom Colonies, several gameplay adjustments and fixes have been implemented:

Balance Adjustments: Updates to lignocellulose nodes, termite spawn rates, and unit abilities refine the strategic flow of custom games.
Fixes and Improvements: Lighting corrections, texture fixes, and updates to underground levels enhance the overall experience.

Learn More

As a reminder, Empires of the Undergrowth is part of the Hooded Horse November Publisher Sale at 50% off until November 23rd. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on the optional beta. Join the conversation in our forums or on Discord, and let us know your feedback! https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/463530/view/6706514098924945207?l=english

[ 2024-11-18 14:00:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Empires of the Undergrowth is on sale!

Until November 23rd, Empires of the Undergrowth is available at a 50% discount as part of the Hooded Horse Publisher Sale. Command an ant colony and wage strategic battles in the insect kingdom. This ant-based RTS challenges players to build, defend, and expand their colony, using unique pheromone strategies and powerful warrior ants to survive against formidable foes. See other Hooded Horse games in our publisher sale. Hooded Horse November Publisher Sale 2024
https://store.steampowered.com/app/463530/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth/

[ 2024-11-14 05:15:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Empires of the Undergrowth x Empire of the Ants Bundle

Congratulations, Microids and Tower Five, on the Empire of the Ants launch! We're excited to announce that we've created an ant-credible bundle featuring our games to celebrate this fantastic release. Lead your colony through the perils of the forest in this groundbreaking, photorealistic RTS, where you command insect legions in epic battles. Experience an epic microscopic world with our special bundle featuring both games. https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/47006/Empire_of_the_Ants__Empires_of_the_Undergrowth/

[ 2024-11-07 17:50:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Beta Update - Custom Colonies!

This update to the beta has a new feature for custom games - custom colonies! Using it, you can create an entirely unique colony for your game that mixes-and-matches many different unit types - for instance, you can have a Matabele colony with leafcutter majors and termite soldiers in it. Find the option in the colony setup section of the custom game launch menu. There are also further balance changes and fixes - see below for full notes. If you're not currently participating in this optional beta and would like to, see the previous post for details on how to join it. The password is balanceandchanges.

Additions & Changes

New custom game feature: custom colonies
- Allows colonies to contain virtually any ant or termite in the game
- Can be selected in colony setup
- Colony will adopt the feeding habits of the selected queen
- Workers will match the queen
- Some combinations are disallowed for technical reasons (eg: Matabele medics cannot be included in a leafcutter colony)
Black ants in custom games now have armour (0/1/2, up from 0/0/0)
3 lignocellulose nodes per landmark will spawn at a time instead of 1
Limited lignocellulose nodes per landmark to 15
Increased time between termite spawns on the lignocellulose landmark (now every 6-30s, up from 4-20s)
If a lignocellulose landmark has no mulch, termites spawned to harvest from it will despawn
Big-headed ant major Adrenaline ability duration reduced to 20s (down from 40)
Adrenaline ability now uses the same visuals as the fire ant Vigorous ability
Fire ant Vigorous ability damage reduction buff is now 15% (down from 25%) in custom games

Fixes

Loading screen corrected for several extra levels
Undergrounds of The Culling and Hibernation now use the rotting log environment
Fixed lighting on multiple extra and demo levels
Victory music for the Festive Spider seasonal level now works
Fixed tunnel exit textures in Hibernation extra level
Creature stats in the build menu will now use the ones currently in use, not just the story ones
Moved some unharvestable leaves in 3.2 to be reachable
Fixed an issue where saving and loading would cause the wrong egg type to appear on some termite tiles
Attempted to fix a Cold Blood crash - please report if you are still getting crashes on this level

[ 2024-10-11 16:54:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Empires of the Undergrowth is on sale!

The Hooded Horse Publisher Sale Has Arrived!

Ever wonder what its like to command an army of ants in a world where everything from ladybugs to hermit crabs wants you dead? Welcome to this ant-based RTS, where you dont just build a colonyyou wage war on the insect kingdom. Its not just ants versus bugs; its strategy on steroids, with pheromones as your secret weapon and hundreds of warrior ants clashing in a frenzy of mandibles and formic acid artillery. Until October 10th, explore the fascinating world of ants in Empires of the Undergrowth at a 50% discount.

Explore amazing deals on all Hooded Horse titles during the Steam Publisher Sale.

[hr][/hr][img]https://shared.akamai.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/463530/extras/headline_02.png?t=1718623589

[/img] Empires of the Undergrowth is a real-time strategy game where you manage an ant colony, gather resources, and defend against predators. Check out the recent 1.0 release![hr][/hr] [previewyoutube=ELSOKmgDRvA;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2024-10-08 03:00:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hooded Horse Publisher Sale 2024

The Hooded Horse Publisher Sale Has Arrived!

Until October 10th, explore the fascinating world of ants in Empires of the Undergrowth at a 50% discount.

Explore amazing deals on all Hooded Horse titles during the Steam Publisher Sale.

[hr][/hr][img]https://shared.akamai.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/463530/extras/headline_02.png?t=1718623589

From Today Until October 10th

The discounts on Empires of the Undergrowth and all other Hooded Horse games are available through October 10th perfect for enhancing your summer gaming experience. We're excited to see the worlds you build and the adventures you undertake. Happy gaming!

[ 2024-10-01 15:00:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Vlog 12 - Our Empires of the Undergrowth plans after 3 months

Now that we've had a few months post-release to ruminate on things, we've got a clearer idea of what we want to do for Empires of the Undergrowth in both the short and long term, outside of the things mentioned in the most recent roadmap for the project. Community manager mike breaks it down (as a talking head piece - don't expect dancing). Including some new screenies of the upcoming tier 3 art refresh. [previewyoutube=7dbwyzARZes;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2024-09-21 21:37:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta- Custom Game Stats & AI Changes, Campaign Balance, Lots More!

This optional beta is testing some fairly large changes to custom games, particularly AI colonies - as well as experimenting with more bold changes to ant stats specifically in that game mode. These changes are being tested in some extra levels, too, where we feel its appropriate. For the first time we are separating stats between the story and custom games, to allow for better balancing (they have slightly different needs) and some more experimentation outside of the more rigid structure of the story. Most stats are staying the same for now, but there are some notable changes. PLEASE NOTE: Were taking some broad strokes with experimental changes to ant stats and abilities in custom games! As such they might seem a bit extreme, which is why wed like to hear your feedback in the optional beta. Well be refining as we go on! Please post your feedback in the Steam community forum or on our Discord. You'll notice a new tab on the main menu titled DLC - there is nothing there for now, but in the future this is where DLCs like the Myrmecia ereptor Kickstarter reward skin will live. The version of Unreal Engine 4 the game runs on has been updated - please keep an eye our for any weirdness. There are also several balance changes, particularly to the newer story levels (5.x). Weve be very keen to hear your thoughts on those, too. The optional beta is only available on Windows 64 bit systems, and only on Steam. As well as the featured changes there are a large number of fixes and other balances. Recent changes to in-game text are currently lacking localisation and will display in English.

Code: balanceandchanges

If you would like to join the beta, the code is balanceandchanges. If you dont know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions below: [olist]

Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"

Choose the "Betas" tab

In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter balanceandchanges

After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu

Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch. [/olist]

Patch Notes

Changes - Custom Games ONLY

Black ant soldier hatch cost reduced to 3 (down from 5)
Black ant soldiers take no more than 40 damage from a single attack
Big-headed ant major soldiers have a new ability - adrenaline. This reduces damage taken by 60%, 20% increased movement speed and 80% increased attack speed for 40s (10m cooldown)
Big-headed ant major cost increased to 35 (up from 25) and egg hatch cost increased to 4 (up from 2)
Leafcutter media harvest quantities increased to 20 / 24 / 30 (up from 17 / 19 / 22)
Leafcutter media health reduced to 80 / 95 / 110 (down from 100 / 115 / 130)
Leafcutter media damage reduced to 4 / 5 / 6 (down from 4.5 / 6 / 7)
Leafcutter media build cost reduced to 65 (down from 80)
Leafcutter colonies will start with 200 fungus (up from 100)
Termites lignocellulose landmarks will now spawn a new node every 3m and will not despawn when empty
Large giant African mantis and large hermit crab will no longer invade nests
Earwig nymph should no longer invade nests
Earwig juvenile, earwig and alligatorback scorpion juvenile added as possible cavern creatures in custom games
AI colony queen workers are only sent out for the first 10m and return faster for smaller amounts of food. If harvesters are dead queen workers can go out again
Timid AI colonies are less likely to invade and will harass less frequently
Reduced AI colony food dropoff build priority (except for leafcutters and termites)
AI wood ant colonies make more melee tiles
AI ereptor colonies likely to make more balanced build choices, not always favouring larger ants
AI colonies receive damage reduction to patrols (differs based on cheat settings). This tapers off over time
AI little black ant, black ant and fire ant colonies will make more soldiers than they used to (unless they are docile)

Changes - Story & General

5.1 nighttime invasion changes:
- On easy and normal, the sun spiders stun duration has been reduced to 2.5s (down from 5s) and damage reduced to 5 (down from 8)
- On easy and normal, the sun spiders confuse duration has been reduced to 2s (down from 4s) and damage reduced to 4 (down from 7)
- On easy and normal, the giant African centipedes venom pool damage per tick reduced to 4 (down from 8) and initial target damage reduced to 200 (down from 400)
- On easy and normal, the giant African centipedes body slam area of effect reduced to 200 (down from 300), damage reduced to 30 (down from 40)
- On easy to extreme, the emperor scorpions attack damage reduced to 20 / 20 / 35 / 40 / 45 (down from 45 on all difficulties)
- On easy and normal, the emperor scorpions stun has been reduced to 1s (down from 2) and confuse reduced to 2.5s (down from 5)
In 5.2, extra soldier tiles reduced on easier difficulties to 5 / 3 / 1 / 0 / 0 (down from 7 / 4 / 1 / 0 / 0)
In 5.2, casualties required for victory increased on easier difficulties to 120 / 135 / 150 / 150 / 150 (up from 100 / 125 / 150 / 150 / 150)
In 5.3 challenge mode, the emperor scorpion now maintains its health between days but heals 10% life each day
In 4.1 New Game Plus, enemy colonies now receive more food storage at the start of the game and more workers (based on how high NGP is set). The little black ant colony also gets more starting resources
Matabele anaesthetist revival time reduced to 7s (down from 10s)
Increased range of fire ants Last Laugh ability to 300 (up from 200)
Mounted creatures are thrown off when a large creature starts to move through a nest exit
Changed final objective in 1.2 Subjugation to say raid instead of wave

Other Changes

Achievements can now be completed on New Game Plus!
Hovering over achievement in the achievements menu will show the highest difficulty it was achieved on
The Nian Beast and Festive Spider levels can now be accessed at the appropriate times of year
Festive Spider now uses the same music as Hibernation
Festive Spider now uses the updated rotten log textures (WIP - will look overly contrasty for now)
It will now snow in the Festive Spider level!
Extra levels The Culling, The Culling 2, Tug Of War (1, 2 and 3) and Cramped will now use custom game stats rather than story stats
Environmental textures will now be more detailed (WIP - some levels may look dark due to the deeper recessing the extra ambient occlusion pass is causing, please report if you see this, particularly in extra levels and custom game maps)
Tile hover window now displays a message when tiles have been locked out
Graphical updates to Tug of War 3
Game engine updated to Unreal Engine 4.27 - please keep an eye out for any weirdness here
DLC menu added to the main menu in preparation for future content such as the Kickstarter reward (Myrmecia ereptor worker skin)

Fixes & Optimisations

Fixed a bug where AI was sometimes unaware of underground invaders in freeplay
Bullet ant attack damage increases from minor improvements should now work against targets that are not executed by their attack
Fixed an issue that could cause Matabele ant medics to get stuck at the queen (happened a lot in Tug of War 3)
Fixed an issue in The Culling 2 where floating seeds were not falling in a small section of the map
Fixed an issue that could cause resources to not count towards score in some levels
Fixed an issue with Imprisoned where termites sometimes could not path to where the water would be
Narrator in custom games should talk about termites more when they are fighting, rather than calling them ants
Assassin bugs will now despawn after 10s like other creatures in 5.1 and 5.2
Tug of War 3 name now in keeping with the other ToW levels
Final objective in 1.2 Subjugation now marks as finished on victory
Fixed an issue where two voice lines were showing as the wrong scientist
Fixes for UI scaling
Minor optimisations to large creatures and queens
Memory use reduction (more things should only load into memory as needed)

Known Issues

Some extra levels will appear dark or overly contrasty due to rendering changes - please report them if you see them

[ 2024-09-11 18:56:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

August 2024 Newsletter

As the dust continues to settle after the 1.0 launch, weve solidified our plans for the short and long term goals for Empires of the Undergrowth. This newsletter will be a bit briefer than usual, as we try to return to some form of normality after the huge upheaval brought by the games release!
The ereptor colony languishes in its cupboard purgatory, from Zvistic on our Discord Well go over what the team are working on right now, but for a more comprehensive look at the future of the project Id highly recommend taking a peek at the previous newsletter or vlog - theres an in-depth breakdown of the intended roadmap in both of those, and theres not much point in repeating that completely here.

Tier 5 achievements

One of our main priorities, as mentioned in the previous vlog, is tier 5 / final formicarium achievements - they didnt make it in quite in time for release. These are currently in the process of being implemented - there will be 45 of them in total, and as a little treat the devs have let me show you a preview of 3 of these (I had to twist a devs arm up his back to get them): No Mound Left Behind - Beat Drive Them Back on medium difficulty without losing a termite mound. Shoot Yourself In The Foot - Beat Triage on hard difficulty with no termite queens left alive. Finish Your Vegetables - Beat Last Mound Standing on impossible difficulty after harvesting 10,000 llignocelluose.

Rainforest Art Refresh

Our environment artist is getting on with his refresh of the Ecuador level artwork, to bring them in line with the style and fidelity of the rest of the game. Below are 3 previews of this work - please note, this is very much a work in progress and will change a lot before it reaches its final look (for example, no changes have yet been made to the leafcutter sapling).

Engine Upgrade & Graphics

Were currently in the process of upgrading the version of Unreal Engine 4 that the game uses. Well be taking it to version 4.27, which is the final stable build of this engine. This is a pretty significant undertaking - weve done it before earlier on in the project, but this will be the final time that we do this. In theory, upgrading the engine leads to improved efficiency of the underlying UE systems - but there is always fallout and breakages when undergoing such a fundamental change, so it will take us a while to work through those. While were in the throes of this, its worth mentioning that some people have been mentioning graphical issues that only arose with the release of 1.0 - they report overly smooth-looking surfaces on some models. Weve yet to entirely nail down commonality between them - it appears to be people using some older graphics cards (the 10x GTX series crops up regularly here, although we dont see the issue on our own 10x laptops). It is entirely possible that this engine upgrade fixes the issues, and before we release the version of the game with the engine upgrade its entirely possible that well run an optional beta - more details on that if/when it happens, but it would be greatly appreciated if people experiencing this issue can do some testing when the time comes. If the engine upgrade doesnt address these issues, then of course well go engine diving a lot deeper again to uncover the cause.

Balance

Weve been continuing to collect feedback based on player discussion on both Steam and our other official channels (forum, Discord, etc) and condensing those down into bullet points for our devs to ingest and ponder on. Please keep this coming - overall consensus is really important here for us to identify these areas where things could use tightening up a little. Weve also been gathering feedback on how best to tune the systems we have for custom game AI, and over the past several weeks a lot of careful thought has gone into it. We hope to have some of these tweaks ready to go along with the engine update patch.

Official Wiki

While an unofficial wiki has existed for some time now, we have recently launched an official wiki hosted by our publishing partners Hooded Horse! The Empires of the Undergrowth wiki is the best source of up-to-date information on the game. It contains information on all of the maps and creatures, including stats and abilities for the creatures. It also contains trivia and behind-the scenes info from the games development. Click here to visit the new official Empires of the Undergrowth wiki! Our thanks to community member AntBZK for his work (or hobby, as he calls it) in creating the vast majority of the content on the official wiki (and its unofficial predecessor). Theres room in the future to bring on other official contributors - if you fancy a go at that and have a decent writing style, come and join us on the Discord where the wiki has its own channel for debate.

ANTCON 2024

Back in May, community manager Mike and marketing content creator Hei Man went to Carmarthen in Wales, to attent ANTCON 2024. This is the event for UK-based ant fans and keepers, and people come from much further afield as well. Mike had his camera with him and recorded some of the day, as well as taking some pretty darn great macro shots of some of the ants on display, even if he does say so himself.

A macro photo of Formica fusca ants taken at ANTCON. By Mike Connor Mike also gave a short presentation about the creatures of the savannah, and talked a bit of what was to come in tier 5 (the event was roughly a month before full release of the game). A short travelog is in the works to document some of the day - expect to see that on our YouTube channel soon. As always, it was a fantastic event and it was great to be able to attent. Thanks very much to Richard and the rest of the team from Ant Antics for organising it, and for inviting us and making it so memorable.

Screenshot Central

Ever my favourite part of the newsletter, here I gather some of my favourite screenshots from our Discord and the Steam community tab. If youd like to submit a screenshot for this section in the future, then the Discord is the easiest way to do that. To get really great angles on your screenies, hold down shift while you enter photo mode to uncouple the camera from the ground plane.

Fire ants raft to safety from Thuneral on Steam Community

A bullfrog tries to brush off stinging ants from Alex_O on Steam Community

A whip spider traps a Matabele ant in a diamond prison from (TSMYAFL) on Steam Community

[ 2024-08-05 21:14:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Empires of the Undergrowth is on SALE NOW!

Empires of the Undergrowth is 35% off from July 21 to August 4.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/463530/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth/ Dive into the fascinating world of ants with Empires of the Undergrowth, a strategy game where you command your own ant colony. Available now at a special discount, it's the perfect time to experience the thrill of building and managing an underground empire. Construct your nest, gather resources, and defend your colony from threats both large and small. Each species of ant has its own unique strengths and abilities, allowing you to tailor your strategies to the challenges you face.

Features:

Real-time strategy with an emphasis on colony management
Different ant species with unique traits and abilities
Dynamic environments with diverse biomes
Engaging campaign and endless freeplay modes
Stunning graphics and immersive gameplay
Don't miss out on this captivating strategy experience. Act fast and get Empires of the Undergrowth at 35% off during the sale!

[previewyoutube=q8mSpOe4suo;full][/previewyoutube]

Latest Empires of the Undergrowth Update & Future Roadmap

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/463530/view/6340585850809338524?l=english [hr][/hr]

Slug Disco Studios Socials

 If you'd like to keep up to date with the latest news and announcements:
Discord Twitter YouTube Twitch Facebook Instagram TikTok Reddit Wiki

[ 2024-07-21 17:00:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

VLOG 11 - What's next for Empires of the Undergrowth

Empires of the Undergrowth has been out for a month, so what comes next? In this vlog, community manager Mike goes through the roadmap for the immediate future of EotU. Since this is a Slug Disco vlog it also has some news about another game published by us - if you'd like to skip that and get to just the EotU bits, the timecode is 1.26. [previewyoutube=cNXrE74xurI;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2024-07-08 21:41:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixes & Changes - First post-release patch for Empires of the Undergrowth

We've released the first patch of fixes and changes for Empires of the Undergrowth, following its release into 1.0 last month. This deals with most of the more common issues that have been reported - more patches of this scale and type are likely to come in the near future. Thanks to everyone who's been helping to test this patch in the optional beta over the past several days!

Changes

5.1's titans can now spawn in huge creature landmarks in freeplay
Added a system to restore saves from backup in-game rather than manually (not yet localised)
Added some extra protection when reloading or quitting the game when defeat rewards are being saved
Increased save backup number to 5 (up from 3)
Bullet ant tech tree video added
Scroll added to behaviour toggles box (will only appear when needed)
Added more recent localisation for Polish and Czech
Updated lighting for custom game levels and extra levels, and changed some underground tile grids to the new ones
Whip spider main menu icon is replaced if arachnophobia mode is active
Added arachnophobia hats to hybrids
Creature stat list can now show percentages to a single decimal point

Fixes

Reduced chance of all backups corrupting
Fixed some small reverb problems in Tier 5 lab music
Food taken from dead critters should now look closer to what it comes from
Wood ants now turn to their targets before each shot
AoE resistance now displays as a percentage in the Inspect tool
Creatures mounted on another are now killed when shaken off and landing off the tile grid
Fixed low resolution shadows in Tug of War 3
Large underground creatures in 5.1 and 5.3 can now only demolish a tile if at least one of its neighbours is demolished
Quadrupled VRAM allocated to overground tile grid textures - should improve issues when rapidly moving camera around the map
Inspect tool health-per-second now includes buffs (such as the Matabele medic aura)
Fix for whip spiders rapidly pinging from their creature encounter narration in 3.2
Bullet ant species hex now used in the improvements menu
Allowed marker placement through some plants that were blocking it in 3.2
Matabele colonies should now always drop termites when they sell a tile
Creatures that reach zero health while mounted will always drop to the floor to actually die
Water on the minimap removed on 5.3
Termites will no longer take sun damage in the ending cinematic of 5.3
End game messages now say the NG+ level that has been unlocked if this is not the first NG+ completion
Corrected some issues in the credits
Fixed a ping issue in Occupation 2
Texture size optimisations (should help with some blurry issues)
Skimmer in Battle Arena will now fly and land when there are enemies at the midpoint
Fixed some overhanging moss in the final formicarium / terrarium
Fixed an issue where loading a damaged creature with a star level would restore its health
Prevented ants walking into a rock in 5.1
Fixed an issue where several ants hatch costs were being affected by upkeep in custom games
Fixed an issue where bullet ant lean pupation was not applying in custom games
Fixed an issue where UI scaling 150% would cause formicarium rewards to be off the bottom of the screen and hence unselectable
Fixed an issue where Matabele colonies would drop seeds instead of termites when an upgrade was cancelled
Speed chambers now drop lignocellulose for termites and termites for Matabele when sold
Fixed an issue where food refunded into storage chambers owned by Matabele ants was seeds (and hence was worth a lot less)
Great blue skimmer displays health in battle arena again
Fixed an issue where ants would leave via the top of a tunnel exit on Strawclutch
Fixed an issue where poppy plants would appear on some custom game levels when loaded that were not meant to be there
Earwig nymph can no longer spawn as part of a wave in freeplay
Fixed an issue where huge creature landmarks if they could not find a slot could cause all other landmarks in the current queue to not spawn
Fixed an issue where under some circumstances less lignocellulose would spawn than was supposed to in custom games
Fixed some issues preventing AI controlled Matabele ant colonies from hunting termites
Lignocellulose landmarks now can only spawn weaker termites early game, ramping up to larger ones later game

[ 2024-07-04 14:48:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Empires of the Undergrowth at Hooded Horse Summer Sale

The Hooded Horse Summer Sale Has Arrived!

Until July 11th, explore the fascinating world of ants in Empires of the Undergrowth at a 35% discount. Also, check out the fantastic discounts on all Hooded Horse titles during the Steam Summer Sale.

[hr][/hr][img]https://shared.akamai.steamstatic.com/store_item_assets/steam/apps/463530/extras/headline_02.png?t=1718623589

[/img] Empires of the Undergrowth is a real-time strategy game where you manage an ant colony, gather resources, and defend against predators. Check out the recent 1.0 release! [hr][/hr] [previewyoutube=ELSOKmgDRvA;full][/previewyoutube]

From Today Until July 11th

The discounts on Empires of the Undergrowth and all other Hooded Horse games are available through July 11th perfect for enhancing your summer gaming experience. We're excited to see the worlds you build and the adventures you undertake. Happy gaming!

[ 2024-06-27 17:00:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta - New Freeplay Titans & Bug Fixes

Along with the 5.1 titans making it into freeplay, this optional beta has a bunch of fixes and improvements to make the game more stable. Lets go over a few things related to these optional betas for people who havent participated in them before. Firstly, please note: optional betas are limited to the Steam Windows 64 bit build, and may be missing localisations in some newer or updates areas.

WARNING: YOU ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO MAKE A SAVE BACKUP

Saved games are in C:\Users[YOUR USER NAME]\AppData\Local\EotU\Saved\SaveGames We highly recommend making a backup of your saved games before you run an optional beta, on the off-chance that some changes cause them to be corrupted. More info on where games are saved is in the Steam forums (but some of the information here will soon be obsolete, if this beta goes to plan). Copying the data in that folder to somewhere else will keep it safe from any potential issues.

Code: customtitans

If you would like to join the beta, the code is customtitans. If you dont know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions below: [olist]

Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"

Choose the "Betas" tab

In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter customtitans

After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu

Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch. [/olist]

Updates / Changes

5.1's titans can now spawn in huge creature landmarks in freeplay
Added a system to restore saves from backup in-game rather than manually (not yet localised)
Added some extra protection when reloading or quitting the game when defeat rewards are being saved
Increased save backup number to 5 (up from 3)
Bullet ant tech tree video added
Scroll added to behaviour toggles box (will only appear when needed)
Added more recent localisation for Polish and Czech
Updated lighting for custom game levels and extra levels and changed some underground tile grids to the new ones
Whip spider main menu icon is replaced if arachnophobia mode is active
Added arachnophobia hat to all hybrids
Creature stat list can now show percentages to a single decimal point

Fixes

Reduced chance of all backups corrupting
Fixed some small reverb problems in Tier 5 lab music
Food taken from dead critters should now look closer to what it comes from
Wood ants now turn to their targets before each shot
AoE resistance now displays as a percentage in the Inspect tool
Creatures mounted on another are now killed when shaken off and landing off the tile grid
Fixed low resolution shadows in Tug of War 3
Large underground creatures in 5.1 and 5.3 can now only demolish a tile if at least one of its neighbours is demolished
Quadrupled VRAM allocated to overground tile grid textures - should improve issues when rapidly moving camera around the map
Inspect tool health-per-second now includes buffs (such as the Matabele medic aura)
Fix for whip spiders rapidly pinging from their creature encounter narration in 3.2
Bullet ant species hex now used in the improvements menu
Allowed marker placement through some plants that were blocking it in 3.2
Matabele colonies should now always drop termites when they sell a tile
Creatures that reach zero health while mounted will always drop to the floor to actually die
Water on the minimap removed on 5.3
Termites will no longer take sun damage in the ending cinematic of 5.3
End game messages now say the NG+ level that has been unlocked if this is not the first NG+ completion
Corrected some issues in the credits
Fixed a ping issue in Occupation 2
Texture size optimisations (should help with some blurry issues)
Skimmer in Battle Arena will now fly and land when there are enemies at the midpoint
Fixed some overhanging moss in the final formicarium / terrarium
Fixed an issue where loading a damaged creature with a star level would restore its health
Prevented ants walking into a rock in 5.1
Fixed an issue where several ants hatch costs were being affected by upkeep in custom games
Fixed an issue where bullet ant lean pupation was not applying in custom games
Fixed an issue where UI scaling 150% would cause formicarium rewards to be off the bottom of the screen and hence unselectable

[ 2024-06-22 15:11:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

First Post-Release Newsletter! May-June 2024

Weve put many of our best years into Empires of the Undergrowth, and it is finally released. Welcome to our first newsletter in a post-1.0 world! For all of the many new people who are joining us, you are most welcome, and we hope youve been enjoying the game since launch on Friday, 7th June 2024. Its been a rollercoaster of a few days for us, to say the least, and weve got a lot to talk about - so lets get to it.
Matabele ants in a custom game from Zvistic First and foremost, thank you so much for making sure that our launch to full release was a successful one. So far, our highest concurrent player count was on the Sunday after launch - peaking at 6,367 - absolutely annihilating our previous best of 2,509 which happened nearly 2 years ago when the fire ant update was set live. These are stunning numbers for our little ant game, far higher than we could have hoped for, and we will be eternally grateful for that. On launch day we also posted a new roadmap, detailing some of our plans for the immediate future of Empires of the Undergrowth. This newsletter will mainly deal with that, but well also talk about some of the coverage that the game has been getting and how the launch itself went.

1.0 Launch

In the early evening of 7th June, we took a short break from our preparations to do a short livestream celebrating the reach of 1.0. It was great being able to take a quick breather with more than 800 of you watching at one point, and to be honest this was for us as much as it was for everyone else! The recording of the livestream is available on YouTube for anyone who would like to have a look: [previewyoutube=9WTYCZ22eek;full][/previewyoutube] We did all the traditional things you do in a launch livestream - briefly interrogate an environment artist, mix a themed cocktail, that sort of thing. Cue me getting through the entire livestream in good humour only to get emotional at the very end of it - an absolute classic. As always, a privilege to share a little about our process and our team at the end of the road. Well, at the end of this road, anyway.

The Immediate Aftermath - Roadmap

Even after a project that has done objectively fairly well for several years, you can never guarantee that that will translate to a bigger player base at the end of proceedings. Thankfully, you folks came out swinging for us, and we had both our best day of sales AND concurrent player count on launch day, up until that point (beaten over the following weekend, however!). Roadmap:

On the day of launch we also released an updated roadmap. While our roadmaps are always subject to changes in ordering and even inclusion, it gives a good idea of what our immediate priorities are to continue content and improve whats there. Lets go through the roadmap now and discuss the major points in a bit more detail.

Fixes & Improvements

Our first port-of-call is to fix the inevitable list of glitches and issues that pop up when a lot more eyes are on the game all of a sudden. Obviously we did our best to get everything tested properly before release, but with a small dev team and a volunteer focus group (as well as some limited professional QA) it isnt possible to catch everything until a whole bunch more people are seeing it. Over its long development time, Empires of the Undergrowth has become a fairly big project, after all. Some of the very common ones have already been identified and fixed, and we in fact hope to get back to doing optional betas fairly regularly. The first of these may well be ready in the short term - so look out for that.

Savannah AO improvements - before & after In the above pictures, we've included some improvements to the ambient occlusion system that are currently in the works in a before / after form - this should add extra detailing to bare areas like the open parts of the savannah. We hope to get this into a test build as soon as we can.

Balance

When in a closed testing environment, one of the things you have to be aware of is that everyone who is involved is at least somewhat familiar with the game and therefore things are likely to be a touch easier for them than the average player. This is really a feel it out kinda situation, and although were relatively happy with how the difficulty turned out there is certainly some work to be done here. 5.1 could probably do with being a shade easier on lower difficulties, for example, but the general consensus will develop over time in what we need to be doing here. Balance therefore wont be one of the things that is worked on immediately (well be working on glitch fixes first) but as it becomes clearer what direction we need to go in it will come a little bit later.

Tier 5 Achievements

One of the things we were a bit perturbed to have to leave out of 1.0 is achievements for the final tier of the formicarium story. This was simply a time thing, but we absolutely intend to go back in and finish off the chieves for tier 5. We promise not to make them too devious this time. Maybe.

Rainforest Art Refresh

About 3 years ago we hired a dedicated environment artist to the team. The 3 core devs are all generalists, really, because thats what you have to be with an ambitious project and a tiny team! DanCs art has now defined the look of Empires of the Undergrowth, and the last bastion of the old style remains in the rainforest biome that the third tier of the game takes place in (as well as some extra levels and custom game maps).

A trail of leafcutter ants from Heolx We have gone through the game and updated the earlier artwork, so the rotten log and the beach are now up-to-date with the more modern look. The rainforest was left until last, since it certainly represents the best of the older style. With 1.0 now out of the door, theres time to go back and update the jungle to fit better into the rest of the game.

Savannah Maps

Our lovely new savannah biome has a sort of semi-arid beauty to it, and itd be a real shame if we didnt create some custom game maps using them! At least 2 new custom game maps using these assets are planned in the short term, perhaps with more to follow. They will of course feature the towering spires of the termite mounds, which are the primary visual feature of the savannah.

Driver ants clash with stink ants in this shot from AntBZK

CSV Setup for Custom Games

This system is still very much a work-in-progress, but the idea here is to allow users to create custom game setups via CSV (comma-separated value, or spreadsheet). It will require the users to learn a little bit about the system (well provide some simple documentation when the time arrives) but it should allow for some more funky stuff to be achieved than just basic setup saving. If this all goes to plan theres no reason why we couldnt open this up to the Steam workshop, and allow people to share and download clever custom game setups that way.

Ubers / Huge Creatures

We are also due some variants of the tier 5 creatures being added properly into custom games. The sun spider, African giant centipede and emperor scorpion are all due to make an appearance as huge creature landmarks in their larger or titan forms.

The emperor awaits, from Orion (Dilphy) 5 new creatures will also get uber variants, because who doesnt love a walking lightshow that is an existential threat to your colony? I wont spoil all of them now, but one of them will be the uber alligatorback scorpion.

New Extra Levels

Freed from the stress of completing a nearly decade-long project to 1.0, we will have a bit more time to do some of our more fanciful / experimental (or both) levels. For those who havent tried them yet - making extra levels takes practically no time at all compared to the campaign, because they typically dont involve extensive new asset and / or system creation. Given that they exist outside of the canon of the game, they also give us creative license to be more experimental and create scenarios that wouldnt be appropriate to the campaign.

An overview of Adventure, one of the more ambitious extra levels As the roadmap says, these extra levels may come at any time as they are devised. They take a few hours to a couple of days each to produce compared to months for the campaign, and if developer John (who has made all the extra levels thus far) gets an idea he likes he may well just do it and release it in fairly short order. Well try to give a little bit of a heads-up about that, though, so keep those eyes peeled!

Further Custom Game Changes

It is likely that custom games will remain an area of tweaking and changes for some time to come, and it is by far the game mode with the most subjective taste involved. Although it is very customisable, getting those default values right always takes experimentation and iteration, as well as getting the gist of player consensus as well. Another option open to us, which we havent used yet, is individual stat changes to creatures that are different to the campaign. The AI is also due further tweaks and changes, and although its newer decision making system is more sophisticated than the old one by a large margin, there are still some areas where it can get stuck in a logic loop that prevents it from sending trails out, and well be weeding this issues out as we continue.

Firecracker Mode

No comment. Coming 2025. Boom.

And more!

Well be continuing to do changes, new maps and extra levels, and perhaps even bigger updates for the foreseeable future. The roadmap will continue to be updated every 6 months, and were very happy to have been secured by the successful launch to continue work on the project. There is a lot more stuff we want to do, and we now have the chance to do it.

Thank You

The part of the launch live stream that turned me into a big soppy mess was when it came time to thank you, our players. You have been exceptionally kind and patient with us, as we completed our dream game and brought it to fruition, over a far longer time than we ever expected it to take us. Oh, our naivety all those years ago! Thank you to our players, those who have contributed with testing and suggestions, our supporting artists and voice talent. Also to Hooded Horse, our co-publishers, whose guidance and superior wisdom has steered us through the trickiest part of the project.

Screenshot Central

It feels like its been an age since I got to do my favourite part of the newsletter, but it hasnt even been 3 months (it feels like a year). If youd like to contribute to this section in the future, the easiest way is to get on our Discord and post in the appropriate screenshot channel there. Alternatively, you can post to the Steam community and I will occasionally have a search through there. This month it is, predictably, tier 5-themed.

An Aloe shadow looms over the savannah from ~SlushieChris~

A basking rainbow lizard from NightEqual2374

Bonk! An emperor scorpion stuns its prey from AhYesAnts

[ 2024-06-13 17:45:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

1.0 Launch - Empires of the Undergrowth 1.0 is OUT NOW!!

ITS FINALLY HERE!

Empires of the Undergrowths version 1.0 is now released, featuring the Matabele ants as the final focal species of the game, as well as the termites in a co-starring role. The whole campaign is now playable start to finish, along with all of its challenge modes and a greatly expanded custom game offering. But were not finished yet. Please enjoy the launch trailer! [previewyoutube=ELSOKmgDRvA;full][/previewyoutube] The major changes as well as the significant improvements and quality of life alterations are detailed below, but this release is much too big to fit everything into a reasonably-sized post! After the changes, read on to see our updated roadmap, showing where we intend to take the game now it has reached version 1.0.

Headline Features

Main Game Modes

The story of Empires of the Undergrowth reaches a cataclysmic conclusion, now playable in its entirety with a fully narrated documentary-style campaign inspired by real world scenarios, and shocking challenges in an adjacent sci-fi setting
Battle for survival in the wild, then bring the spoils of war back to your formicarium and unlock ugradeable ant species to meet the challenges set by the evil scientist
Play endlessly customisable missions in skirmishes and freeplay games against environmental creatures, AI colonies, or both!
Take on the Arcade with a multitude of inventive extra levels, both nature-inspired and more fanciful, and the Battle Arena to watch the chaos unfold
The campaign is repeatable with end-game rewards and New Game Plus

Final Campaign Tier 5

Enter the heat of the African savannah with the Matabele ants
- Obligate termite eaters, they must raid nearby nests as their only long-term viable food source
- Mighty titans of the undergrowth threaten the very existence of the Matabeles at night
- Driver ants and African stink ants give fierce competition to the Matabele ants
- The Matabele will nurse their wounded back to health - a near-unique trait among invertebrates
Play a special campaign level as the termites!
- Play a scenario as one of 3 termite colonies under threat of the Matabele, stink ants and other hungry predators
- Farm for fungus by collecting decaying plant matter from the surface, but beware the midday sun!
Return to the formicarium for the REAL final experiment, where the plans of the scientist are finally laid bare and the ultimate battle must be won
Beat the campaign to add the end-game reward of mighty bullet ants to your colony, as well as several other units!
Take your enhanced colony into custom games, or repeat your colonys journey with tougher challenges in New Game Plus - but this time you can take your formicarium upgrades into the mission with you!

New Challenge Modes

Take on the fire ant missions with an added twist; the six-spotted fishing spider has joined the fray, causing havoc at pontoon construction sites
The sinister assassin bugs prowl the savannah in the Matabele ant missions, taking victims and disguising themselves with the dead bodies of their prey

Custom Games

Matabele ants and termites are now selectable as separate colonies in custom games!
- Matabele colonies must search out termites to eat
- Termite colonies must find patches of lignocellulose to grow into fungus
New savannah creatures will now spawn in custom games when activated - take on alligator back scorpions, earwigs, centipedes and more!

New Extra Level - Tug of War 3

Tug of War 3: battle with new units, including the enormous bullet ants and Matabele, in this continuation of the tug-of-war style of extra levels weve added previously

Other Major Changes

New main menu, loading screens and buttons
Expanded arachnophobia mode (you can just have the hat to be visible)
Increased rewards across the board for first-time level playthroughs
New music in 5.1 & 5.2, as well as in the final formicarium
New Battle Arena (surface) and new options for creatures
New decorations and underground looks for the formicariums

Quality of Life Changes

New Inspect tool (right-side of the pheromone panel) to show creature stats; stats will also now show in tooltips
Clearer display of challenge mode and its rewards
Important notifications should now be more obvious
Numerous small quality of life changes

Fixes

Fixed an issue preventing fire ants Last Stand ability from triggering
Improvements applied to swamp and beach environments
Several issues with minor improvements fixed
Numerous small fixes

The Future

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, were not done yet. A few days after release there will be a newsletter going through this more closely, but we wanted to put the post-1.0 roadmap out a little early with the launch, so people can see what the immediate plan for the months ahead is.

Now, off to the savannah with you! And if this is your first time playing Empires of the Undergrowth, welcome. If its been on your radar for a while, we hope its been worth the wait! Itd be odd not to get slightly emotional at the end of a huge project like this one, and indeed I'm close to bawling my eyes out writing this out now. Thank you so much to everyone who has supported us through the years. We love you all, and we literally couldnt have done it without you. Well see you in the Undergrowth, The Slug Disco Team

[ 2024-06-07 17:01:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

RELEASE DATE REVEAL!! Empires of the Undergrowth Version 1.0

It's been a long time coming. Version 1.0 is coming very soon, so please enjoy this special new gameplay trailer for the whole of the game that reveals the release date at the end of it. Spoilers for the release date from this point on, so watch the video first! [previewyoutube=tEBdPgNTWM8;full][/previewyoutube] Empires of the Undergrowth will hit version 1.0 exactly one month from this post, on June 7th 2024! The final story tier of the game will feature the fearsome Matabele ants and their surrounding species. Here's a breakdown of the major features:

The Matabele ants, termite-eating specialists, feature in 3 brand new fully voice-acted campaign levels in their own environment of the sub-Saharan African savannah!
- Harvest food from the towering spires of the cathedral-like termite mounds, carefully managing this precious resource
- Matabeles have a special medic class, allowing them to revive injured colony members!
- The scorching savannah is rich in biodiversity, and rife with danger
- Encounter marching lines of driver ants & solo-hunting African stink ants
- New huge titans, deadly scorpions, spiders, earwigs, beetles and more!
New Game Plus mode will activate upon completing the campaign, unlocking new units and new options for further playthroughs
Once you're done in the savannah, return to the lab and add the Matabeles to your home colony for one final climactic formicarium challenge - the REAL final experiment!
Sweeping changes to custom game modes
Many quality-of-life tweaks and improvements

Later on this month there will be a newsletter with an updated roadmap, taking us past 1.0 and into the future for Empires of the Undergrowth. This long, long journey that we've been on and has transformed our lives is so close to completion now, and the kind patience of our community has allowed us to make our dream game into reality. From the very bottom of our hearts, thank you. We'll see you in the savannah.

[ 2024-05-07 13:03:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Empires of the Undergrowth is taking part in Earth Appreciation Festival 2024!

Today marks World Earth Day, an occassion where we mark the importance of our planet and the factors that are impacting it. But with human-made issues such as climate change, pollution, overpopulation, lack of sustainability, and conflicts, it's a stark reminder not to take our planet for granted. That's why we're taking part in Earth Appreciation Fest 2024, which contains both post-apocalyptic games that remind us of what we stand to lose, and nature-based games to help celebrate the incredible bio-diversity of the planet we call home. You can check out the full range of games taking part in Earth Appreciation Festival here. Psst! Don't forget Empires of the Undergrowth is also exhibiting at WASD 2024, where you'll be able to try out the latest build of the game from 25th - 27th April!

[ 2024-04-22 17:00:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

VLOG 10 - New Creature Reveal!

Every couple of months we like to do a vlog. This is a big one, both literally and metaphorically. It's a big roundup of all the tier 5 news that has been announced over the last few weeks, with a few new tidbits thrown in, as well as having its very own big creature reveal. I was holding one back especially for vlog 10 - and I'm glad I did! [previewyoutube=SuLCpe0RKcY;full][/previewyoutube] The thumbnail might be my finest work. The vlog's main focus is Empires of the Undergrowth, but it also has a short section about the other games published (but not developed) by Slug Disco Studios - if you'd like to skip that, then the timecode is 04:00.

[ 2024-04-20 11:55:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Empires of the Undergrowth is 35% Off!

Empires of the Undergrowth is now 35% off until April 29th. Command a colony, build, and battle in the bustling world of ants. Every decision, from food collection to frontline combat, matters in the undergrowth empire. [previewyoutube=WHFamaHashM;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/463530/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth/

[ 2024-04-15 17:00:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

March 2024 Newsletter - Matabele Ants & Friends

Just in case the change in the winds isn't perceptible to all yet, Ill spell it out - we're approaching a point where we'll soon be ready to announce our release date for version 1.0 of Empires of the Undergrowth. Official reveals for the setting and species you'll be encountering have begun, and so this newsletter will focus firmly on that.
What wonders await in the savannah? The reveals began at the start of the month and since then we've been doing regular posts on our social media (X/Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Discord), usually on a Saturday. A few other content creators are also getting involved in the fun this time around! Let's go through everything that has been revealed so far and give it some in-depth discussion.

The Matabele Ants

The final ants that the player will control in the campaign is the Matabele ant, a large and fierce termite-eating species Megaponera analis. They live in sub-Saharan Africa. We did a 'Creature Feature'-style short video about it, which also begins to show off some of the environment they live in - the grassland savannah. [previewyoutube=HxC-m0B-E_I;full][/previewyoutube] These ants habitually pillage nearby termite nests - indeed, they are entirely dependent on them (in-game other creatures will be consumable to them, but yield very meagre pickings compared to termites). As obligate termite eaters, they inhabit spaces where they can conduct dusk and dawn raids on nearby mounds. One of their most interesting qualities is that they are an extremely rare example of helping behaviour in insects. For almost all other eusocial insects, colony members that are wounded in a conflict are left to die. However, Matabele ants that are not mortally injured release a distress pheromone, which attracts their sisters. They're collected and brought back to the nest, where they are nursed back to health.

A Medic ant - someone call an antbulance! Although the healed ants aren't as strong or fast as their unscathed broodmates, in this way the Matabeles can significantly reduce their foraging losses and have many more productive ants in the colony. In Empires of the Undergrowth, this whole process is represented by a special Medic class of ant that will take injured Matabeles home, where they will be revived in short order to live a second life with some reduced stats. In this way, the Medic class allows you to increase your population beyond its tile limit. It's the Medic class that you'll be able to unlock for your formicarium.

Termites

Absolutely central to tier 5 is Macrotermes bellicosus, an African termite. Termites evolved from a cockroach-like ancestor, as opposed to ants who evolved from a wasp or wasp-like ancestor. The Latin 'bellicosus' means combative, or war-like. It's a slightly misleading name in some respects - although they do not usually seek conflict with their neighbours, they are well-prepared for it and have evolved multiple defensive castes involving major and minor soldiers. They build iconic cathedral-like mounds out of clay and saliva, which are cunningly crafted to provide an ideal internal temperature for their brood in spite of the baking daytime savannah temperatures.

Mulch gang for life They take refuge in their mounds during the warmest parts of the day, and conduct most of their foraging activities when the temperature is more forgiving. They collect mulchy lignocellulose (drying plant material) from the surface, which they process into edible fungus through a partial digestion process. In-game, this gives them a similar yet slightly more complex food production pipeline to tier 3's leafcutter ants. Termite reproductives mate for life - the queen becomes huge and immobile as she grows, and unlike ants that only mate once during a nuptial flight, a termite king lives alongside his queen for their entire lives. In the 5.x levels this rare example of insect monogamy will be represented by the termite king acting as the queen's fierce protector in her laying chamber.

Some of the only real lovebugs in nature The Matabele-wielding player will need to conduct raids on termites at opportune times, whilst striking a balance - how many termites should they take, without over-harvesting their most important resource? A dead termite colony cannot produce useful food in the future, after all.

African Stink Ant

One of the two auxiliary ant species that the player will encounter in tier 5 is the African stink ant, Paltothyreus tarsatus. These relatives of the Matabele are not as dependent as they are on the nearby termite hills but termites still represent an important part of their diet. [previewyoutube=-Zky-Am9bH8;full][/previewyoutube] Living in a network of shallow tunnels near the surface, stink ants usually hunt or scavenge alone. However, when the odds are against them they will attract more of their nestmates over a significant distance with their powerful pheromones. It's these potent pheromones that give the ants their name - they smell strongly sulphurous to human noses.

Sun Spider

Just in case anyone was worried about us forgetting about one of the best things from the last tier (titan-class enemies), we've got you covered. One of the titans you'll encounter in tier 5 is the sun spider (Zeria keyserlingi). We gave one of our favourite YouTube content creators Frazzz a bit of a preview of the sun spider in a special Battle Arena build - the video gives a great representation of their look, animations and abilities. Check it out! [previewyoutube=Sea4ODMe_Sg;full][sun spider video by Frazzz][/previewyoutube] Solfugae (sun spiders), otherwise known as camel spiders, achieved an almost cryptid-like status on the internet in the 2000s due to many unfounded myths about them. The idea that they could kill a dog, or are as dangerous as cobras, or perform facehugger-like jumping attacks at camels are all entirely unfounded but fun to read about.

Death awaits you all, with nasty, big, pointy teeth! They are in fact venomless, and the most harm they could ever do you is give you a relatively medically insignificant bite. Perhaps it's their unsettling appearance that makes them so memorable - they're arachnids, but not true spiders and nothing else looks quite like them. They're also capable of running very fast for invertebrates, and have a habit of scuttling towards people's shadows in an attempt to get out of the direct sunlight. Of course, if you're the size of an ant, they represent a much bigger existential risk. Keep an eye out for them in the savannah!

Common Earwig

Everyone who's ever dug around in the dirt as a kid (or indeed as a grown-up enthusiast) will be familiar with earwigs. This species is Forficula auricularia, an originally European / Asian native that has spread to almost everywhere that humans inhabit, including the parts Africa where the 5.x levels take place. A common nocturnal and subterranean enemy, it can use the pincer on the tip of its tail as an additional attack vector when it encounters prey or predators.

This enemy comes in a male and female variation, indicated by the shape of the tail pincer.

African Tiger Beetle

Would it even really be a proper Empires of the Undergrowth update without a new tiger beetle? Tier 3 excluded, obviously. This is Dromicoida elegantia, and like all tiger beetles it is a fierce predator with excellent vision, fast motion, and powerful slicing jaws. It will feature as one of the regular enemies roaming the savannah.

The Savannah

The tier 5 levels take place in the savannahs of sub-Saharan Africa. African savannahs are grasslands with open-canopy tree populations. Daytime temperatures can be brutal, and most species must take refuge in the shade in the hottest parts of the day. For termites this means retreating to their naturally air-conditioned mounds. It is a place of clay-rich soil and impressive biodiversity. Savannahs are far from deserts - standing water is often found there, and flowing water is available seasonally with most rainfall confined to a wet season.

An overview of one of the 5.x levels, WIP At some point in the coming weeks Ill do an environmental showcase for the savannah levels, as we get closer to the artwork being completed for them. That's everything that's revealed so far about tier 5 - but there's a lot more to come. The round-ups in newsletters and vlogs will continue, but our social media (X/Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Discord) is the best place to get news quick.

ANTCON 2024

Unless something happens in the meantime theres a very strong possibility that myself and one other Slug Disco team member will be going to ANTCON 2024 in Carmarthen, Wales in May. That team member is unlikely to be one of the EotU devs - its an understandably very busy time for them! Tickets for the event are sold out, but if you managed to snag one then we look forward to seeing you on the Saturday. Last years event was great fun - check out the travelog we recorded.

Screenshot Central

As always, if youd like to submit a screenshot to this part of the newsletter the easiest place to do that is on the appropriate channel of our Discord. Hit F9 (by default) to enter photo mode, and hold shift whilst you do that to uncouple the camera from the ground plain, allowing for some creative angles.

Army ants climb a bullfrog from WarriorAntGaming

Foam washes over the beach from Zvistic

Two different tiger beetles clash from Akilay Williams

Ant-icipation Rises

A final note from me as I close up this newsletter and get back to the ultra-busy period of time the Slug Disco team is currently in - we are indeed approaching the end of the long early access journey, and the one thing that has been able to sustain us through that is you. Your patience and understanding has allowed this tiny team of three old friends to slowly craft their dream game, and that dream is nearly fully realised. Now, back to it. Mike Senior community manager

[ 2024-03-19 15:41:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hooded Horse Spring Sale

Hello! From now until March 21st, you can save 35% on Empires of the Undergrowth, and get great deals on all other games published by Hooded Horse during the Steam Spring Sale. Come check the game out!
[previewyoutube=UhMEkuqT5o0;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2024-03-14 22:00:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Empires of the Undergrowth Joins Digital Tabletop Fest 4: Roll of the Dice

Empires of the Undergrowth is participating in the Digital Tabletop Fest: Roll of the Dice, hosted by Auroch Digital.
This festival celebrates tabletop-inspired games and the incredible game studios behind them. From March 7th to March 11th, you'll find demos, previews of upcoming titles, panels from developers, and game discounts, too. If you've been anticipating playing Empires of the Undergrowth, it is currently 35% off until March 10. Survive, build, conquer, and rule over the ant hill today! https://store.steampowered.com/app/463530

[ 2024-03-08 21:24:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Final Ant Species Reveal!

The final chapter of the story is not too far away, so let's talk about the final ant species you'll be playing as in Empires of the Undergrowth. The video below is a creature feature style one to reveal a little about the ants and their environment, and their eating habits. [previewyoutube=HxC-m0B-E_I;full][/previewyoutube] In the expansive savannah of sub-Saharan Africa, the sun scorches the earth during the day and creatures find different ways to survive. Some dig; some build spire-topped cathedrals. Some of the diggers feed on the builders. Large, powerful, and specialised, Megaponera analis - the Matabele ant - feeds almost entirely on termites. They habitually conduct sweeping raids of nearby mounds at dawn and dusk, when the heat is more forgiving. We'll be doing fairly regular reveals on our social media from now on (YouTube, Facebook and X / Twitter and of course our Discord server) so those are the places to follow along if you want news as fast as you can get it - but we'll be doing round-ups in newsletters and vlogs, too. The newsletter coming in a couple of weeks from this post will be packed with tier 5 stuff! Making this game has been a wonderful, long, life-changing journey that is now nearing its end and we're glad you made it with us.

[ 2024-03-02 15:23:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

35% Off Sale for Empires of the Undergrowth

From now until March 10th, you can save 35% on Empires of the Undergrowth. Come check the game out! [previewyoutube=WHFamaHashM;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/463530/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth/

[ 2024-03-01 15:30:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

VLOG 9 - Tier 5 reveals coming soon!

We've decided internally on a release date for Empires of the Undergrowth - it's now full steam ahead to meet it! We'll be doing some creature and setting reveals for the final tier soon. This vlog, while necessarily short, should plug the gap between calm and storm. Note that this vlog also deals with news about 2 other games that Slug Disco publishes - if you'd rather skip that, the timecode is 3:53. [previewyoutube=UZjGSKeculo;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2024-02-10 15:53:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Discount (20% off) and upcoming price change

Hi everyone! Empires of the Undergrowth is currently on sale for 20% off. At the end of the sale, the price of the game will be raised to reflect advancements made during Early Access. We wanted to provide advance notice in case anyone would like to purchase the game at the current discounted price. Thank you for all of your support! https://store.steampowered.com/app/463530/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth/ [previewyoutube=ihLRjXkTQjQ;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2024-01-12 18:13:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

January 2024 Newsletter - it's release year!

So, were in Empires of the Undergrowths release year now! Thats a terrifying and exciting concept. If you watched last months vlog, youll have seen that weve managed to narrow down the release window of the game to a slight 12 months. Well done us.
The Nian Beast encounters firecrackers in the New Year's Feast level. From Orion (Dilphy) on our Discord Just a reminder that Novembers newsletter contains the roadmap that should cover what to expect as we approach full release of the project - so refer back to that if youd like some clarification on whats happening over the coming few months. Ill try to keep this newsletter relatively brief - in this time shortly before we start revealing stuff from the final tier, news is a little slight. However, next time should be full of exciting reveals! Theres definitely a few things worth discussing now - lets dive in.

2024 Release

So, the big news I spoke about in the previous vlog at the end of last year is that Empires of the Undergrowth will be releasing in 2024! Upon this announcement being made, the memes almost immediately began saying things along the lines of One second before 2025 confirmed!, which I must admit made us giggle. [previewyoutube=e8joCmJMFKY;full][/previewyoutube] I dont want to narrow down the launch window any further just yet, but I will say the aim is definitely for this to not be the case. Our internal decision on the release window is getting surer by the day, and as is always the case the rest of the team is holding me back from just blurting everything out! Believe me, Ive been biting my tongue for months.

Creature Features

In the lead-up to us revealing stuff for the final tier, weve started doing semi-regular Creature Feature videos on our YouTube channel. We hope these can introduce the critters from the game to everyone, and might even be mildly educational at the same time. Were aiming to go through the game, highlighting some of the creepier crawlies as we go. Who knows what will happen when we reach the end of the existing campaign? [previewyoutube=PN_N-U_RKlc;full][/previewyoutube]

Daily Devlog

Now would be a great time to join our Discord, where Ive recently started a new channel called Daily Devlog. A few times a week, I will go into Empires of the Undergrowths source control (software we use to keep track of code and assets as they are being developed) and see what has been committed recently.

I get to use [REDACTED] at work without working for the government. Neat! This is a fun way of keeping track of what were up to in these last few precious months before release, and although I wont be posting direct spoilers there (at least not until weve officially revealed something) its well worth a look if you're curious about what our small team gets up to on a day-to-day basis.

New Years Feast Now Active

Our annual New Years level, fittingly dubbed New Years Feast, is now active and ready for play. Click on the Chinese lantern that has appeared on the main menu to jump in - itll be here all the way until the end of February (covering the Lunar New Year too) so youve got plenty of time to get those spicy new achievements before Spring comes around. [previewyoutube=5Kz-w3A_4k0;full][/previewyoutube] We like to take a fanciful approach to our holiday levels, as opposed to the more reality-based settings of the documentary levels in the campaign. The fire ant queen is making her famous New Year's Eve hotpot, but her daughters have forgotten to bring her the ingredients for the broth. Help them find the correct spices in time for the New Year celebrations, whilst making liberal use of festive firecrackers to clear enemies and shorten your path. Rescue lost invitees to diversify your colony!

Map Contest Over and Out

Thank you to everyone who has played since the Custom Game & Achievements Update went live just before the Christmas break! I thought now would be the right time to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who sent in a map suggestion - although we could only pick 2 winners, it was a joy going through the submissions and seeing all the wonderful ways in which your brains work. [previewyoutube=Bj0msTbh1JY;full][/previewyoutube] Custom game maps Strawclutch (designed by Noctazar) and Imprisoned (designed by ) are of course now in the game forever, as a testament to the creativity of our players. We may well do some more contests like this in the future - but likely after full release at this point. Time for us to crack on! Heres a list of everyone who sent in a valid entry, in no particular order. I hope your imaginations are working overtime for the next one. [table] [tr] [td]Meatboi Hucklebert[/td] [td]Tom S[/td] [td]Ungar[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Saladsquid[/td] [td]FishingFam[/td] [td]Deplaudablefish[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Owlenstein[/td] [td]Bifskit[/td] [td]VoltronexGaming[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]hmega[/td] [td]Shaon B[/td] [td]Alexmadness[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Eric S[/td] [td]Adam Isak[/td] [td]MOSASAURUS[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Samy U[/td] [td]Marcelo287xp[/td] [td]Solstitium[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Flisgonk[/td] [td]Skye_Cat[/td] [td]Doople[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Noctazar[/td] [td]Peeps[/td] [td]SkyWanderer[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Hell_wolf[/td] [td]Mates[/td] [td]That one Mutter Trucker[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]MrBag15[/td] [td]Flisgonk[/td] [td]Reptile42YT[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Cody B[/td] [td]Leviathan[/td] [td]Meep[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Zac D[/td] [td]Jackowacko[/td] [td]RoGaVil[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Dino nerd[/td] [td]Heolx[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Cam H[/td] [td]CFG_DOOM_BOOM_ENDER[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]A lava guy[/td] [td]Sidekick9,500[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Wiz Jo[/td] [td]Antbzk64[/td] [td]200[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Diego O-C[/td] [td]Pug[/td] [td]Jeffy[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Owen H[/td] [td]TheRealStormCZE[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Yarik[/td] [td]NilasG24[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Nich B[/td] [td]W.D gaster[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Antwarmaster[/td] [td]Vincent H 2005[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Scraptainred_xi[/td] [td]OOGA BOOGA[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Daniela O[/td] [td]Pogonomyrmex Badius[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Someoneudontno[/td] [td]Gloomy[/td] [td]Tuyfhe[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Pierce L[/td] [td]Light_Rider3000[/td] [td]ants[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Eleanor B[/td] [td]Dani1005[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Sebastian R[/td] [td]Orion (Dilphy)[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Ihasahat[/td] [td]Dule75[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Nicholas L[/td] [td]Mr. Tank Gaming YT[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Meh[/td] [td]DioAron[/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [/table]

Honourable Mentions

A map design built in Minecraft! Ungar, who made a 15 minute video describing their idea: https://youtu.be/DgM5AqXvFZs Heolx, for cheekily submitting a Heart of the Swarm map.

Buglife charity donation

Back in April of last year, we had the enormous privilege of being part of the organising team for Steams Earth Appreciation Festival and associated sale. Empires of the Undergrowth was of course featured, and we donated a portion of our revenue from the event to our favourite UK-based invertebrate conservation charity, Buglife. We were able to raise 2224, which gets doubled up via the Big Give No Insectinction Campaign to 4448.

Click the logo to visit the Buglife blog entry! I had a quick chat with Nikki Banfield, Communication Officer for the charity, and with my answers she put together an article about our donation, what some of the money will be used for, why we chose Buglife and what weve found inspiring in our time developing Empires of the Undergrowth. Read the article on Buglifes blog here! With the help of our players, we hope to be able to do more charity drives in the future for conservation concerns close to our heart like this one. Thank you so much to everyone who participated, and everyone whos bought the game - please know that youve helped put us in the position where we can support a charity we love.

Thank You

Thanks for reading our first newsletter of 2024 - things are about to get very exciting! Before I see us out with Screenshot Central, Id just like to thank each and every one of you for being with us on this long journey to make our dream game, from early beginnings so long ago to now going through the process of preparing something fully realised to completion. We would not have been able to do this without the understanding and kind patience of a community who genuinely want what is best for us, and are willing to wait for quality. Youve made Empires of the Undergrowth what it is, and made us what we will continue to be.

Screenshot Central

Always a treat getting to this point of the writing - share your screenshots on the Steam Community tab, or more easily (for me) you can join our Discord and post them up in the appropriate channel. Remember - if you hold shift while you press the photo mode button (F9 by default) you can uncouple the camera from the tile grid, allowing you to get some lovely snaps.

Attacking big-headed ants from WarriorAntGaming, who has posted whole sagas on our Discord

Fire in the swamp from Vanguard on our Discord

The Nian Beast being formidable from Orion (Dilphy) on our Discord

[ 2024-01-11 18:16:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Crash Fixes & Windows 32 / Mac Update

The recently-implemented automatic crash reporting system in Empires of the Undergrowth has highlighted some issues that have been lurking in the dark for a long time, that weve now been able to root out and patch up. This update deals with the most pressing of those.

0.320034 Notes

Fixed a crash when a titan-class creature is near the edge of the map
Fixed some creature fringe cases causing other crashes
Fixed several rarer crashes

This patch also brings platforms other than Windows 64 bit up to date (Windows 32 bit, Mac). The following notes are from the previous update, but included for the convenience for those demographics.

Notes for Windows 32 bit / Mac

Achievements

Cramped extra level will no longer trigger 3.2s achievements
'Multitasking' can now be completed if the pinecone on the island has been deleted
Fixed an issues where 'Clever Little Ants' always failed even when nothing got hit
New Years Feast achievements should now register
'Full House' counting issue fixed

Other

Fix for velvet worm attacking itself
Closed the New Years Feast nest entrance
Christmas hats removed from invisible queens on a few levels (Festive Spider, etc)
Beetles Rise Up no longer stuck on impossible difficulty
Creature stats resynchronised between campaign & custom games

[ 2024-01-10 11:24:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Year's Feast & Fixes

Welcome to 2024! This patch fixes some issues with achievements and extra levels that have cropped up over the Christmas break - and I thought Id throw in a reminder about the New Years Feast level as well, which is now active and playable through until the end of February. Its a little early for Chinese New Year, but we figured we should be early with something for once. [previewyoutube=5Kz-w3A_4k0;full][/previewyoutube]

"The fire ant queen is making her famous New Year's Eve hotpot, but her daughters have forgotten to bring her the ingredients for the broth. Help them find the correct spices in time for the New Year celebrations, whilst making liberal use of festive firecrackers to clear enemies and shorten your path. Rescue lost invitees to diversify your colony!"

This patch is somewhat urgent because of the achievement issues, and we hope this resolves the last of them. For that reason, it is being rolled out in stages as we can compile them - starting with Win64, then moving onto Win32 and Mac as soon as theyre ready. This might take a day or two.

Version 0.320032 Patch Notes

Achievements

Cramped extra level will no longer trigger 3.2s achievements
'Multitasking' can now be completed if the pinecone on the island has been deleted
Fixed an issues where 'Clever Little Ants' always failed even when nothing got hit
New Years Feast achievements should now register
'Full House' counting issue fixed

Other

Fix for velvet worm attacking itself
Closed the New Years Feast nest entrance
Christmas hats removed from invisible queens on a few levels (Festive Spider, etc)
Beetles Rise Up no longer stuck on impossible difficulty
Creature stats resynchronised between campaign & custom games:
- We have some time scheduled coming up to spend a few days just playing custom games & may make some custom game-specific creature changes in a future update

[ 2024-01-04 21:10:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

20% off Empires of the Undergrowth

Hi everyone, get Empires of the Undergrowth for 20% off during the Steam Winter Sale! Command swarms of warriors at an unprecedented scale of warfare. Lead ant colonies against the many fearsome threats of the insect world: Check out this game and Hooded Horse's other published games during the Winter Sale until January 4. [previewyoutube=UhMEkuqT5o0;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2023-12-30 20:00:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hooded Horse Winter Sale

Happy Holidays! From now until January 4th, you can save 20% on Empires of the Undergrowth, and get great deals on all other games published by Hooded Horse during the Steam Winter Sale. With Empires of the Undergrowth's early access journey coming near to an end with v1.0 arriving in 2024, now is a great time to come check the game out!
[previewyoutube=ihLRjXkTQjQ;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2023-12-25 18:00:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Custom Game & Achievements Update is OUT NOW!

New custom game / freeplay maps! Achievements! New difficulty options! More generous mission rewards! This major update for Empires of the Undergrowth brings in a whole bunch of new stuff, and also puts us in good stead for the final chapter and full release coming in 2024. Thanks so much to everyone whos been helping to test all the additions over the past few weeks. [previewyoutube=Bj0msTbh1JY;full][/previewyoutube]

Headline Features

New Custom Game Maps! The 2 winners of our summer map design contest have been completed & added to the game, as well as one more
- Imprisoned, based on a design by - a swampy area that floods & drains, opening up easier access to other resources & colonies
- Strawclutch, based on a design by Noctazar - tightly-packed nests around central resources in the swamp ensures intense skirmishes with neighbours. Comes with a map option for wider-spaced nest locations
- Sand Spit - a sandy peninsula designed for a 3v1 setup, where the single colony has an uphill battle ahead of them
Achievements! There are now over 100 achievements for all aspects of the existing story mode & seasonal levels
Reworked Difficulty Settings! More resolution in lower difficulty settings with more linear gradation as they increase
- Easy, Medium, Hard, Extreme & Impossible are the new difficulties, with new Easy a little easier than the old, & Extreme being where old Hard was. Impossible is the new name for what used to be Insane

Other Additions & Changes

Mission Rewards

Mission rewards increased significantly:
- Rewards for a repeated play of a mission increased
- Rewards for playing on higher difficulties increased
- Consolation rewards for a defeat increased
- Easy, Medium & Hard - although these difficulties are easier than before they provide the same rewards they used to
- Extreme - although as difficult as Hard used to be, it will provide the same rewards that Insane did
- Impossible - although as difficult as Insane used to be, it will provide more rewards than Insane did

Creature Changes

Pine woods tree frog now climbable
Uber hermit crab is now climbable
Uber red velvet ant is now climbable
Uber mole cricket is now climbable
Young velvet worm is no longer climbable
Improvements to climbing points on hermit crabs
Small harvestmen now become food on death
Jumping spiders now become food on death
Ladybirds now become food on death
Young praying mantis can now only be harvested by 1 ant
New beach creatures now spawnable in Battle Arena
Level 3 leafcutter mediae & majors can now remove a phorid fly ever 2 minutes (down from 3)

Custom Game Changes

Leafcutter colonies in custom games now start with 19 queen tiles, meaning more workers / minims & increased fungus capacity
Creature resource quantity slider added to freeplay options, allowing players to make creatures in their game drop more or less food if they like
Restart button added to custom game defeat screen
When spawning attack waves, freeplay director will now choose larger creatures to spawn if none can be found in the smaller creature options
AI harvesting process now considers the average of total & ants alive when deciding where to harvest & not just enemy ants alive
AI colonies on Towhead & Embankment will hide for a time after a flood
More creatures should spawn at the start of a custom game when using singular spawning
Environmental enemies ramp up faster in singular spawning (including skirmish)
Adjustments to nocturnal / diurnal spawn timing in custom games
Freeplay now starts with a default save name

Graphical Changes

Default FPS is now set to 60
Updated beach loading screen to use new assets
Arcade button graphics updated
Improvements to the living sea urchin decorative asset
Seaweed models updated in 2.1 & 2.2
New hat for the sand bear wolf spider

Localisation

Many updates & fixes for existing languages
Support added for the following languages:
- Hungarian
- Italian
- Portuguese
- Turkish
- Traditional Chinese
- Ukrainian

Other Changes

New early game objectives added to 3.1 The Harvest
The idea here is that the early objectives act as a mini tutorial, so the player has a good-sized leaf & refuse chamber before encountering the enemy colony. Shouldnt interrupt established gameplay otherwise
New narrator dialogue added regarding leafcutter refuse storage
Formicarium Challenges now have names instead of numbers
Visual pulsing effect when the queen is at low health & has recently taken damage (can be disabled in Advanced Options)
Minor Improvements can no longer be applied mid-mission
If a creature cannot transfer to the surface it is now killed instead of just being left underground to try again (for example, when exiting an enemy nest after water has risen)
Creatures no longer heal in the formicarium after purchasing an ability
Formicarium Challenge 3 (now called Possibly the Final Experiment):
Easy difficulty now slightly easier
Enemy queen no longer has abilities on Normal as well as Easy
Mole crickets & praying mantises no longer have food reduction on harder difficulties
Adventure: leafcutter supermajor can no longer climb creatures or carry food
Extremis: food from killed creatures increased
Extremis now uses newer ability icons
The Culling: tripled food from spawned creatures
The Other Foot:
More time given on Impossible (previously Insane) difficulty
Food drops from spawning creatures build up & spawn with the next drop
The Crucible demo level now has difficulty settings
Spider levels:
- Added sound effects to spider abilities
- Increased healing from Devour by 17%
- Increased max health gained by Bite level
- Hungry Spider: reduced uber wolf spiders attack damage (down from 410 to 150)
- Hungry Spider: added some queen corpses with 60 food each near the uber wolf spider
- Festive Spider: early game a bit less difficult with more food
- Festive Spider: waves rebalanced in several spots

Fixes

Fixed environmental creatures with singular spawning not attacking each other
Enemy colony health bars are now properly hidden in fog of war
Adventure-specific UI elements no longer overlap the huge whip spider health bar
UI elements no longer visible when photo mode is on during a victory animation
Fixed depth of field for cinematic cameras in several places
Minor improvements are now applied to fire ants at point of purchase
Adaptations panel jelly value will now update on purchase of minor improvements
Formicarium Challenge 4 (The Final Experiment) victory camera positioning fixed
Fixed some old beach style level tunnel exit to use the old one
Fixed the wrong loading screen showing in some situations in a custom game
Fixed some huge creatures & hybrids appearing to resurrect after a formicarium reload
Fixed long creatures adorably chasing their own tails (sorry!)
Fixed a crash when colony 2 was empty in a custom game
Hermit crab shells & spider hats no longer receive decals
Pressing Esc during difficulty selection will no longer lead to a UI overlap
Fixed an issue with dragonflies that could cause a slowdown over time
Fixed a problem in Festive Spider where an upgraded tower could be knocked back
Fixed a crash when a creature firing a projectile was deleted before the projectile lands

[ 2023-12-21 14:20:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Update

This is very likely to be the final update to the optional beta before we set it live later this week, unless theres something that needs urgent fixing. Please test if you have some time - and thank you to everyone whos been doing that over the last few weeks! A bunch of fixes for some achievement issues that have arisen in testing, and a few other bits and bobs. The achievements should now all be localised for all of our supported languages on Steam, and a Win32 build is now included.

Version 0.320031 Patch Notes

Fixed the I Love Sashimi achievement - turns out this one was just properly glitched
Fixed No Entry and The Way Is Shut achievements (bonus point to the first person who tells me the reference)
No Entry now stops checking once it has been failed, less nagging
The Free Willis achievement will now say the correct one has succeeded / failed
Stopped At Arm's Length achievement always succeeding
Moved an underground food item in 4.1 preventing all food being gathered (relevant for Toad In The Hole achievement)
Separation Of Duties achievement now checks the ladybird health to make sure it escaped from damage and was not just leaving with an aphid
Rearranged some other achievement stuff
Fixed a movement problem for ereptor colonies in a loaded custom game in Imprisoned
Fixed an issue on Imprisoned where rising / falling water notifications were the wrong way round if saved on the highest or lowest water point
Fixed an issue on Imprisoned where colonies hiding would not happen on the lowest water level when water is about to rise
Fixed a rare simultaneous defeat & victory situation in freeplay
Fixed dwarf salamanders in 4.1 not being properly eaten by the bullfrog
Fixes for AI colony hiding process

[ 2023-12-19 18:16:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Update - Steam Achievements Now Active!

Finally, doing the achievements in the beta will count on Steam! The 100+ new chieves have been properly hooked up into Steams systems and will now register permanently if you get them during the optional beta. Remember: Steam achievements are permanent and cannot be reset once accomplished. If youre not participating in the beta yet and would like to, please see the initial post for instructions on how to join: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/463530/view/6939545579750168983

Changes

New achievements will now be registered on Steam! Theyll need to be repeated if youve done them in the optional beta already
All achievements now have lovely new square icons
Extremis now uses newer ability icons
Singular enemy spawning in freeplay increased when day / night cycle is disabled
Level 3 leafcutter mediae & majors can now remove a phorid fly ever 2 minutes (down from 3)
Several changes to Festive Spider:
- Early game a bit less difficult with more food
- Waves rebalanced in several spots

Fixes

Fixed a bunch of achievements that werent triggering properly
Fixed a problem in Festive Spider where an upgraded tower could be knocked back
Moved some food in demo level The Nest to keep it out of a cavern wall
Imprisoned leafcutter plant spawns repositioned to ensure full leaf access
Minor improvements are now applied to fire ants at point of purchase
Adaptations panel jelly value will now update on purchase of minor improvements
Larger velvet worms can now be climbed properly
Fixed a crash that could occur when a creature firing a projectile was deleted before the projectile lands
Imprisoned now uses a different UI timer to prevent interference with other timers

[ 2023-12-14 21:43:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Vlog 8 - Releasing EotU in 2024

Vlog 8 is here, and it's been increasingly clear to us over the past several months that we're finally approaching the full release goal for Empires of the Undergrowth. The long road of early access is drawing to a close, and release plans are being worked on. We will be releasing the game fully during 2024. [previewyoutube=e8joCmJMFKY;full][vlog][/previewyoutube] This vlog goes into a bit of detail about where we are with it, and while we're not ready to commit to an exact date (and never will do unless we're sure we can meet it) I hope you can gather from my enthusiasm that it really is a-comin'. Current roadmap (published November 2023):

[ 2023-12-08 23:35:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixes & changes for the Optional Beta

Another few fixes for the latest optional beta update!

V0.320022 Patch Notes

Fixes

Fixed an AI base building issue in Imprisoned
Gave wolf spiderling the frog hat
Fixed a rendering issue with level 2 tiles that receive -2 refuse debuff
Fixed an issue with the effect of refuse tiles on upgrade points at distance -1
Fixed an issue where leafcutter initial resources were deleted on saving & loading if there were no non-leafcutter colonies in the game
Fixed an issue on Imprisoned where creatures on islands without a colony on them could fail to spawn
Fixed ants being stuck in certain situations
Fixed several aphid issues
Sand Spit now displays its map info when loading a custom game

Changes

If a creature cannot transfer to the surface it is now killed instead of just being left underground to try again (for example, when exiting an enemy nest after water has risen)
Updated localisations

[ 2023-12-06 20:41:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Experimental Leafcutter changes in Optional Beta

An update to the optional beta has been released. There's an experimental change to leafcutters in custom games in this one: potentially very game-changing and will need a lot of testing! To test out this substantial change, start a fresh custom game. Remember that it's experimental and subject to change.

V0.320021 Patch Notes

Leafcutter colonies in custom games now start with 2 rings of queen tiles, meaning 19 starting workers / minims & increased fungus capacity
Fixed an issue where saving & loading would cause all tunnel exits to be set to the same one if using the alternative exits in Strawclutch
Added translator credits

[ 2023-12-02 18:02:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Update - New Strawclutch Option, Fixes & Changes

A whole bunch of fixes and changes in this latest iteration of the currently running optional beta, including some experimental surface tunnel options for Strawclutch. If youre not participating yet and would like to, then please see here for details on how to join.

V 0.32002 Patch Notes

Changes

PLEASE NOTE: youll need to start a new game on Strawclutch or Imprisoned to notice most of these changes - so do that!

Strawclutch:
- Alternative surface tunnel locations can be chosen with the map option in the freeplay menu - this is experimental, so wed like some feedback on this. Itll significantly change the way Strawclutch plays. Is random in skirmish
- Added in some food items to show the shape of the cavern in front of the nest exit
- Adjusted positions of aphid plants
- Player is no longer blocked by an enemy when tunnelling to the surface
Imprisoned:
- Water level change timings changed
- Rising water no longer destroy resources it touches
- Additional surface resources added
- Dragonflies will now land on either side of the islands they inhabit
- Dragonflies will no longer land if they are unable to reach their target after landing
- AI colonies will now hide before water rises
- Repositioned caterpillar plants
AI colonies on Towhead & Embankment will hide for a time after a flood
AI colonies & creature swarms attempting to invade a nest do extra checks for a valid path
AI colonies stealing aphids now do more checks to make sure theyre reachable
Significantly more creatures should spawn at the start of a custom game when using singular spawning (including skirmish)
Environmental enemies ramp up faster in singular spawning (including skirmish)
Adjustments to nocturnal / diurnal spawn timing in custom games
Remaining translations for this patch added

Fixes

Fixed environmental creatures with singular spawning not attacking each other
Strawclutch & Imprisoned now default to swamp creatures for map appropriate choice
Fixed weird pathing issue in Strawclutch underground
Fixed an issue where praying mantises on patrols might not despawn
Fixed the initial creatures in pack spawning not appearing
Fixed enemy counting for objective in The Crucible
Fixed camera focus issues in Strawclutch & Imprisoned
Fixed an issue killing dragonflies when loaded too high off the ground
Fixed an issue with dragonflies that could cause a slowdown over time
Fixed AI digging issues in Imprisoned
Fixed some missing grass textures

[ 2023-12-01 16:53:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

20% Off Sale for Empires of the Undergrowth

From now until December 13th, you can save 20% on Empires of the Undergrowth. Come check the game out! [previewyoutube=WHFamaHashM;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/463530/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth/

[ 2023-11-29 20:59:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Nominate Empires of the Undergrowth for the Steam Awards

With the start of the Autumn Sale, nominations for this years Steam Awards are underway and wed like to ask for your support by nominating Empires of the Undergrowth for the Labor of Love Award.
In the years since Early Access release, weve continued to improve Empires of the Undergrowth with huge, game-expanding updates - but were not done yet. We know all too well that our tiny team takes their time on the major updates, but we do that in the name of quality - and your kindness in supporting that allows us to take a considered approach. We couldnt be more grateful, so this isnt just our labor of love - its yours too! Over the past year, weve been working on the following:

A whole bunch of changes to custom games, including Skirmish - a new way to play freeplay maps.
More up-to-date artwork for the beach and rotting log levels, bringing them in line with the visual fidelity of the more recent parts of the game - our aim is not just to finish the game, but have it be at its best possible quality too.
Extended the climbing system to many more creatures in the game, really helping us settle into the skin-crawling feeling of ants crawling over everything!
Working towards completing the systems and artwork for our final release, tier 5 which will feature 3 new campaign levels set in an as-yet unrevealed location. Then a final climactic formicarium challenge which the scientist has been preparing your colony for!
Bug fixes (ha!)
And many more updates!

We wouldnt be here if it werent for you, the community, supporting our game throughout development and with each update weve brought to Empires of the Undergrowth. We are incredibly grateful for your support, and we know there will be a lot of competition for this award, so your nomination means the world to us. Please check the nominate button thats part of this post if you would like to consider us for the Labor of Love award for the 2023 Steam Awards. Thank you, The Slug Disco team

[ 2023-11-25 18:14:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Nominate Empires of the Undergrowth for the Steam Awards

A whole bunch of changes to custom games, including Skirmish - a new way to play freeplay maps.
More up-to-date artwork for the beach and rotting log levels, bringing them in line with the visual fidelity of the more recent parts of the game - our aim is not just to finish the game, but have it be at its best possible quality too.
Extended the climbing system to many more creatures in the game, really helping us settle into the skin-crawling feeling of ants crawling over everything!
Working towards completing the systems and artwork for our final release, tier 5 which will feature 3 new campaign levels set in an as-yet unrevealed location. Then a final climactic formicarium challenge which the scientist has been preparing your colony for!
Bug fixes (ha!)
And many more updates!

[ 2023-11-22 21:28:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Updated - Fixes, Changes

Weve fixed and changed a few things in our ongoing optional beta - if you arent participating yet and would like to, see the previous post for details on how to join.

V 0.32001 Patch Notes

Fixes

3.1 Hard achievement now correctly says Boundary Dispute rather than Shoot the Messenger
2.1 Extreme with challenge mode will now spawn tiger beetle larvae
3.2 Sitting Ducks achievement now only fails if an ant tile is upgraded to 3, not any tile
Formicarium Challenge 3 Extreme difficulty now possible
Fixed uber praying mantis, spiny devil and whip spider not being climbable
Fixed an AI chamber building issue in Sand Spit
Fixed an AI construction layout issue in Imprisoned
Fixed amphibians using their swim animation underground
Removed a floating seed in Strawclutch
Pressing Esc during difficulty selection will no longer lead to a UI overlap
Small beach wolf spider given correct hat

Changes

Formicarium Challenge 3:
- Easy difficulty now slightly easier
- Enemy queen no longer has abilities on Normal as well as Easy
- Mole crickets and praying mantises no longer have food reduction on harder difficulties
Tooltips on freeplay sliders will now appear faster
Uber mole cricket now climbable
Added latest localisations
Added some decorative rocks to Imprisoned

Known Issues

Weve run out of time for this patch, and these issues are known but didnt make it in this time (or we dont yet have enough information on them) - theyll be fixed next week once we figure them out. If you are experiencing any of the following and have a save game file that demonstrates them, please send us an email to crashes@slugdisco.com with the save files attached (the instructions on how to find your files are in this thread)

Ghost hybrids from older saves
Enemies stuck in nest entrances on Sand Spit
Something activating random caverns in freeplay
Issues with dragonfly landing and dying on Imprisoned
Wrong rewards displayed on easy in FC1 and FC2

[ 2023-11-21 18:11:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Nominate Empires of the Undergrowth for the Steam Awards

A whole bunch of changes to custom games, including Skirmish - a new way to play freeplay maps.
More up-to-date artwork for the beach and rotting log levels, bringing them in line with the visual fidelity of the more recent parts of the game - our aim is not just to finish the game, but have it be at its best possible quality too.
Extended the climbing system to many more creatures in the game, really helping us settle into the skin-crawling feeling of ants crawling over everything!
Working towards completing the systems and artwork for our final release, tier 5 which will feature 3 new campaign levels set in an as-yet unrevealed location. Then a final climactic formicarium challenge which the scientist has been preparing your colony for!
Bug fixes (ha!)
And many more updates!

[ 2023-11-21 18:02:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta OPEN NOW! New Custom Game Maps, Achievements, Difficulty Settings

New custom game / freeplay maps! Achievements! New difficulty options! More generous mission rewards! Were close to pushing a large update, and were now at a point where were inviting anyone whod like to test it a bit to do so. We are adding over 100 achievements to the game in this build - but PLEASE NOTE, if you accomplish them in this test build they will not activate on Steam during the beta. You can use the in-game achievement tracker and victory screens to determine if youve accomplished an achievement goal, and wed very much appreciate feedback on any problems with them. We are after feedback on all manner of issues that may occur, focusing on glitches, crashes, and balance. Any and all feedback on this optional beta is very much appreciated - please post it to the community discussions! As ever, thanks so much to our closed testing focus group who have been providing feedback to get this patch to this point. Lets go over a few things related to these optional betas for people who havent participated in them before. Firstly, please note: optional betas are limited to the Steam Windows 64 bit build, and may be missing localisations in some newer or updates areas.

WARNING: YOU ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO MAKE A SAVE BACKUP

We highly recommend making a backup of your saved games before you run an optional beta, on the off-chance that some changes cause them to be corrupted. To see where your saves are stored, see the information in this thread on the Steam forums. Copying the data in that folder to somewhere else will keep it safe from any potential issues.

Code: mapsandachievements

If you would like to join the beta, the code is mapsandachievements. If you dont know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions below: [quote] [olist]

Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"

Choose the "Betas" tab

In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter mapsandachievements

After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu

Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch [/olist] [/quote]

Patch Notes - V0.32

Headline Features

New Custom Game Maps! The 2 winners of our summer map design contest have been completed & added to the game, as well as one more
- Imprisoned, based on a design by - a swampy area that floods & drains, opening up easier access to other resources & colonies
- Strawclutch, based on a design by Noctazar - tightly-packed nests around central resources in the swamp ensures intense skirmishes with neighbours
- Sand Spit - a sandy peninsula designed for a 3v1 setup, where the single colony has an uphill battle ahead of them
Achievements! Over 100 new achievements for all aspects of the existing story mode & seasonal levels
- Please note: in this test build, meeting an achievements conditions will not activate the achievement on Steam, but youll be able to see if you got it in victory screens
- Icons for the new achievements are still in the works, so worry ye not if you spot them defaulting to an older one!
Reworked Difficulty Settings! More resolution in lower difficulty settings with more linear gradation between them
- Easy, Medium, Hard, Extreme & Impossible are the new difficulties, with new Easy a little easier than the old, & Extreme being where old Hard was. Impossible is the new name for what used to be Insane

Other Additions & Changes

Mission Rewards

Mission rewards increased significantly:
- Formicarium rewards for a repeated play of a mission have been increased (increased by 67%), for a defeat have been increased & the rewards provided at higher difficulties are higher.
- Easy, Medium & Hard - although these difficulties are easier than before they provide the same rewards they used to
- Extreme - although this is as hard as Hard used to be, it will provide the same rewards that Insane used to
- Impossible - although this is as hard as Insane used to be, it will provide more rewards than Insane used to

Creature Changes

Pine woods tree frog now climbable
Uber hermit crab is now climbable
Uber red velvet ant is now climbable
Young velvet worm is no longer climbable
Improvements to climbing points on hermit crabs
Small harvestmen now become food on death
Jumping spiders now become food on death
Ladybirds now become food on death
Young praying mantis can now only be harvested by 1 ant
New beach creatures now spawnable in Battle Arena

Custom Game Changes

Creature resource quantity slider added to freeplay options
- Allows players to make creatures in their freeplay game drop more or less food if they like
Restart button added to custom game defeat screen
When spawning attack waves, freeplay director will now choose larger creatures to spawn if none can be found in the smaller creature options
AI harvesting process now considers the average of total & ants alive when deciding where to harvest & not just enemy ants alive
Freeplay now starts with a default save name

Graphical Changes

Default FPS is now set to 60
Updated beach loading screen to use new assets
Arcade button graphics updated
Improvements to the living sea urchin decorative asset
Seaweed models updated in 2.1 & 2.2
New hat for the sand bear wolf spider

Other Changes

New early game objectives added to 3.1 The Harvest, the same as in The Crucible
- The idea here is that the early objectives act as a mini tutorial, so the player has a good-sized leaf & refuse chamber before encountering the enemy colony. Shouldnt interrupt established gameplay otherwise
New narrator dialogue added regarding leafcutter refuse storage
Formicarium Challenges now have names instead of numbers
Visual pulsing effect when the queen is at low health & has recently taken damage to more urgently telegraph that the queen is in imminent danger
- Can be disabled in Advanced Options
Minor Improvements can no longer be applied mid-mission
Creatures no longer heal in the formicarium after purchasing an ability
Adventure: leafcutter supermajor can no longer climb creatures or carry food
Extremis: food from killed creatures increased
The Culling: tripled food from spawned creatures
The Other Foot:
- More time given on Impossible (previously Insane) difficulty
- Food drops from spawning creatures build up & spawn with the next drop
Both spider levels:
- Added sound effects to spider abilities
- Increased healing from Devour by 17%
- Increased max health gained be Bite level
Hungry Spider only:
- Reduced uber wolf spiders attack damage (down from 410 to 150)
- Added some queen corpses with 60 food each near the uber wolf spider
Many new & updated localisations

Fixes

Enemy colony health bars are now properly hidden in fog of war
Adventure-specific UI elements no longer overlap the huge whip spider health bar
UI elements no longer visible when photo mode is on during a victory animation
Fixed depth of field in tutorial level victory camera
Fixed depth of field in Hungry Spider victory & defeat cameras
Formicarium Challenge 4 (The Final Experiment) victory camera positioning fixed
Fixed some old beach style level tunnel exit to use the old one
Fixed some issues that would cause the wrong loading screen to show in some situations in a custom game
Fixed some huge creatures & hybrids appearing to resurrect after a formicarium reload
Fixed long creatures adorably chasing their own tails (sorry!)
Fixed a crash when colony 2 was empty in a custom game
Hermit crab shells & spider hats no longer receive decals

[ 2023-11-16 18:45:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

November 2023 Newsletter

This will be the last newsletter of 2023, with one more vlog to come in December. 2023 has been a formative year for Empires of the Undergrowth with the freeplay / custom game mode being brought much closer to its final form, and the bulk of the systems and level work on the final stages of the game being done.
Fire ants in the swamp from Solstitium on our Discord The end is, finally, in sight but theres still a stretch to go. To that end, the main feature of this newsletter is an updated roadmap that might take us all the way to release (well have to see how things go!). Well spend the majority of our word allowance going over that.

Updated Roadmap

The Empires of the Undergrowth roadmap gets updated every six months, with the optimistic thought that one of them may unexpectedly be the last one we have to do. Is this that one? We dont know probably not, but hope springs eternal as they say. Feast your arthropod-hungry eyes on this beauty, as we then go through each step in turn:

Now I am become roadmap, destroyer of deadlines A couple of changes from the last one include using year quarters to refer to time instead of seasons to help our friends in the southern hemisphere, and giving a slightly longer explanation at each station. If theres no ballpark date on a step then thats because were not comfortable putting one there just yet, although we are aiming to get everything done as swiftly as we can. The ordering and timing is, as always, subject to change.

New Achievements

First up is achievements. These have been thoroughly detailed in both the previous newsletter and the most recent vlog, so Ill keep this section brief. In short, more than 100 new achievements are being added for all of the existing campaign and seasonal levels. We still intend to run an optional beta on Steam to test out some of these, and with any luck well have some news on this very soon keep your face orbs unshrouded.

New Custom Game Maps

A while back we held a contest to design a custom game / freeplay map for Empires of the Undergrowth, picking one winner from YouTube / Discord entries and another from Bilibili. We had a good time going over the finalists (in a pre-recorded video for the Bilibili one and a fun livestream for the YouTube one) and ultimately settled on our winners Strawclutch, and Imprisoned. [previewyoutube=mFpXtCyphGI;full][/previewyoutube] We have already very nearly completed work on bringing these designs to the game our level designer John has built them, and our environment artist DanC has decorated them. So, lets talk about each one in turn.

Strawclutch

Strawclutch (designed by Noctazar) will, at least in its skirmish form, be a fast-paced map with short overall playtime. The four colony spaces are in close proximity to each other, and in the very middle of the map is a large growth of aphid-bearing milkweed plants. These act as the main food source when played as a skirmish game, and there will be early and repeated quarrels as the colonies vie for control of this territory.

Clutching at straws in the middle of the winning map design by Noctazar

Imprisoned

Our Bilibili winner is called Imprisoned (designed by ), and it features a locking mechanism that will put colonies in direct conflict with each other only periodically, as the water level changes. This had to be adapted somewhat from the original concept to work without fire ant bridges (see later in the roadmap for more information about that) but the basic premise remains the same for most of the time in this map, colonies can only get to each other via a long road, but with the change of the water level there will be fighting.

A lot going on in Imprisoned by It was a lot of fun running this contest and theres a very strong possibility of us doing more stuff like this in the future, perhaps post-release as part of ongoing content after we reach version 1.0. There is one more custom game map coming along at the time of this update: Sand Spit, which is designed for 3v1 setups. We detailed this map more back in the July newsletter so have a look back there for some more detailed information (and some pictures). All 3 of these maps will be coming simultaneously, and with any luck will be part of the upcoming beta test that focuses on the achievements as well. For anyone wondering about other work-in-progress custom game maps that weve shown glimpses of, such as Archipelago and Wetlands they are dependent on fire ant bridging being completed for custom games and well discuss more about this later on.

New Years Feast Updates

The New Years Feast event level will be returning in January and February to coincide with Chinese New Year with a whole bunch of achievements attached. This time around well be making a bit more of an event of it, too with some new cosmetic updates to make the map a bit more thematically pleasing, as well as a much-needed balance pass to bring the map up to speed with the food rebalancing that happened back with the 0.31 update. [previewyoutube=5Kz-w3A_4k0;full][/previewyoutube] For those of you who havent played it yet its a whimsical themed level based around fire ants collecting ingredients for a hotpot, with an explosive twist and a fantastical ending. Check out the trailer above for a preview the level will reappear on January 8th, marking its return with a lantern in the main menu.

Further Custom Game AI Changes

Version 0.31 of the game introduced some sweeping changes to the way AI colonies worked in a freeplay / custom game. Whilst theyve been successful in lots of ways, its clear that there are some further things we can do to make it more effective without too much cheating.

In the UE4 Editor, AI colonies look like this for reasons that no-one but Liam knows One of the issues weve had recently is quite simply just playtime taking time to play the mode exhaustively ourselves outside of the context of just having it working or fixing it. We spend all of our time developing and playing in chunks we listen to a lot of external feedback from testers and players, and implement it based on general consensus. However, this is often lacking the personal context of lots of time just spent playing for the sake of playing. Our devs have gained good momentum on tier 5 right now and we dont want to disrupt that so weve put aside several days in the new year to do nothing but play custom games and take notes. Rather than immediately run off and fix every issue we come across, as is usually the case with development work, we will absorb the experience in its entirety. We hope this will give us some sounder knowledge for what we should prioritise in making the mode work better.

Tier 4 Challenge Mode

This is another thing that weve spoken about extensively before, so Ill be brief right now tier 4 challenge mode is waiting for the aforementioned tier 5 momentum wave to crest. Once that spike of activity reaches its zenith and dies back down again, the six-spotted fishing spider will finally make its long-awaited appearance, wearing its pirate hat if you want it to.

Yarrr!

Fire Ant Bridging

Fire ant bridging in custom levels is tricky for several reasons. How do we handle multiple colonies competing for the bridging spot, for the most obvious example these problems have been mostly solved, but the more time-consuming issue of allowing fire ant bridges to be save-able in a custom game has not. Once it has been, fire ant bridging will be introduced to appropriate maps.

New Extra Levels / Custom Game maps

We will inevitably hit a period of time where were getting everything finalised and ready, ramping up the marketing effort and preparing for the very scary task of bringing our first project to full release for the entire world. How long this ends up being is complete guesswork right now, but it is likely that at this time there will be enough of a gap to squeeze in an extra level / custom game map or two. John (level designer) told me recently that hes had some ideas that hes itching to try out, but hes being very good and concentrating on getting the game to 1.0 right now. This period of time is when he might have a few spare hours to bring these to fruition.

Archipelago on hold for the time being It might be here that custom game maps Archipelago and Wetlands make their appearance they both have some aspects to them that will require input from all 3 of the devs to work, though, so well have to see how we do with the implementation of fire ant bridging in custom games.

Version 1.0

Finally, after years of work, we will be here and this is now a real horizon-loomer. Final release will feature the last 3 story / campaign levels (the fifth tier will have 3 levels, instead of 2 like the others) and the ultimate formicarium challenge that the scientist has been preparing your colony for. I hope youre all ready.

Screenshot Central

Time for some pretty Empires of the Undergrowth screenies! If youd like to be featured in this section at some point in the future, the easiest way is to join our Discord and post on the screenshot channel there. Other than that, Ill occasionally trawl through the community tab on Steam to see whats been going on there. By default, press F9 to enter photo mode (hiding the UI) hold down shift while you do that to uncouple the camera from the floor for some neater angles.

The big-headed ants overlooking an uber beach wolf spider from Dolly on our Discord

A pleasingly picturesque view of 4.2 A Bridge Too Far by Orion (Dilphy) on our Discord

The army is on the march in the formicarium from GoldenUngy on our Discord

[ 2023-11-09 18:31:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Hungry Spider Returns!

For those of you who have joined us since last time, welcome to our infamously difficult Halloween level, which will earn its conquerors the rarest achievement in Empires of the Undergrowth. To celebrate this time around we've made an updated 4k trailer with the newer environment artwork. Enjoy! [previewyoutube=ENeIl3JvsB8;full][/previewyoutube] The Hungry Spider's cobweb appears around Halloween and on full moons, and he's absolutely ravenous. Help him grow and defeat his enemies in a gluttonous fury as he stalks a web-shaped map. His hunger causes him to constantly lose health - quickly unlocking the 'devour' ability is paramount as it'll keep him alive. Take down bigger and stronger prey, upgrading his abilities as you go. We find this level just as tough as everyone else does - and in fact our very own community manager Mike likes to attempt this level once a year on stream, and this year he's upping the stakes by bringing a ridiculously spicy challenge into the mix. At 10pm UK time, on Saturday 28th October, join him on YouTube for this year's attempt.

[ 2023-10-25 09:04:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Vlog 7- Map Contest, Achievements, Tier 5 Progress, Roadmap

It's the 1 year anniversary of the Slug Disco vlog! In this episode, Mike talks about the Empires of the Undergrowth map contest results, progress on tier 5, achievements, roadmaps, and a probably stupid idea he had for his yearly attempt at EotU's Hungry Spider level. The brutally difficult Hungry Spider will be returning, by the way, on October 25th. As is usually the case, this is also a general Slug Disco vlog with mentions of the rest of our publishing charges - if you'd like to skip these and go directly to the EotU good stuff, skip to time code 2.29. [previewyoutube=hjDNxy1FKCI;full][/previewyoutube] Get the video to 500 likes to make Mike suffer, if he fails at Hungry Spider again!

[ 2023-10-13 00:53:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hooded Horse Strategy Publisher Sale

Hi everyone! Empires of the Undergrowth and other games published by Hooded Horse are all featured at the Hooded Horse Publisher Sale. Come check it out! Hooded Horse Strategy Publisher Sale [previewyoutube=bwcg7R7QfIE;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2023-10-05 22:17:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

September 2023 Newsletter

Welcome to September, the worst month of the year (or so I'm told). I'll do my best to ensure you don't have to listen to Green Day on repeat to get through it, with some lovely news about achievements, map contests and difficulty changes coming to Empires of the Undergrowth. If you think that'd cheer you up, read on.
Leafcutter ants swarm over a huge whip spider in this shot from Steam user Bananta As the art team and two out of three of our devs press forward with tier 5 work, one of our devs has been making changes to the difficulty options to Empires of the Undergrowth which were detailed in the most recent vlog last month. Before we get onto all the ins and outs of that, let's talk about the recent map contest!

Map Contest

In August we launched a map contest, mainly advertised on YouTube (you should absolutely subscribe to our YouTube channel - we post a whole bunch of great stuff there). The contest closed at the start of this month, and we have had in the region of 200 entries all told! The brief was to submit an idea for a freeplay or custom game map, which we will then judge and turn our favourite into a fully-fledged map in the game.

John and Mike discussing map designs, whilst John makes an example map (which we will be finishing and adding to the game also!) We want to do the judging live, so our current plan is to do a livestream at some point towards the end of this month. It would have been earlier but several of our team members are away for the Tokyo Game Show at the moment (more on that later in the newsletter). The exact timing of this is yet to be nailed down but we hope to stream at a time where most people can watch live in some form, hopefully on a weekend. We're going to have to cut down the entries to 20-30 for the final judging, or we'd be there all night trying to get through 200! Please know that we appreciate all of the entries, and I'll do my best to make sure everyone who sent in an entry is credited for it, even if the entry doesn't make it into the final selection. Keep an eye on our socials, and on here, for news of when the judging is happening! Remember - it'll likely be a weekend towards the end of this month or the start of October.

Difficulty Changes

A common criticism of our difficulty choices is that the jump between them is not very linear, and in particular that the difference between medium and hard is more than a little unfair - with hard being closer to insane than to medium. We've decided now is the time to get the difficulty selection in its final working order before we finish the project, so one of our three devs has spent a lot of time recently working on that whilst the others crack on with tier 5.

Handy chart showing intended difficulty changes relative to the old standard As you can see in the chart above, the intent is for difficulties between 'easy' and the new 'extreme' (which sits where the current 'hard' difficulty is) to be a gentler slope upwards. There's lots of reasons for this, and we hope the renaming of 'insane' to 'impossible' gives more people pause for thought if they want to attempt it on a first try (perhaps we should gate off this hardest difficulty on a first playthrough - what do you think?). The increased resolution in the options outside of the toughest one will, we hope, allow people to make a more appropriate choice for their early playthroughs with better-fitting options for their skill level. There will be four options to choose from outside of the toughest - easy, medium, hard and extreme. We know plenty of people have chosen hard for the first playthrough of a level which, by no fault of their own, lies outside of their current skill level, being 'insane-lite' in some respects. 'Hard' should indicate challenging but achievable with sound game knowledge if not level-specific knowledge - we think that should now be the case. See the vlog linked below for the full video form of this discussion - the segment begins at 2:38. Also, a reminder that the vlogs also come bi-monthly, in between these newsletters. [previewyoutube=zBBYukekqrI;full][/previewyoutube]

Achievements - Nearly There!

We spoke about the achievement additions in the previous newsletter, but we've now had the huge list of new ones in testing for a week or so and they should be arriving in the next patch (tentatively scheduled for October)! We've tried to include a selection of nice standard ones (complete level X on difficulty Y, that sort of thing, similar to the existing ones) along with quite specific challenges for the more adventurous. Here's a small selection of what you can expect (artwork pending), specifically some of the more interesting ones for 2.2 Queen of the Hill. Which ones will you be going after first?

If you don't get the Lord of the Rings reference, we can't be friends

Tier 5 Progress

Although were not ready to officially reveal the setting and theme for the fifth and final tier of the formicarium story, I can talk a little about how its progressing. As were bringing to a close the tying-up of other loose ends for the project (freeplay, achievements, etc) most of the dev team is currently working solidly on the fifth tier, and a good 70% of the source control commits that come in are related to it. After revamping the beach assets for the July update, our environment artist has recently sent in his first completed models and textures for the as-yet unrevealed fifth tier setting. Several more creatures are completed, including some of the more exciting titan-class ones and some others that have novel mechanics associated with them. New systems (which along with artwork always represent the biggest time sink for a new tier) are coming together and beginning to work in unison, and the species weve homed in on for tier 5 requires several of them! One such new system involves a local-scale dynamic change to the environment occurring in one of the levels. Internal discussion has led to the consensus of a more controlled build-up to how we release information about tier 5 compared to previous marketing cycles. Although as the community manager Im itching to get that information out there, I understand the teams desire for a firmer marketing regimen given that itll be the last of the truly huge updates as we leave early access. As soon as I have the goahead to start sharing more concrete information, I shall!

Gamescom

Last month, the team travelled to Cologne, Germany to attend Gamescom. Empires of the Undergrowth was represented there as part of the Hooded Horse booth (they're our co-publishers on EotU) - a member of our team was manning that section most of the time! I had my camera with me, and took enough videos to cobble together a travel vlog which was fun to do. It was great to meet some of our players, old and new, from the continent and chat about the game with them. It was also lovely to meet our colleagues from Hooded Horse in person for the first time (for most of us)! [previewyoutube=MSUClz7gJzs;full][/previewyoutube] We like to use these public events as a way of gaining a little hands-on feedback from new players, as well - as work-from-home developers, we don't very often get the opportunity to directly observe people who are completely new to the game interacting with its systems, so we take that chance when we can. One thing that came from this particular event is some changes that will be made to 3.1 The Harvest - we'll be introducing a few early game objectives for that level, which should serve as something of a mini-tutorial for leafcutters (very similar to how The Crucible, the leafcutter demo level, works) as well as fully implementing some cut narrator dialogue about refuse chambers. Look out for that in the next update.

EotU developer Matt and environment artist Dan C at Gamescom Slug Disco were also there with Robert Kaufmann, developer of Horticular - a beautiful garden-building pixel art game that Slug Disco is publishing, but not developing. Horticular was at the Indie Arena Booth, and Robert also got the chance to meet a whole bunch of you and gain some valuable feedback. Horticular development is continuing apace and we're really excited to see everyone's reaction to the finished game - it really is a remarkable project that we're very proud to be representing.

The Horticular station at the Indie Arena Booth Gamescome is absolutely gigantic, the largest such event in the world, and its 2023 incarnation was an unforgettable experience as the world emerges fully from the shadow of COVID-19 that has loomed for the past several years. Its always great to have the team together and we cherish those times that we can do that. Were not quite done with events this year, which leads us on to

Tokyo Game Show

TGS kicks off a few days from the time of writing, and Slug Disco will be represented there with three of our other publishing projects - Horticular and Adapt will be together at the dedicated Slug Disco booth, and Ecosystem will be there as part of the Indie Select 80. Our co-publishers Hooded Horse will be there, too. Although we don't have a Slug Disco booth for Empires of the Undergrowth, if anyone is there and has a strong urge to play it we will boot it up for you - tell Liam and Dan that Mike sent ya and they'll oblige. If youre nice.

Screenshot Central

Weve had some beautiful screenies of the beach environment since its release in July, and so this month for Screenshot Central well focus on that. If youd like to submit a screenshot, the easiest way is to join our Discord and post on the appropriate screenshot channels. You can also upload to the Steam Community page, and I will occasionally look through there. To get great screenshots, hold shift whilst you enter photo mode (F9 by default) - this will uncouple your camera from the ground and allow you to get some better angles on the action.

Attack of the crabs from BrickyGraph631

The beach in all its glory from Orion (Dilphy)

A wood ant queen safe in her burrow from Pumadog

[ 2023-09-18 14:34:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

20% Off Sale for Empires of the Undergrowth

From now until September 4, you can save 20% on Empires of the Undergrowth at the Steam Strategy Fest. Come check the game out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHFamaHashM https://store.steampowered.com/app/463530/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth/

[ 2023-08-30 18:56:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Vlog 6 - Difficulty Selection Changes, Map Contest

In Slug Disco Vlog 6, Mike goes over changes to the difficulty settings for EotU and also the map contest that is currently running. We're expanding difficulty to have 5 options instead of 4, with better gradiation between the lower ones - this should help people who want to step up or down to a different difficulty get a better feel for that. Except for the most difficult, of course, now renamed to 'Impossible'. That's just as punishing a challenge as it ever was! Dan also gives a brief update about 3 of our other publishing projects - if you want to skip the section about the other 3 games and get straight to the EotU content, the timecode is 1.44. [previewyoutube=zBBYukekqrI;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2023-08-22 13:54:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

July 2023 Newsletter

Thank you everyone who has supported, tested and played the recent release! We're very happy with the reception, and it sets us in good stead to press forward to the completion of the campaign. There are some issues that have cropped up, and those are at the forefront of the next patch that is likely to come in a few weeks, along with some other stuff.
A six-spotted tiger beetle swarmed by fire ants by Gimpsimian on our Discord This newsletter will mainly concentrate on what you can expect from that next patch, and what is more likely to trickle in over some smaller patches afterwards. The team is very keen to press forward with completing tier 5 now, so that is their primary focus - but there are some other things that will be coming very soon.

The 0.31 Update

This was an unusually large update - the patch notes themselves took over an hour to write up! There were some fairly large changes to the game, and we're glad to say the changes have (mostly) been well received. There's always anxiety when pushing an update that makes some fundamental changes and of course we didn't expect everything to be universally accepted across the board, but things went better than expected in that regard. [previewyoutube=4xT3aETtJow;full][/previewyoutube] Whilst everything is now in place with respect to the freeplay AI changes, it's clear that there's still some work to do there and we'll detail that in its own section after this one. Almost everyone seems to be enjoying the new beach artwork - with one exception, the dead fish asset! The new one is higher fidelity and is more fitting for the rockpool setting, looking partially decomposed and consumed. I think the fact that people can no longer imagine dropping the fish straight into a hot skillet with some chilli oil and crushed garlic may account for some of the disgust! [previewyoutube=2n7FVzGGMvc;full][/previewyoutube] Billy Bass is so done Theres a few more tweaks to come for the beach art - some seaweed has recently been added, and we want to make some changes to the living sea urchin before we move it to make it a bit more visible! You can currently see the sea urchin by going into photo mode and looking at the far east of the map in 2.2 Queen of the Hill.

A sea urchin! While we're on the topic, I thought I'd just write a paragraph about our versioning convention. Although the build number of the most recent release starts in 0.31, that does not mean the project is only 31% complete. When we release the final campaign levels we'd be at version 0.4 with the current rate of versioning, but it'll just be that during testing - when we release it completely to the world, what by this convention would be 0.4 will be 1.0. It was never a linear or particularly well-documented convention. If this all sounds convoluted and weird, that's because it is.

Further AI Improvements

The new custom game AI system is vastly improved over the old one in all aspects - it can plan attacks, help allies, guard resources and make analytical decisions on when to attack or defend. As part of this, we felt some confidence in changing the way cheats are applied to AI. Cheats were always intended to help make up the shortfall that an AI colony has compared to a human player, and wed hoped that the much more capable AI would need significantly less help. Whilst this is generally true, its clear that theres some ways to go in optimising the AI and helping it with getting the best out of its new brain. Its now a modular system, and new behaviours (processes) can be bolted onto it. Liam, who has coded the new system, would like some feedback on how it can be improved, but there is a caveat - he is keen to continue working on tier 5 from now on and therefore additional time he gives to the custom game AI needs to be carefully thought out.

AI leafcutter colony underground construction An example of a process that would likely help out the AI is one that would allow it to harvest food from defeated colonies - that would take quite some time to implement, so decisions on making new processes like this will be more carefully considered before being put into development. However, some changes are very quick to make and these are likely to come first. We are interested in feedback on the ordering and priorities that individual colony types should have. An example of this was done during the beta test - leafcutter ants were told to only make minor workers until their first chamber is completed, and this better organises their priority list. These kinds of changes are very quick to make. If you have suggestions (for all kinds of colony) please post them on our discussion boards with an appropriate title. Ill be collating the feedback and presenting it to Liam, who will decide which simple changes are best and which are worth investing some more development time to make new modular processes.

Coming Soon

The roadmap we released back in May has been mostly fulfilled, and when the time comes to update the roadmap again we'll be expanding and detailing what's left to complete to get us to 1.0.

Done that, done that, haven't done that... It's looking very much like the "true interim update" that is detailed on the left-hand side will indeed be broken into several updates that will come over the next few months. Some things are just around the corner, and well detail those now.

Achievements

A full achievement list for the rest of the currently existing game is very close to being ready, so this is one of the first things that will arrive! There will be achievements for all of the campaign levels, as well as some special ones for seasonal levels. Perhaps we can tempt you back to the Festive Spider level later this year with this one?

Some Naughty Some Nice - beat the Christmas spider level with at least half the gifts remaining under the tree.

...or maybe youd prefer this one for 4.1 inspired by a classic British dish?

Toad In The Hole - tunnel out all underground food by the second night and beat the level on hard difficulty.

All told, were shaping up to have well over 100 achievements for those of you who like to go hunting. Theres both the more standard ones (ie, beat level X on difficulty Y) and the more fun ones like Toad In The Hole detailed above.

Freeplay Maps

There is at least one freeplay map arriving shortly, but it isnt the one thats on the roadmap. That one - Wetlands - is currently awaiting the completion of being able to save fire ant bridges in a custom game. Thats a more complicated task than it may appear, and for that reason we may release a beta version of a swamp map that has fire ant bridging with the proviso that level saving will, initially, be disabled for it. That way, we can gather some feedback about how bridges (and competing fire ant colonies trying to build bridges) work in a custom game before the saving system is fully completed - do you think thats a good idea? Would we be better off just waiting until things can definitely be saved, or would you be okay with testing a custom game map without being able to save it? Let us know in the discussion forums.

Sand Spit

So lets talk a little about the map that is much closer to being completed, and its a quite uniquely shaped one - Sand Spit, which is designed with skirmishes in mind (although you can absolutely play any freeplay setup on it) in a 3v1 format.

Sand Spit from the player's side (work in progress) The player colony lives on a spit of land protruding from the edge of the mainland. With this unusually asymmetrical layout, the map still has the characteristic lower ground that is awash (pun intended) with resources that carry that inherent extra flood risk.

Sand Spit overview (work in progress) As you can see from the top-down overview, the map is clearly intended to be played against 3 enemy allies - their nests are close together and theyll be gathering resources mainly from the same area. You can absolutely alter the setup to have every colony for themselves, but itll be a little cramped over there on the mainland if you do that!

Sand Spit from the enemy alliance's side (work in progress) Well update you all on the progress being made on getting fire ant bridge saving working closer to time - but for now, Sand Spit is very close to completion and its looking very likely itll be arriving sooner rather than later.

Not Coming Immediately - Tier 4 Challenge

For the time being, tier 4s challenge mode is being pushed a little further down the schedule. Its an important addition and we want to do it justice, but we thought we should let you know that the plan is currently to circle back round to the fishing spiders debut once the current development push for tier 5 is further along. All 3 of the developers and our environmental artist are now focused on the final formicarium tier - we dont want to lose the good momentum weve recently been building on that front.

SimFest 2023

Starting on the date of publication (20th July, 2023) Empires of the Undergrowth will be taking part in SimFest 2023 on Steam! The game is currently at a historic discount of 20% off, and if youve somehow read all the way through this newsletter without owning the game already then firstly, I salute you, and secondly I thought I should let you know about that!

Most of Slug Discos other publishing projects are also involved in the festival - Ecosystem, Adapt and Horticular are all present and correct.

Gamescom 2023

Empires of the Undergrowth will be at Gamescom 2023 in Cologne, Germany next month! The entire team will be there, so if youre attending then please drop by to say hi. There will be more details in next months vlog which will be closer to the time.

Screenshot Central

If youd like to submit a screenshot for this part of the newsletter in the future, by far the easiest way is to join our Discord and post on the appropriate screenshot channels. You can also upload to the Steam Community page, and I will occasionally scroll through there looking for some standouts. To get great screenshots, hold shift whilst you enter photo mode (F9 by default) - this will uncouple your camera from the ground and allow you to get some better angles on the action.

A green lynx spider is mounted by fire ants from NappyB_TheDankest

Ratatouille - EotU edition from Gimpsimian

The amblypygid's end, also from Gimpsimian

[ 2023-07-20 17:03:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

20% Daily Deal Featured Sale!

Empires of the Undergrowth is featured on the front page of Steam today, with its first ever 20% off sale. The discount will run until July 29th. Come check it out! https://store.steampowered.com/app/463530/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth/

[ 2023-07-16 03:10:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

V0.31 OUT NOW - Freeplay, New AI, Beach Art, Story Balance & more

It's time for a big overhaul of freeplay, a whole bunch of new art, and a campaign rebalance! Welcome to Empires of the Undergrowth version 0.31, and thank you to everyone who has helped test it for the past week and the focus group who have been on it for the past month or so. Watch the video for a breakdown of the major new features! [previewyoutube=4xT3aETtJow;full][/previewyoutube] This is part 1 of the update - we are immediately launching into finishing work on part 2, and now that everything is in place and working, we can work on improvement and tweaking. So, once you've given it a spin, head on over to the discussions and let us know what you think could be done to improve the AI and balance of the custom games in general.

Patch Notes - July 14th 2023

Headline Features

Smarter AI - much cleverer freeplay colonies, with a new modular AI system
Freer Freeplay - new freeplay features, new uber creatures!
Skirmish Mode - quick-to-setup game vs AI colonies based on freeplay
Prettier Artwork - for beach story & freeplay levels, & some creatures!
Campaign Balance - the campaign has been rebalanced with many changes
Mount Your Enemies - many more enemy creatures can now be climbed by your ants!

Freeplay / Custom Game

Freeplay now lives in the Custom Game menu with the new Skirmish setup mode.
Freeplay AI completely reworked
- Much more intelligent building & food collection priority
- Assists allies under attack & plan coordinated attacks
- Guards resources, steals aphids, harrasses opponents
- Nest designs tailored to species & room location
- New build priority system for different species
- Build orders adapt to storage & battle needs
- Will hide from rising water on applicable maps
- Customisable temperament & reactions
Streamlined setup mode called Skirmish
- Quick battle setup vs computer-controlled colonies
- Emphasises colony vs colony combat with conquest victory condition
- Preset landmarks & creature spawns
- Generally shorter form games
New landmarks
- Huge creatures (whip spider, great blue skimmer or bullfrog)
- Caterpillar plants
- Relocatable aphid plants (rosemary in beach levels, fewflower milkweed otherwise)
- Carnivorous plants
New uber creatures
- Bombardier beetle
- Red velvet ant
- Eastern newt
- Narrow-mouthed toad
Beach tiger beetle & beach wolf spider are now custom game / extra level only creatures
The above have had stats & abilities changed to differentiate them from the new campaign creatures taking their place (see below)
Freeplay can optionally use the fixed landmarks from Skirmish
Freeplay now has the option of spawning environmental creatures with roaming patrol routes

Story Campaign

Most levels in the campaign have been changed. In general, in the 1.x & 2.x levels aggressive creatures drop less food, whilst environmental food is increased. In the 4.x levels, aggressive creatures drop slightly more food. The 1.x, 2.x & 4.x levels should now feel fairly consistent in that regard. There are many other changes, too. All beach, forest & rainforest creatures have had their food quantity recalculated & reduced All swamp creatures have had food quantities increased to bring them in line with the new values in the rest of the game 1.1 New Home & 1.2 Subjugation

Food has been added into both levels
1.2 slave maker attacks will now have level 2 & 3 ants amongst them
1.2 slave maker attacks will get harder more rapidly on hard & insane
Challenge mode cricket attacks will be more frequent on harder difficulties
Funnel web spiders now become food items rather than harvestable corpses on death
Enemies in top-left of 1.2 will now attack the queen on being unearthed

2.1 Rising Tide & 2.2 Queen of the Hill

More food added to the undergrounds of both levels
Has higher level enemy ants on the map & in attack waves
Notification about creature mounting moved to 2.1
2.1 underground caverns added
2.1 has more daytime surface food
2.1 has a new food arrival event with new narrator dialogue
2.2 aphids now produce food throughout the night
Melee wood ants speed increased to 320 up from 300
Melee wood ants given 30% AoE resistance
Reduced number of challenge mode beetle larvae in some areas
Creature changes
Beach tiger beetle replaced with northern dune tiger beetle (same stats as old beach tiger beetle)
Beach wolf spider replaced with sand bear wolf spider (same stats as old beach wolf spider)
Larger variant of hermit crab added

3.2 Front Line

Level 2 & 3 huge whip spider added for hard & insane in 3.2
Significantly increased health of huge whip spider
Huge whip spider now has a health bar like the bullfrog & great blue skimmer

4.1 Cold Blood & 4.2 A Bridge Too Far

Aggressive creatures now drop a little more food
Pervasive fire ant free hatch timer improved to 1m30s (from 1m40s)

Artwork Changes

The beach environment has been updated to bring it up to the fidelity of the more recent swamp & rotting log environments. 2.1, 2.2 & the freeplay / custom game maps The Dunes & Towhead all use these new assets.

New decorative beach assets: rippling beach sand, flowering bindweed, samphire plants, water weeds, limpets, scallop shells, sea-smoothed rocks, sea urchins
New artwork for the 2 replacement beach creatures: northern dune tiger beetle & sand bear wolf spider
New model for black ant queen
New water look for beach levels

Enemy Climbing / Mounting

In this update, many more creatures can be climbed and mounted by your ants - not just the very largest creatures! As a general rule of thumb, most creatures as big or larger than a large tiger beetle can be climbed - but there are some exceptions. Smaller mountable enemies cannot be climbed by larger ants - for example, a leafcutter major cannot climb a wolf spider. Ants mounted on enemies deal bonus damage, and apply a damage buff to allies attacking the creatures from the ground. There are circumstances where you may be better off disabling enemy mounting, however - if speed is an issue, it takes ants time to climb up and down larger creatures, and if a creature despawns with ants still on it those ants will be lost. The pine woods tree frog is currently unmountable but this will be changed once weve fixed a crash related to it.

Extra Levels & Festive Levels

Food has been added into most extra levels in line with the food value changes
The Hungry Spider now has 80% thorns resistance
Aggrandise
- Different levels of huge whip spider final boss added depending on difficulty
- Removed extra whip spider juveniles from the final boss
- Fish no longer loses resources on harder difficulties
- Huge whip spider will no longer ignore players ants on the way to the queen

Other Changes

Realistic Mode removed & replaced with Advanced Options for control of individual things it did
Seasonal costumes option added in Advanced Options to allow them to be disabled
Point values have been reassessed & updated (this affects enemy creature spawning & score)
User interface updated in multiple places (adaptations, level select, options menu, achievements) to use up more screen space & allow more space for language & UI scaling
UI scaling slider added to the menu to allow manual increasing of UI scale (good for handhelds & TVs)
Updated harvesting spots on some dead creatures so no more ants are harvesting than there is food available
Minor performance improvements & reduction of visual artefacts on resources
Changed the Battle Arena tile set to the new beach one
Localisation additions & changes
Updated enemy mounting button icon
Tooltips will now show when the game is paused

Fixes

Fixed some visual effects remaining on creatures after death
Fixed an issue where attack points could sometimes be unreachable causing attacker to wait on the floor by them
Uber velvet worm can now be harvested by 8 ants at a time
1.1 & 1.2 player colony now black in colour
Fixed an issue in Tug Of War 2 that would lead to the enemy colony spawning black ants
Decals now correctly delete when a tile is downgraded or deleted
Fixed an issue where ants would not rotate for a short while after collecting a queen egg
Fixed an issue where ladybirds may not land if they are not being observed by the player (quantum ladybird wave function now collapsed)
Fixed an issue where loaded eggs would only appear after the game had started
Fixed a pontoon construction point in 4.2
Numerous text & AI scaling fixes
Matched the colour select UI more closely to the in-game colours
Queens will no longer perform pain animation on loading
Salamanders & newts will still be rendered when just off-screen
Aura effects should display better on inclined surfaces
Lynx spider should no longer do its climbing animation when walking
Fixed a wood ant firing sound issue

Known Issues

There are some localisation issues causing problems with custom game setup. We intend to fix this as soon as possible.
There are still some crashes being reported, but we don't have enough to pin down causes. If you experience a crash, please manually email the 3 crash files as attachments to us. Instructions on how to do this are in this thread on Steam. This needs to be done for us to see what's happening - hitting "send and close" on the crash dialogue doesn't work.
Some extra levels are unbalanced, and The Other Foot in particular might not be winnable on higher difficulties. It is possible to beat the level on easy, so if you want the reward before we can fix the level then we suggest playing on easy.
The Besieged victory condition in freeplay currently has very weak or empty early waves until the difficulty increases. Until we patch this, it can be avoided by playing with environmental difficulty set to insane.

Further Balance

Whilst the new freeplay AI is in place and working, it is not yet as optimised as it could be. The system is very easily tweaked, however, so we'd love to hear your suggestions for it - please post on the forums.
Similarly, freeplay creature statistics are now divorced from the campaign and can be tweaked without altering the difficulty of a story level. If you have ideas for making creature stats and abilities more balanced, let us know. This applies to both colony ants and environmental creatures.

[ 2023-07-14 13:04:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Option Beta Update - V0.31005 - Fixes & Additions

Optional beta V0.31005 is out. Unless theres something catastrophically wrong with it, this is likely to be the final patch before we set the update live for everyone, but please dont stop giving feedback on bugs and balance! If you haven't taken part in this beta yet and would like to, follow the instructions in the original post. Once it goes public, we will be working hard on part 2 of this large update and implementing more changes, with a particular view to improving the AI further and fine-tuning freeplay / skirmish balance. Might even chuck in a new freeplay map or two whilst were at it.

Fixes

Fixed uber mole crickets giving no food on death
Fixed a crash related to AI processes
Fixed a common custom game crash
Custom game creatures with a UI health bar will always display it when taking damage from the player, and not from other colonies
Fixed lingering status visual effects in Battle Arena
Beach asset graphical fixes
Root aphid graphical fixes
Rearranged some leaves in Embankment

Additions & Changes

Added samphire plants to 2.x & The Dunes
1v1 custom games will now always be on opposite sides of the map
Updated Basin tunnel exits to be from the Ecuador art set
Updated 1.x, 2.x & wood ant variant video thumbnails
Seasonal levels back to their regular scheduling

[ 2023-07-12 17:18:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Update - V0.310046 - Fixes

Optional beta V0.310046 is out. If you're not participating in the optional beta yet and would like to, follow the instructions in the original post!

Fixes

Fixed northern dune tiger beetles spawning as allied to the player
Fixed destructible barriers not sinking into the ground
Fixed destructible barriers disappearing on load
Fixed aphids staying when their plant is deleted
Woodlice and woodworm will no longer invade nests
Fixed defeated colonies in a custom game not dropping the resource type of the colony that dealt the killing blow
AI nest entrance digging will now save and load correctly
Creatures will now continue to spawn if day/night cycle is disabled
Carnivorous plant landmarks no longer count towards max number of landmark spawns
Fixed a broken patrol route in The Dunes

Changes

Uber red velvet ant poisonous thorns reduced to 40% damage (down from 60%)
Text will auto-wrap on all play menu buttons to help with overlapping issues in Russian & Spanish

[ 2023-07-10 20:37:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optiona Beta Update - V0.310045 - Fixes & AI Changes

Optional beta V0.310045 is out now.

IMPORTANT! Start a new freeplay save & do not play older ones

Please start a fresh one before playing further. Older saves will have issues that have now been corrected with saves from this patch onwards, and will no longer provide useful data for testing issues. Wed suggest deleting the older saves so you dont load them any more. Or you could keep them as a really weird souvenir if you like, I dunno. Just don't test with them. If you're not taking part in the beta yet and would like to, see the original post for instructions on how to join (the beta code is newbeachtesters).

Fixes

All new uber creatures now have 8 harvesting spots
AI colonies will no longer steal aphids from the player if they are allied to them
Landmarks will no longer spawn in weird places like underground
Caterpillar & aphid plants will remove resident caterpillars & aphids when deleted
Fixed simultaneous winning & losing in a custom game (Linning? Wosing?)
More sensible handling of landmark spawning & deletion
Basin barrier invisibility issue fixed

AI Colony Changes

AI colonies prioritise food storage higher when space is low
Will emphasise food storage near the start of a game
Queen workers will not leave the nest in mature colonies
Leafcutters wont build ant tiles other than workers until their first chamber is completed

[ 2023-07-09 23:16:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Update - V0.310044 - Fixes

If you're not participating in the optional beta yet and would like to, see the original post for details on how to participate. Thanks for the feedback on the optional beta! Our Discord server has been a particularly active hive of activity over the last several hours since it was released, and we thoroughly encourage you to join - the devs are currently very active there, responding to bug reports and collating feedback. Theyre friendly devs, too, as long as John has had his 7 hours of sleep! Weve addressed some of the more pressing issues that have cropped up in this patch (V0.310044) - this is the first of what we anticipate to be several patches during the testing period. The most urgent fix here is a translation problem that was causing large issues with freeplay setup in non-English languages. Again, the reports are very much appreciated. These optional betas are vital to catching issues that need a much bigger sample size than we can manage with internal quality control and the small focus group - were so glad youre choosing to be a part of it!

Fixes

Fixed translation issue affecting freeplay setup in several ways
Large tiger beetle defeat line restored in 2.1
Fixed an issue preventing creatures from fighting among [strike]us[/strike] themselves
Woodlice and woodworm should no longer appear in attack waves (terrifying though they were)
Fixed overlapping issue on level select screen
Disable Colony Attacks button should now work as intended
Reordered some landmark spawning on game begin / load
Fixes for some loading & saving crashes

Changes

Remastered beach underground applied to the first formicarium
2.2s escaping queens can no longer be picked up by tiger beetle larvae

[ 2023-07-08 16:44:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Invite - ON NOW! - Freeplay AI Overhaul, Beach Art & Story Balance

A large update is imminent - large enough that were running an optional beta to test it out before we make it permanent. Theres a complete reworking of the freeplay / custom game mode AI, a new streamlined setup mode called Skirmish, major rebalances for the campaign, a big extension to the enemy mounting system, and lots of new artwork to replace older assets. We are after feedback on all manner of things in this very extensive update, mainly focusing on glitches that crop up, crashes, and balance. Any and all feedback on this optional beta is very much appreciated - please post it to the community discussions! Thanks so much to our focus group who have been providing feedback to get this patch to this point. Please note that optional betas are only accessible on the Steam Windows 64 bit build. WARNING: This beta changes many things about freeplay mode, including how it is saved! Old freeplay saves will no longer be loadable. IT IS STRONGLY ADVISED TO MAKE A SAVE BACKUP: We highly recommend making a backup of your saved games before you run an optional beta, on the off-chance that some changes cause them to be corrupted. To see where your saves are stored, see the information in this thread on the Steam forums.

Code: newbeachtesters

If you would like to join the beta, the code is newbeachtesters. If you dont know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions below: [quote][olist]

Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"

Choose the "Betas" tab

In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter newbeachtesters

After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu

Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch [/olist][/quote]

Patch Notes

Headline Features

Smarter AI - much cleverer freeplay AI! Itll give you a run for your jelly.
Freer Freeplay - new freeplay features, new uber creatures!
Skirmish Mode - quick-to-setup game vs AI colonies based on freeplay
Prettier Artwork - for beach story & freeplay levels, & some creatures!
Campaign Balance - the campaign has been rebalanced with many changes
Mount Your Enemies - many more enemy creatures can now be climbed by your ants!

Freeplay / Custom Game

Freeplay now lives in the Custom Game menu, along with the new Skirmish streamlined setup mode.

Freeplay AI completely reworked
- Much more intelligent building & food collection priority
- Assist allies under attack & plan coordinated attacks
- Guards resources, steals aphids, harrasses opponents
- Nest designs tailored to species & room location
- New build priority system for different species
- Build orders adapt to storage & battle needs
- Will hide from rising water on applicable maps
- Customisable temperament & reactions
Streamlined setup mode called Skirmish
- Quick battle setup vs computer-controlled colonies
- Emphasises colony vs colony combat with conquest victory condition
- Preset landmarks & creature spawns
- Generally shorter form games
New landmarks
- Huge creatures (whip spider, great blue skimmer or bullfrog)
- Caterpillar plants
- Relocatable aphid plants (rosemary in beach levels, fewflower milkweed otherwise)
- Carnivorous plants
New uber creatures
- Bombardier beetle
- Red velvet ant
- Eastern newt
- Narrow-mouthed toad
Beach tiger beetle & beach wolf spider are now custom game only creatures
The above have had stats & abilities changed to differentiate them from the new campaign creatures taking their place (see below)
Freeplay can optionally use the fixed landmarks from Skirmish
Freeplay now has the option of spawning environmental creatures with roaming patrol routes

Story Campaign

All beach, forest & rainforest creatures have had their food quantity recalculated & reduced
All swamp creatures have had food quantities increased to bring them in line with the new values in the rest of the game

1.1 New Home & 1.2 Subjugation

Food has been added into both levels
1.2 slave maker attacks will now have level 2 & 3 ants amongst them
1.2 slave maker attacks will get harder more rapidly on hard & insane
Challenge mode cricket attacks will be more frequent on harder difficulties
Funnel web spiders now become food items rather than harvestable corpses on death
Enemies in top-left of 1.2 will now attack the queen on being unearthed

2.1 Rising Tide & 2.2 Queen of the Hill

More food added to the undergrounds of both levels
Has higher level enemy ants on the map & in attack waves
Notification about creature mounting moved to 2.1
2.1 underground caverns added
2.1 has more daytime surface food
2.1 has a new food arrival event with new narrator dialogue
2.2 aphids now produce food throughout the night
Melee wood ants speed increased to 320 up from 300
Melee wood ants given 30% AoE resistance
Reduced number of challenge mode beetle larvae in some areas
Creature changes
Beach tiger beetle replaced with northern dune tiger beetle (same stats as old beach tiger beetle)
Beach wolf spider replaced with sand bear wolf spider (same stats as old beach wolf spider)
Larger variant of hermit crab added

3.2 Front Line

Level 2 & 3 huge whip spider added for hard & insane in 3.2
Significantly increased health of huge whip spider
Huge whip spider now has a health bar like the bullfrog & great blue skimmer

4.1 Cold Blood & 4.2 A Bridge Too Far

Aggressive creatures now drop a little more food
Pervasive fire ant free hatch timer improved to 1m30s (from 1m40s)

Artwork Changes

The beach environment has been updated to bring it up to the fidelity of the more recent swamp & rotting log environments. 2.1, 2.2 & the freeplay / custom game maps The Dunes & Towhead all use these new assets.
New decorative beach assets: flowering bindweed, water weeds, limpets, scallop shells, sea-smoothed rocks, sea urchins
New artwork for the 2 replacement beach creatures: northern dune tiger beetle & sand bear wolf spider
New model for black ant queen
New water look for beach levels

Enemy Climbing / Mounting

In this update, many more creatures can be climbed and mounted by your ants - not just the very largest creatures! As a general rule of thumb, most creatures as big or larger than a large tiger beetle can be climbed - but there are some exceptions. Smaller mountable enemies cannot be climbed by larger ants - for example, a leafcutter major cannot climb a wolf spider. Ants mounted on enemies deal bonus damage, and apply a damage buff to allies attacking the creatures from the ground. There are circumstances where you may be better off disabling enemy mounting, however - if speed is an issue, it takes ants time to climb up and down larger creatures, and if a creature despawns with ants still on it those ants will be lost. The pine woods tree frog is currently unmountable (we intend to change this before this update leaves the optional beta phase).

Extra Levels & Festive Levels

All festive levels are now active for testing - access these by clicking on the spider web for Hungry Spider, the gift for Festive Spider, and the hanging lantern for New Years Feast. These will be reverted to their timed form when this update leaves beta.

Food has been added into most extra levels in line with the food value changes
The Hungry Spider now has 80% thorns resistance
Aggrandise
- Different levels of huge whip spider final boss added depending on difficulty
- Removed extra whip spider juveniles from the final boss
- Fish no longer loses resources on harder difficulties
- Huge whip spider will no longer ignore players ants on the way to the queen

Other Changes

Realistic Mode removed & replaced with Advanced Options for control of individual things it did
Seasonal costumes option added in Advanced Options to allow them to be disabled
Point values have been reassessed & updated (this affects enemy creature spawning & score)
User interface updated in multiple places (augmentations, level select, options menu, achievements) to use up more screen space & allow more space for language & UI scaling
UI scaling slider added to the menu to allow manual increasing of UI scale (good for handhelds & TVs)
Updated harvesting spots on some dead creatures so no more ants are harvesting than there is food available
Minor performance improvements & reduction of visual artefacts on resources
Changed the Battle Arena tile set to the new beach one
Localisation additions & changes
Updated enemy mounting button icon
Tooltips will now show when the game is paused

Fixes

Fixed some visual effects remaining on creatures after death
Fixed an issue where attack points could sometimes be unreachable causing attacker to wait on the floor by them
Uber velvet worm can now be harvested by 8 ants at a time
1.1 & 1.2 player colony now black in colour
Fixed an issue in Tug Of War 2 that would lead to the enemy colony spawning black ants
Decals now correctly delete when a tile is downgraded or deleted
Fixed an issue where ants would not rotate for a short while after collecting a queen egg
Fixed an issue where ladybirds may not land if they are not being observed by the player (quantum ladybird wave function now collapsed)
Fixed an issue where loaded eggs would only appear after the game had started
Fixed a pontoon construction point in 4.2
Numerous text & AI scaling fixes
Matched the colour select UI more closely to the in-game colours
Queens will no longer perform pain animation on loading
Salamanders & newts will still be rendered when just off-screen
Aura effects should display better on inclined surfaces
Lynx spider should no longer do its climbing animation when walking
Fixed a wood ant firing sound issue

[ 2023-07-07 22:01:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

VLOG 5 - Campaign Balance, Upcoming Optional Beta, Uber Critters

[previewyoutube=UvPU0OwS59o;full][/previewyoutube] Vlog 5 talks mainly about the planned summer update for Empires of the Undergrowth - balance changes to the campaign, new uber creatures, new artwork and more. We also check in on Dan P with some updates to Horticular, Adapt and Ecosystem coming in the near future (other games published by Slug Disco) - if you want to skip that and get straight to the EotU stuff, the timecode is 4:54.

[ 2023-06-10 23:07:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

May 2023 Newsletter - Roadmap Updated

We've had the last of our extra levels in the 'sequel season', so it's time to re-evaluate the road ahead with an updated map. The compressed parts of the previous one are fast approaching, so we can 'zoom in' on that part of it, as it were, to give a bit more detail. Most of this newsletter will deal with breaking down what'll be arriving in the near future.
A bombardier beetle attacks fire ants from NappyB on our Discord We also have some business news - we've joined with indie publishers Hooded Horse to publish Empires of the Undergrowth! There are also some real-world events we'll be attending soon. More on that later - first and foremost, let's get the new roadmap up and talk through it in order.

New Roadmap

Here's the updated roadmap. Please note that the exact order in which things will happen, as well as the timings, are very approximate - sometimes things take more time than expected, and sometimes they take less. Some of the updates may be clumped together, whilst others may be more spread out.

Graphic design is my passion (click to see full size)

The End of Sequel Season

Starting on the right-hand side in the top corner, we've just had the last of the 'sequel season' of extra levels. The Culling 2 was released on May 1, and it represents the last of the extra levels we had stocked up for you lovely people to play whilst we work on the big stuff. Rather than panic and quickly develop a bunch more of them, we thought we'd wait a while and just concentrate on getting to a point where we've released our planned changes to the existing campaign levels and freeplay mode. [previewyoutube=NQMPgGBDUTA;full][/previewyoutube] Sequel season was a really neat opportunity to revisit some of the older extra level ideas, and give them a new spin in the context of the content that has been added to the game in the meantime. Undoubtedly there will be more extra levels (represented towards the centre of the roadmap, after all of the near-future updates are released) but for the meantime we're quite happy with the reception given to the four in this set.

Campaign Balance Pass & Level Changes

The upcoming balance changes to the campaign levels will be arriving sooner rather than later. They shouldn't be thought of as blanket changes - each level has been reworked to accommodate the changed food values (in general less food from dead enemies and more from other sources, except in tier 4 where food from creatures has increased), and in the case of the beach levels some larger changes are being made.

Beach Creature Changes

A new size class of hermit crab has been added which will patrol the beach at night, and aphids will continue to produce honeydew after dark (making them a much more valuable commodity to look after). There's also some stuff that will make use of some previously unused narrator dialogue, making the overall changes to the beach levels far more interesting than a simple food rebalance.

What doesn't kill you, usually succeeds in the second attempt Apart from the new crab size class, 'beach creature changes' also refers to the changes to the wolf spider and tiger beetle that were detailed in the previous newsletter and vlog - the link here has the right timecode for that moment (at 3:36). These are art-only changes (apart from the food rebalance) to firmly establish the location of the beach levels as coastal Europe.

UI & Quality-of-Life Changes

A host of changes are coming to the menu system and user interface - more menus will be full screen-sized rather than floating boxes, making the visuals less cluttered when navigating them. The old and unhelpfully-named option called realistic mode has been broken down into its component pieces (hiding pheromone markers, trails, and buried food and creature outlines) and added to a new tab on the updated menu, which also includes options for disabling seasonal hats on the queen if you so wish - not everyone wants to look at a Santa hat in December.

Updated level selection menu The most eye-catchingly obvious of these changes is probably the level launch menu, which looks much cleaner and has some fancy live-rendered ants in it now. You can see this in motion in last months vlog (at 4:41 seconds). The whole interface itself will soon have an option to set its scale, which is a long-requested feature for both accessibility and display format reasons. Apart from being a must for players with visual perception or eyesight issues, people who want to play on the Steam Deck or to use a controller whilst looking at a TV on the opposite side of the room will soon find text and menus across the game a much more readable experience.

Art Asset Changes

Weve been working since the new year on updating the beach assets to bring them up to scratch with the precedent set for the swamp and rotting log environments. This was detailed more in the previous newsletter - so go and check that out for more extensive details (the same goes for the new black ant queen model).

WIP beach (ignore unfinished nest entrances, etc)

Freeplay AI

We've been hard at work plugging in all the sprockets and widgets to bring the improved AI systems to freeplay. In this quick demonstration video, you can see an AI colony respond directly to a threat near their nest entrance and engage its harassment module to fight off the intruders. [previewyoutube=YtYkRl-8Eas;full][/previewyoutube] When it realises the odds are not in its favour, it makes the independent decision to make a tactical retreat before it loses all of its ants. This form of reactive AI was much simpler in its previous implementation for freeplay colonies, and its satisfying to see this coming together now. The work to make this more intelligent AI system saveable in freeplay mode has recently neared completion, so were fairly confident in putting this in the more imminent section of the roadmap. Freeplay games that include AI colonies should be significantly more engaging and more tactically diverse.

New Freeplay Landmarks & Options

The new landmarks that are coming include large creatures (currently bullfrogs, dragonflies and whip spiders) and relocatable aphids on milkweed plants. The new options include the ability to drop some of the early game randomness of the landmarks, making the placement of them more intelligently fair, at least at the start of a freeplay run to allow the player time to build up before the difficulty ramps.

The True Interim Update

Interim Update is the unofficial term weve been using for the large sets of changes coming between the fire ant and final campaign updates, taking the name from a convention we used in an earlier update cycle. Since a good chunk of what was considered part of this update will be ready sooner (and is therefore earlier on the roadmap), well keep the name for everything else that is likely to come a bit later. At that point, well do a dedicated video covering all the changes.

Fishing spider spies you with all eight eyes The 4th tier challenge mode (featuring the six-spotted fishing spider, Dolomedes triton) and the new freeplay map Wetlands that prominently features fire ant bridge building make up the most anticipated part of this update, but the new uber creatures are sure to be a welcome addition as well. The game will get its full complement of achievements at this point, too (with the exception of some that will come with full release).

Version 1.0 - New Game Plus

The new addition for this part of the roadmap that needs a little more clarification is New Game Plus mode. It was detailed very thoroughly in last months vlog (5:58), so for a full rundown thats the definitive source. For conveniences sake heres a brief summary:

Upon completing the campaign, youll have the option of converting a save to New Game Plus
That process will be similar to rehousing the colony in the campaign in terms of lost resources and gained royal jelly
All levels will be significantly harder
All ants will be unlockable from the start with your stash of jelly, including the bonus species (bullet ants)
Queen upgrades, species-specific upgrade and minor improvements will all be active in documentary campaign missions in New Game Plus mode to counteract the increased difficulty
The mode can be completed again, in New Game Mode +2, 3, etc to an as-yet undefined limit

Note that this change is unlikely to come until we leave early access, but plenty of people have been asking if its going to be a feature so we wanted to confirm that and get some of the details out nice and early. That covers the updated roadmap - please feel free to join us on our Discord, or discussion forums, if you have any questions! We will endeavour to update this roadmap every 6 months or so going forward, until the project is finished. Its likely that everything up until the Interim Update part of it will be ticked off in relatively short order.

Hooded Horse

A short while ago, we got to know the lovely people from Hooded Horse - an indie publishing company that has been making some waves for the past few years with its strategy, sim and RPG games. Empires of the Undergrowth seemed like a good fit for them!

Weve partnered up with them to get the word out about Empires of the Undergrowth to more people. Whilst we maintain complete creative control of the project and management of our own resources, Hooded Horse can bring their more extensive business acumen and experience to the party when it comes to promotion and marketing. This can only be a good thing for EotU - it should mean more eyes on the game, more feedback for us, and ultimately a more successful project. If you see some changes around the EotU store pages in the near future, then that's the work of their wise hands. The jumping spider-eyed amongst you may have noticed that EotU is part of publisher bundles by Hooded Horse for the time being, and were very happy to be counted alongside games such as Against the Storm and Clanfolk!

ANTCON & Gamescom

Theres an event in Wales on 13th May called ANTCON, in Carmarthen, Wales. Its a small event for ant enthusiasts, focusing on their keeping and care. Weve been invited to attend and give a talk, so a few of us from the team will be visiting and director / developer Liam will likely be doing that short presentation - and Ill make sure its recorded! Ill be documenting the whole event and editing a highlight video for our YouTube channel, so make sure youre subscribed to us (why arent you already? We put some really good stuff up there!) so that you can see that as soon as it goes up. Later in the year there is a very good chance well be attending Gamescom 2023 in Cologne, Germany, in some form - our new publishers Hooded Horse will be there also. Thats in August, so if youd like to meet some of the team (and play a whole bunch of awesome indie games whilst youre at it) then theres plenty of time to get tickets!

Screenshot Central

If youd like to submit a screenshot for this section of the newsletter, by far the easiest way is to join our Discord and post in the appropriate dedicated screenshot channel. Its a very friendly community and aesthetically pleasing screenshots are always well-received. This time, though, I've gone through the Steam Community screenshot posts since I've been neglecting those for the past few newsletters. To get a better angle on your screenies, hit shift whilst you press the photo mode button (F9 by default) for a camera that is uncoupled from the ground for maximum freedom!

A wasp mantidfly perches on a pitcher plant in this shot from Philippe Echtebaise

An aesthetically pleasant ultrawide shot of the rotting log from matrixmod

Not even the froglings survived - it's a massacre in the swamp from TheeGamerTv

[ 2023-05-06 20:15:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Culling 2 OUT NOW!

The Culling 2 - the final level in the 'sequel season' series - is out now in Extra Levels! [previewyoutube=NQMPgGBDUTA;full][/previewyoutube] Take command of big-headed ants (Pheidole morrisii) in their first stand-alone level. In The Culling 2, your colony must survive for six nights in the swamp, whilst packs of hostile creatures invade as darkness falls. They will build up over time, eventually becoming overwhelming - even for the best-prepared colonies. Your hope lies in controlling the amount of enemies before they become insurmountable. Cull their numbers during the day, whilst gathering food to last out the night. Mighty big-headed supersoldiers will help you hold the lines as they charge and crush their enemies with a single bite. We hope you've enjoyed extra level sequel season! We'll be taking a break from extra levels for a while, as we're concentrating on the freeplay and tier 5 updates for the timebeing.

[ 2023-05-01 10:50:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update on Empires of the Undergrowth regional pricing

Hi all, In the next few days we will making some adjustments to the regional pricing of Empires of the Undergrowth. The USD price of the game is staying the same at $19.99, and the Euro price will remain 19.99 also. The regional discounts in some other currencies will be reduced to become closer to the USD & Euro price. We thought we should give a heads-up so that anyone who's been waiting to pull the trigger before the regional changes come into effect can make an informed decision. The change will likely occur on Monday 1st May.

[ 2023-04-29 14:48:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Streaming for the 2023 Earth Appreciation Festival!

With the Earth Appreciation Festival in full swing, we thought it'd be a good time to do a short livestream of Empires of the Undergrowth! Community manager Mike will be playing one of the more recently added campaign levels (4.1 'Cold Blood') for the occasion. Please join in, and ask any questions you like! [previewyoutube=QfV_RIE7Ffg;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2023-04-20 16:33:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Earth Appreciation Festival 2023 - 10% Off for Empires of the Undergrowth

The Earth Appreciation Festival is now live on Steam! Slug Disco is a co-organiser of the event this year, along with Mechanistry and Straw Fawn. Empires of the Undergrowth is 10% off in this festival of games that highlight the wonders of nature (such as EotU, Timberborn and Wandering Village) as well as games that deal with human-made issues, such as Frostpunk, Deponia and This War of Mine.
Slug Disco and Hooded Horse will be donating 10% of revenue generated by Empires of the Undergrowth during the event to Buglife, a UK-based invertebrate conservation charity that is very close to our hearts. Invertebrates represent a fundamental part of the ecosystem, and we're very happy to be supporting a charity that works towards their conservation. We'll check in again a little later in the week with the Earth Appreciation Festival to see how things are going, perhaps with a little round-up video - see you then!

[ 2023-04-17 17:05:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

VLOG 4 - Tier 4 Challenge Mode, Artwork, New Game Plus

Challenge mode, and game plus, and new artwork, oh my! After going over some in-person events that have happened recently for a couple of Slug Disco's other publishing projects and an important business move, Mike breaks down recent progress for Empires of the Undergrowth - including the long-anticipated challenge mode for tier 4, and plans for the post-campaign game plus mode coming along with tier 5. To skip the Slug Disco news and get directly to the Empires of the Undergrowth goodness, start the video at 03:11. [previewyoutube=cdkz5PqfN28;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2023-04-05 02:12:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Enemy of my Enemy 2 - Extra Level - Out NOW!

The penultimate level in our Sequel Season is here - the short-form extra level Enemy of my Enemy 2 puts your queen in the middle of a map, surrounded by hostile creatures. All of them must be eliminated to win, but only a small garrison of Royal Guard ants protects the queen. [previewyoutube=5SK4Kn1cuLE;full][/previewyoutube] You can't build brood chambers, but you can dig with your mouse. Thankfully, the enemy packs are hostile to one another - and therein lies the key to victory. Tunnel them out strategically, forcing them to encounter one another before reaching the queen. We think this level will probably benefit from another balance pass in the future due to it being too difficult, but we aren't quite in a position to make a new build of the game for it just yet due to our current work on the campaign and freeplay changes. For now, it will remain an extremely difficult extra level (almost certainly the most difficult, particularly on insane difficulty) but we are curious to see if a meta arises that can reliably beat it before we make any changes! Extra levels don't take us very long to develop - they're there to give everyone some extra time in the Undergrowth whilst we work on the really big stuff!

[ 2023-03-16 10:24:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

March 2023 Newsletter

We're entering a stage of development where we're making some pretty fundamental changes to both the campaign and freeplay mode, in order to get them closer to their final implementation when the game leaves early access. That's been the priority for our devs in the past few weeks - and we'll detail some of the changes that are coming in this newsletter.
A fire ant about to be entangled from NappyB On the graphical side of things, there's a new Formica fusca queen model on the way and a change to two of the beach creatures for geographical consistency. We've also been finalising work for the visual improvement of the beach levels. Whilst we're not ready to show that in all its glory we will go through some of the new things that will be making the beach even beach-ier than it was before. A little later this month we'll have the penultimate extra level in the Sequel Season appearing. Once again, the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Well, not quite your friend, it'll attack you, too - but you get the idea. Finally, in late February I sat our 3 devs down to confront them with the harsh reality that some people don't like their game. This was a giggle, and all in good fun - see the results later!

Campaign Balance Updates

We have been due a large overhaul of the campaign ever since the fire ant update. The food balancing in the 4.x levels is closer to our philosophy going forward for how food from aggressive creatures will work in the finished project, and we are now at a point where it's time to implement this.

Something on your nose? From Dolly on our Discord To reiterate the reasoning behind this - in the game as it currently stands, colonies often reach a 'tipping point' beyond which nothing can realistically threaten them, and this was not our original intention. Some creatures have methods of circumventing this, such as wolf spiders that can charge past ant lines underground - but these are more like band-aids over a much deeper issue. Once the colony cannot be realistically threatened, things become much less interactive. Enemies arriving in the nest to attack the queen become, instead of a threat, a free delivery.

We balanced the fire ant levels with this philosophy, with aggressive creatures dropping significantly less food for their difficulty than creatures in the 1st and 2nd tiers (the 3rd tier is immune to this due to leafcutters not eating creatures). We accept that the difference is quite jarring and can be disconcerting for a player who is used to a level of resources from fallen critters in previous tiers. We agree with the overall consensus that we pushed things too far in the other direction when it came to balancing 4.x, so we're going to be increasing food from aggressive creatures a little in those levels whilst decreasing it across the board in the rest of the campaign. Food from other sources is being increased to compensate, but players starting the campaign from scratch should get a much more consistent feel for what they can expect from slain aggressive creatures. Such a change is going to require tweaking, and we'll be inviting the community to be a part of that when the time comes. It's likely that we will run an extended optional beta.

Freeplay Changes

We originally envisaged the upcoming freeplay changes to be a lesser update, rather than the entire overhaul that it's turning out to be! As we've moved forward with introducing the improved AI systems from the 4.x levels into it, we've come to the inevitable conclusion that, stats-wise, freeplay and the campaign operate on two entirely different levels. If we want to balance plant-harvesting leafcutters against voracious omnivores like fire ants, we're going to need a different set of numbers. A short time ago, the stats for critters in the campaign and freeplay were divorced from one another, so that they can be balanced separately. How different they need to be will be down to the testing phase, once again, and we are very likely to run another optional beta for the freeplay changes. This is likely to be ready for testing after the campaign balance pass detailed above, so will probably be a separate event to it. Other changes are also in the works for freeplay - a CSV-driven way of sharing freeplay setups is being implemented (the rarely-used copy/paste method is going to be retired), and this ties into another exciting addition to the mode that we'll detail in a future newsletter or vlog. Outside of these larger changes, a smaller one that is freeplay-relevant is an increase of the number of harvest points on an uber velvet worm to 8. This was just an oversight with this one particular creature and did not represent where we intend to go on that front!

New Creature Artwork

One of the earliest models made for Empires of the Undergrowth in its current form is the Formica fusca queen. Matt has been itching to have another go at her, and has recently done so. We're sure you agree that the new model is much improved!

The new Formica fusca queen Since she's a constant, static feature in levels she features in, she was a much more pressing candidate for improvement over other models. Older stuff can always be improved, and we have a priority list for this. Improvements to, or replacements for, other models depends on time.

View from above We will be making changes to two of the beach creatures for reasons that shall be detailed shortly - both the tiger beetle and the wolf spider will be replaced with similar yet distinct species. Earlier in the project, in the geographical crunch that was necessary to get the game to an initial early access release, the intended location of the beach levels (coastal Europe) was compromised by the inclusion of two North American species - the beach tiger beetle (Cicindela dorsalis) and the beach wolf spider (Arctosa littoralis). [url=https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/28521019/1594d501c21a1170521313759baf07d00a9495c7.jpg]

The northern dune This is now being corrected. The beach tiger beetle is being replaced by the northern dune tiger beetle (Cicindela hybrida). This beetle has different pigmentation to its predecessor, but shares the same behaviour - including an appetite for ants.

The new king of speed on the intertidal flats The beach wolf spider is being replaced with the splendidly-named sand bear wolf spider (Arctosa perita). An active night-time hunter, it shares the same niche as its American cousin and will also be a one-to-one replacement for it in the campaign levels. [previewyoutube=07DZYb_oKJA;full][/previewyoutube] We see no reason to replace the existing species in places such as extra levels, so dorsalis and littoralis will still be around for the foreseeable future! So, in the current plans, the Hungry Spider will remain a beach wolf.

Texture differences between the new (left) and old

Beach Decoration

The art team has been hard at work sprucing up the beach environment to bring it up to scratch with the more recent additions. Environment artist Dan C has been building pebbles, plants and shells, and creating a large amount of sand textures. So much sand.

Sea-smoothed pebbles for your improved beach! New decorative elements for the beach include limpet and scallop shells, as well as other marine adornments such as seaweed and flowering bindweed.

Lots of new beach assets appearing in the game files now Please note that in the small thumbnails of the assets in the above editor screenshot they are missing their in-game textures. These are starting to go into the levels now, and our hope is that we can include the beach visual improvements alongside the campaign balance pass beta test.

Enemy of my Enemy 2

Within the next few weeks from the time of writing, extra level Enemy of my Enemy 2 will appear. Like in its predecessor, digging is done with the mouse and no ants are controlled. This time around, the queen is located at the very centre of the map, which puts her at a much more perilous crossroads.

Uh-oh! Buried enemy packs are hostile to each other, and the order in which you unearth them is crucial. Get them to take each other out before they reach your queen, where a limited number of powerful Royal Guard ants are protecting her. Harder difficulties represent a more intricate puzzle, and as always with these types of extra levels, game knowledge and a good feel for how powerful individual creatures are is paramount.

A red velvet ant threatens the queen, from tester NappyB As things stand, the higher difficulties of this level are very difficult - perhaps too difficult! Its due a final balance pass, but were not in a position to package another build of the game before it appears (everything is current in bits because of the ongoing campaign and freeplay changes). Well be interested to see if a distinct meta appears to beat insane difficulty before we get a chance to apply a rebalance!

Reacting to Mean Comments

In late February, I sat down with our 3 devs John, Liam and Matt, with the intention of bruising their egos a little. Whilst weve had plenty of support for Empires of the Undergrowth, theres definitely some meaner comments out there and I thought itd be healthy (and definitely not soul-destroying) for them to read through them. [previewyoutube=4s5qT_7nnoo;full][/previewyoutube] We all had a giggle making this, and no foul is intended to anyone whose comment is featured in it! Lets be honest, everyone who says we take a long time to do things isnt wrong. There are few combinations as deep-cutting as both mean and witty, as many of the featured comments demonstrate. Youve got to laugh, havent you? Thanks to our Discord members, and Chinese community managers Kaidi and Lin, for helping me organise and collate the comments for this video.

Screenshot Central

If youd like to submit a screenshot for this part of the newsletter, the easiest way for us to see it is to post it on the appropriate channel of our community Discord. Alternatively, you can post it to the Steam Community which Ill occasionally rifle through. As an absolute last resort, you can email me at mike@slugdisco.com. To get better screenies, hold down shift when entering screenshot mode to uncouple your camera from the ground plain.

A squadron of salamanders from Bananta on Steam

A swarmed spider from doom guy

One last look at the old black ant queen from heheboiboi999

[ 2023-03-08 16:44:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

VLOG 3 - New Black Ant Queen, Extra Levels, Freeplay

Our third company vlog is out now, and there's a few juicy details in the Empires of the Undergrowth section. Our creature artist Matt has made a new Formica fusca queen model, and there's some details about upcoming extra levels and large changes to freeplay coming in a major update a bit further down the line. If you'd like to skip to the meaty EotU content, then the time code is 6:18. [previewyoutube=b9Sf5x7CIbM;full][/previewyoutube] Slug Disco publishes several other games other than EotU (but we only develop EotU), and the start of the vlog deals with these as well as some general company updates first.

[ 2023-02-11 11:39:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Tug of War 2 - Extra Level OUT NOW!

The Empires of the Undergrowth auto-battler mode is back with a new level. Tug of War 2 continues our Sequel Season of extra levels - with a new set of ants to use, and a whole different set of enemy builds to fight against. Tug of War 2 is a short-form level versus an AI opponent. Army composition is everything in this auto-battler game mode. You do not control your ants directly - they will all hatch together, in waves, and immediately rush to take down the enemy queen - but your opponent has the same goal. Resources are given at regular intervals, and you'll have to make every seed count. You don't want to be playing catch-up - fall too far behind and you'll quickly find yourself overwhelmed. [previewyoutube=5LAWGR8SUzc;full][/previewyoutube] Extra levels are relatively easily-made content (since they re-use existing assets and systems) that we spend a little of our dev time on whilst we work on the much bigger stuff. We always have fun making them, and we're currently in the midst of Sequel Season - follow-ups to previous extra levels, playing on their ideas in a slightly different way. In other development news, we've made an update to the black ant (Formica fusca) model which will be rolling out with the next update, made some sensible changes to menu options, as well as made large strides towards getting the improved colony AI from the 4.x levels compatible with freeplay. In the next week or so there will be a vlog detailing these developments and more!

[ 2023-02-01 10:16:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Year's Feast - Seasonal Level - Out NOW!

Theres a new seasonal level, New Years Feast, and its available now with the latest patch! We like to break from reality with our extra and seasonal levels, and weve had a lot of fun making this one. Play it by clicking on the lantern that has appeared in the main menu. [previewyoutube=5Kz-w3A_4k0;full][/previewyoutube] Its almost time for Lunar New Year, and the fire ant queen is making her famous New Year's Eve hotpot for her family and friends. However, in the chaos of the party preparations, her daughters have forgotten to forage for the ingredients for the broth. Help them find the correct spices in time for dinner, whilst making liberal use of festive firecrackers to clear enemies and shorten your path. Its not just a fire ant level, though - this New Years party has many guests who have gotten lost in the undergrowth. Rescue them from peril and bring them home safely - to show their gratitude, theyll add their species to your colony! This is a very special seasonal level and we cant wait for you to have a go - so jump right in! There are a bunch of other fixes and changes that also arrive with this patch, so lets break down the full patch notes.

V0.30215 Patch Notes

Headline Feature - New Years Feast

Help the fire ant queen gather ingredients for her New Years hotpot
Theres an explosive accompaniment to go along with the broth
Rescue friendly ants to add their species to your colony
New artwork & music set the tone of this festive level

Other Fixes & Changes

Adventure
- Players can now choose between Royal Guard & Royal Decree
- Supermajor abilities no longer cool down when game is paused
- Royal Guard ants are now leafcutter-shaped if used in a leafcutter colony
- Updated some text to say nimble rather than evasive
- Inaccessible leaf made accessible
Fixed level selection menu disappearing after winning a formicarium challenge
Fixed a foliage rendering issue
Creature swarming optimisations
Tweaked animation distance optimisations
Rotting Log aesthetic added to tutorial level
Rotting Log aesthetic added to Hold Out & The Nest demo levels
Correct loading screens attached to demo levels
Corrected spelling mistakes here and there
Fixed some text formatting issues in various localisations
Fixed BHA workers showing as wood ants in the UI
UI buttons should now only appear on appropriate levels (creature climbing, etc)
Voice credits updated
Freesound credits updated

[ 2023-01-13 12:00:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Janurary 2023 Newsletter

Hang on a minute, where on Earth did 2022 go? That whole fire ant update thing went by in such a blur. It still feels like it was last week, but it was very nearly six months ago now! Welcome to a brand spanking new year - 2023, which kicks off with several more extra levels in our 'Sequel Season', as well as a surprise or two along the way. [url=https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/28521019/679bc9d8819c03224b1acfd41691d8a224adb0c2.png]
Happy New Year from Medin on our Discord Before we get into upcoming stuff for EotU and things happening in Slug Disco as a company, I'll just take a moment to thank each and every one of you for making 2022 by far the best year that Empires of the Undergrowth has had, in every reasonably measurable metric. We make this stuff, but it's you who makes it a success and gives us the drive to continue. We hope to carry on with that energy in 2023.

Sequel Season - Tug of War 2

Our Sequel Season of extra levels continues soon, with Tug of War 2 arriving in the next few weeks. Like its predecessor, it is a 1v1 versus an AI enemy where you build up an army with timed injections of resources, which will hatch at regular intervals and automatically battle with the opponent.

It's tuggin' time The surface layout is a little different than in Tug of War 1 (and with the swamp aesthetic), but the main difference here is the army composition. This time around you'll have access to units such as little black ant soldiers and big-headed ant supersoldiers. This provides a markedly different experience to the first one, and will require different strategies to prevail. We still have another few levels to go that are a part of Sequel Season, and we'll continue releasing them a month or two apart until we're done. We also have a new seasonal level that is apart from it, so let's talk a little bit about that next.

New Seasonal Level

In the near future there will be a new seasonal level appearing on the main menu. Like the gift and cobweb for the Festive and Hungry Spider levels respectively, a new object will appear whilst this level is available and must be clicked to access it. Whilst seasonal, the only thing I'll say about this one is that it's not another Hungry Spider one. It'll just appear one day on the main menu - keep an eye out for it, its gonna be a cracker!

Beach Revamp

Now that we've completed our rework of the look for the 'rotting log' levels, our environment artist Dan C has moved on to creating some higher fidelity assets to improve the look of the beach levels. We don't have any finalised things to show you on this front just yet, but rest assured that the beaches will be adorned with a wider variety of plant life and the new sand will be more coarse, rough and irritating than ever!

I know pebbles aren't all that exciting but look, the remastering is happening! When he first started working on new materials and textures for the swamp levels shortly after joining us at Slug Disco, Dan requested an expansion of Matt's texture system to allow for different looks for the environment - the damp, reflective and swamp-like look of the 4th tier levels are achieved through this expansion. Expect to see that at work with the updated beach environment.

Freeplay Update Progress

Work is continuing apace on fairly large changes to freeplay - probably the most notable of those recently is the addition of large creatures (bullfrogs, blue skimmers and huge whip spiders) as special, rarer-spawning landmarks in the mode. These large creatures, like in their campaign levels, will not represent an existential threat to your colony but do represent an area denial, as well as a food source once theyre defeated. [previewyoutube=QJbMb1pL1yg;full][/previewyoutube] Large creatures and fire ant bridges are detailed in this vlog post (4:45) In the case of the skimmer, they will be a bit trickier - until their home landmark is happened upon by the player, they will be flying around the map - so youll be aware of their presence, but you wont know exactly where their home turf is until you try to walk through it and it lands! Getting fire ant bridges to properly work and save properly in freeplay is another ongoing area of development (and source of much frustrating busywork) - both pure Solenopsis invicta and gene thief Formica ereptor colonies will be able to build bridges. In the case of the latter only fire ants will be able to build bridges, but the other ant varieties in the colony will be able to use them.

Tier 5 Reveal When?

We've got quite a lot of work on the fifth tier of the formicarium very nearly ready to show off, but we want to make a bit of an event of the official reveal for the focal species for the final levels of the campaign. Several critters are complete and ready to show, but giving away even one of them will spoil a whole lot more by association! A little while ago, we decided that we will do an official announcement, very likely with a video, showing the new ants and some of the new creatures when we've got some updated environments to show them in. Since we're now working on the beach revamp, that's going to be our milestone - we'll use the updated beach to show off the tier 5 ants, even though that won't be their final environment. As always, we don't really like doing much in the way of estimates (since we are so frequently incorrect with them) - we much prefer firm dates, or just dropping things out of the blue. As far as where we're at with tier 5 - the campaign levels are blocked out, and many specific one-off systems needed for them are being developed. Particularly exciting to see has been a sequence of events involving one of the new large creatures that will appear in one of the levels - but that's enough about that for now!

ICS Recap

We spoke about the ICS (Insane Completionist Slugs) Discord server a few newsletters back, but it's worth mentioning them again now. They're a small community dedicated to insane-difficulty completion and challenges that really push the limit in Empires of the Undergrowth, and they're constantly working to beat what was previously thought to be impossible in the game, and more often than not they're succeeding.

The ICS. A noble institution. Some of the more recent challenges that have been worked on include workers-only runs of the entire campaign in increasingly higher difficulties, and even deathless runs (no loss of colony members) of individual levels - you have to be a specific kind of person to be able to put in the grind for this kind of thing, but if that's what you're into, then the ICS is for you. You can join their server at this link. They're a friendly bunch and you're welcome to join the server just to partake in their community, even if you're not going to do all of the challenges.

New Community Managers

In the past few weeks, we've had two new team members join us - please welcome Kaidi and Lin to Slug Disco, who are joining Mike & Dan P in the community management / marketing department. If you frequent services such as Bilibili, Tieba and Douyin, you're likely to be talking to them in the future if you interact with our official accounts.

New Game

We will soon be adding a new project to the pantheon of Slug Disco-published games. As with all of our games besides Empires of the Undergrowth, we will not be developing it directly, but publishing it - meaning we are using some of our marketing resources to help get the game out to the world. We'll have a segment in the next vlog by Dan that talks to the developer of this project in a little more detail, and the dev hopes to have a playable demo ready before that time so you can get stuck in. We're not quite ready to announce what the game is just yet - but we will be doing so very shortly. Keep your eyes on our socials later this month for the scoop!

Screenshot Central

Always the best part of the newsletter to write, this time around all of the entries for Screenshot Central come from the Steam Community page. Thats one way to get screenshots to us - another is to use our Discord, which has its own dedicated screenshot channel that is posted on by our regulars. I usually take the weekly Screenshot Saturday post from there. A little tip - if you hold down shift whilst pressing your photo mode button (F9 by default), the camera is freed from the confines of the arena and you can get some very interesting angles using the controls!

The swarm by zomboss479

A festive wood ant queen from leonardo.balda.01

An ultrawide shot of the rotting log from SHO

[ 2023-01-06 01:31:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Occupation 2 OUT NOW! Sequel Season Begins

Occupation 2 is available now in the Extra Levels section! The first in our Sequel Season of extra levels - this little black ant mission follows many of the same lines as its predecessor, but with a more urgent twist! Many critters will not wait patiently to be unearthed and will take a proactive approach to challenging your colony. [previewyoutube=rrW33ibdRfE;full][/previewyoutube] Extra levels take us very little time to develop, so we release them periodically as some nice bonus content for the community whilst we work on the bigger stuff! We're currently working on large changes to freeplay, upgrading the art assets for the beach levels and creating the tier 5 levels. We have several more planned for Sequel Season - stay tuned in the new year.

[ 2022-12-16 12:37:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

VLOG 2 - Upcoming Freeplay Changes, New Seasonal Level

We're back with another vlog! This time Mike goes over upcoming changes to freeplay, how the Adventure + update went (and some changes coming to Adventure in the future) as well as talking briefly about a new unique seasonal level that will arrive in the not-too-distant future. Towards the start of the video, our product marketing manager Dan talks about two other games that are published (but not developed) by Slug Disco, Ecosystem and Adapt. If you're not interested in those, skip to timecode 2:28 for the Empires of the Undergrowth meat. [previewyoutube=QJbMb1pL1yg;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2022-12-05 21:54:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

What could get you more into the spirit of the season than defending gifts against a horde of insects and arachnids using more insects and arachnids? The Festive Spider is here for the holidays! Touch the gift box on the main menu to play. [previewyoutube=_IPkapEX60c;full][/previewyoutube] Help the Hungry Spider keep the gifts safe from the invaders. Be warned - like the Halloween level, this one is punishingly difficult and unforgiving - expect multiple playthroughs to perfect your strategy. This unique tower defense game mode is sure to keep you on your toes well into the new year.

[ 2022-12-02 16:00:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Demo Updated - Tutorial, Battle Arena

We've made some updates to the free demo - if you've not taken the plunge yet then now's a great time to try out the demo, and if you like it, the game is 10% off for Steam's Autumn sale! This update adds the tutorial level that we recently added to the main game, as well as a limited form of the Battle Arena - a mode where you can easily pit the various critters found in the demo against each other to see what wins.

Demo Changes

Tutorial added to demo
Battle Arena added to demo with creatures included in the demo
Demo levels The Nest and Hold Out updated to use rotting log textures
New menu added to demo
Various smaller changes from the full game are now reflected in the demo
Support in demo for recently-added languages

[ 2022-11-23 22:31:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

V0.302036 Release - Fixes for the Adventure + Update

V0.302036 has been released, addressing a few issues that came up over the last couple of days as well as making some mainly visual changes to the Hungry Spider level. Patch notes below: Additions

The Hungry Spider level now uses the new rotting log tile set
Enjoy the Hungry Spider event for longer - now until Nov 10th!
A few extra pillars for cover and lighting near spawn on Hungry Spider
Queens now have a gentle spotlight on them

Fixes

Fixed invisible cricket issues in Adventure
Fixed a visual error in 1.2
Tweaked rotting log materials
Removed any possibility for unfinished landmarks to spawn in freeplay
Notification given in the tutorial will always appear regardless of settings

[ 2022-11-05 17:06:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Adventure + Update is OUT NOW!

Surprise, were doing it now! As it turns out, everything we talked about in yesterdays newsletter is good to go, so here it is! The Adventure + update is available now. This is a regular update, but quite significantly larger than most of our regular updates. As well as the long-awaited extra level Adventure, weve also put the even longer-awaited velvet worm into its rightful place in the 3.x levels - including previously unheard narrator lines! [previewyoutube=WZKoG6ORS2A;full][/previewyoutube] This update also includes a feature that has been overdue for a long time - tutorial mode. New players will be encouraged to first play through the tutorial before diving into the campaign, and even more experienced players may benefit from the refresher course it provides. A redesigned menu integrates this addition into the game, with a new section called the arcade for extra levels, battle arena, and demo levels Finally, the 1.x levels now have their own tile set - the rotting log will no longer look like sand! A new texturing of decomposing birch wood and crumbly soil will set it apart from the beach. Full patch notes below.

Headline Features

Velvet Worm

Added to 3.x levels, freeplay, battle arena & new extra level Adventure
Long creature with the ability to spray slimy glue at its enemies that slows them
Comes in 3 sizes of varying strength

Adventure

A long-form leafcutter extra level with unique mechanics
Build up XP to upgrade your colony & unlock new units
Unlock the uber velvet worm for use in freeplay as a reward

Tutorial mode

A new 10-15 minute tutorial to explain the basics in a practical way
Goes over digging, hatching, pheromones, combat & more
Both new & experienced players should benefit from this thorough tutorial

Main menu rework

More descriptive buttons to guide players to the right place
Will highlight tutorial mode for new players
Added an arcade section for battle arena, extra levels & demo levels

Rotting log tile set

Woody, crumbly textures added for the rotting log environment
1.x levels no longer use the beach underground tile set

Other Changes & Additions

Big-headed ant workers are no longer encumbered when carrying
Camera rotation buttons are now rebindable
Resource, tile & creature info toggles moved to side of pheromone panel
Reworked underground lamp distribution
Hold Out scoreboard changed to match that of Extremis
Added thumbnails for demo levels
Some rewording of objectives & descriptions
Numerous improvements & optimisations to many game processes
Updated localisations

Fixes

Enemy colony in 3.1 should no longer hide underground permanently
1.1 victory cinematic reworked slightly to not show the sky
Subtitles no longer overlap if a certain creature is killed too quickly in FC4
Fixed an issue that caused lynx spiders to shrink on loading a freeplay game
Fixed accidental switching of some minor improvements menu descriptions
Status effect particles now present for the hungry spider
Extra level scoreboards now all display the difficulty
Fixed some spelling mistakes

[ 2022-11-03 16:59:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

November 2022 Newsletter - Adventure, Velvet Worms, Rotting Logs!

We've had a remarkably busy couple of months since the last newsletter, and there's a fair few things to discuss relating to the next update for Empires of the Undergrowth. Most of this newsletter will be going over progress made in matters written about in the previous one. We're currently in a consolidation phase, working on improving under-the-hood systems to increase the efficiency and reliability of many game systems, as well as improving the onboarding process for new players and revamping some of the older artwork. We've also made some fairly extensive changes to the main menu.
A river crossing from Discord user Ice Age 2 Were also very close to introducing a long-awaited enemy to the game the velvet worm, and have several extra levels lined up over the next few months. To preempt the question of when all of the changes detailed in this newsletter will arrive, the answer is in the near future (fingers crossed)! On the community side of things, weve also made the first edition of a new video series that will work alongside and in tandem with these newsletters. Well discuss the plans for those at the end of the newsletter, after all the game news. Lets get to it!

Velvet Worm Ready!

The velvet worm is ready for its debut! It was intended to complete the menagerie of critters for the leafcutter levels (third tier), way back in the before-times of 2019. However, it was cut for time it has what was at that point a unique way of moving its long, slender body, and this required an inordinate amount of time for our animator Matt to perfect for just one creature. However, the system was brought up to scratch for the fourth tier both the salamander and newt use it. So, now is the time to bring back the slime-launching velvet one! [previewyoutube=iKHwGbZ5JvU;full][/previewyoutube] Velvet worms are voracious hunters of other invertebrates they are equipped with twin slime cannons near their mouths, which they use both to ensnare prey by tangling them up in a sticky web of glue, and to deter potential predators. The velvet worm will see its return to glory in the 3.x levels, but you will also be able to fight it in the next extra level to arrive Adventure.

Who would win two dozen angry leafcutter ants or one velvet boi?

Its Nearly Adventure Time!

The first of several planned extra levels coming over the next few months, Adventure is likely to yield the longest playtime of any level in the game so far, so ensure you have a couple of hours set aside for it! Adventure is a leafcutter level with a unique XP system and many creative challenges.

Im looking for someone to share in an Adventure. Its you. Complete the multitude of objectives and engage in combat to increase your XP, unlocking new units and upgrades for your leafcutter colony. Theres a host of dangers, both environmental and colony-based, as well as another encounter with Big Whippy the huge whip spider (in her fourth appearance in a level) and of course several variants of the new velvet worm. You will also have the chance to raise a unique character, a mighty champion of the leafcutters, but lets wait for the level to be released before I spoil too much youll be playing it soon!

The Rotting Log

During this consolidation phase, before we fully return to our work on the fifth tier, we have an opportunity to revisit some of the older parts of the game and improve them. After completing work on the green swamp, our environment artist Dan C has been focusing on making a rotting log environment up until now, the 1.x levels have borrowed the beach tile set, which is why the environment looks like sand rather than soil and wood.

Have you ever seen something so rotten yet so beautiful in all your days? Taking inspiration from decomposing birch logs, we think this combination of crumbly wood and soil looks fantastic and finally gives the introductory levels of the campaign their own identity separate to the rest of the game. Its quite possible that some of the extra levels will use this tile set in the future, too. Once the new look for the rotting log is complete, we intend to put some work into bringing the beach levels up to 2022 standards as well.

Some serious isopod action in the rotting log environment

Main Menu Changes

We thought that now was the time to make some changes to the main menu this incorporates the tutorial level in easy view along with a new submenu called arcade this will be the new home of extra levels, the battle arena and the demo levels.

Its a menu, not sure what else to tell ya pal This new menu format gives us room to describe each menu choice in an aesthetically pleasing way the description will appear at the bottom of it when hovering the cursor over it.

Tutorial Mode Update

Tutorial mode is now functionally complete we are simply waiting on the last of the localisations for it before we include it in a patch. As detailed in the previous newsletter, by far the most common reason given for someone who requests a refund for Empires of the Undergrowth is our lack of a dedicated tutorial, or proper onboarding. Whilst the in-game tips and hints do teach the entirety of what there is to know about the game, relying on them alone is a large reading task and we realise they are ignored by many players. Enter tutorial mode. Players will be encouraged to play through this special level (averaging 10-15 minutes) before jumping into the campaign. It gives a thorough understanding of the digging, hatching, food collection, and camera movement systems and a basic overview of combat. The popup tips will remain an integral part of ongoing training as a player progresses through the campaign, and the tutorial reinforces that at one point.

Tutorial mode simple, but educational The tutorial mode highlights relevant parts of the UI as it goes on, giving visual indicators of what to do (and where). UI highlighting in this way is integral to a proper tutorial system and weve taken significant care to get it right here. We have also observed during our time exhibiting the game at events that a not insignificant portion of players jump straight into freeplay, which does not come with its own training. New players will be encouraged to play the tutorial and campaign first, but can of course still go straight to freeplay if they wish (an open wiki or trial-and-error approach is still a valid way to play for those who wish to do so).

Optimisations

A less flashy but vitally important part of what we do is profiling and optimisation of the game processes. As we continue, we identify older areas of code and art assets that are suboptimal by various methods. Matt, our engine specialist, has put significant time recently into identifying many systems that could do with having a few bolts tightened here and there. For example, a process that is executed every tick (loop of the UE4 program) might not actually need to be called so often to have the same effect, and profiling helps to identify these inefficiencies. Whilst this work doesnt have direct evidence to show for itself in the form of a screenshot or video, it means that frame rates should be up across the board. This work is ongoing and is likely to continue as long as the project is still in development.

Vlogs

As mentioned earlier, at the start of last month we put out the first of our vlogs a kind of video form of the newsletter that is intended to be its counterpart. Mike put himself in front of a greenscreen and talked freely about upcoming changes, some of which have been detailed further in this newsletter. Mike also realises hes now typing in the third person and thats really weird. [previewyoutube=jhAKuBIspI8;full][/previewyoutube] Note that the vlogs are not intended to replace the newsletters at all, just augment them. Well be doing one of these every other month, in between the newsletters. The next one is due towards the start of December, and Dan P (our product marketing manager) will be joining in that one with a section about Ecosystem and Adapt, two of the other games that Slug Disco publishes.

Screenshot Central

Given that this upcoming update is rather leafcutter-themed, what with the velvet worm and Adventure and all, I thought wed keep with that theme for the screenshots section. As always, if youd like your screenshots featured in a future newsletter or in the weekly Screenshot Saturday hashtag we participate in on Twitter, the easiest way is to join our Discord and post in the appropriate channel. Alternatively, you can upload them to the Steam community or email them to mike@slugdisco.com. F9 enters photo mode (by default) to get some cool angles holding shift whilst pressing it will uncouple the camera from the ground for total freedom. [url=https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/28521019/2bed1c03751bc84c5b6ec1cb524dd0904c25d7b2.jpg]

A moonlight harvest from Ay_Mar

The army is on the march from Xxgamingduo

Purple army ants munching on a dead leafcutter queen from AhYesANTS!

[ 2022-11-02 16:03:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Time to Feed the Hungry Spider

Tucked away in a dark corner of the world, this wolf spider hungers... [previewyoutube=L3QtFadJryI;full][/previewyoutube] ...and it's up to you to slake his relentless thirst for hemolymph. From midnight on the 25th October local time, the Hungry Spider will be here for the rest of the spooky season - and he is so very hungry. Access this festive extra level by selecting the spider web that has appeared on the main menu. Be warned - this level is not for the faint of heart, or slow of pointer - it is intensely difficult and few have ever completed it. Those that do will earn themselves a special achievement as a badge of honour. Even under ideal conditions, expect multiple playthroughs to learn the quirks of the levelling and abilities system. Slice the carapace, dissolve the innards, suck the juices, chop, melt, drink...

[ 2022-10-25 07:00:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Vlog - What's Next For Empires of the Undergrowth?

Time to talk about the immediate future of Empires of the Undergrowth, in video form. [previewyoutube=jhAKuBIspI8;full][/previewyoutube] This is the first of our new vlog format, which will act as a counterpart to the newsletters, running bi-monthly alongside and inbetween them. We recognise not everyone wants to read a 1,500 word essay to get their Empires of the Undergrowth news, so hopefully this video series fills in that gap! If you have any better ideas for the vlog's name than just "Slug Disco Vlog" then please let us know.

[ 2022-10-04 15:47:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

HOTFIX - V0.30111 Released - Fix for Fire Ants in Freeplay

This hotfix is currently only for Steam Windows 64 bit users but we thought it was crucial enough to get a fix out for our biggest user base as fast as possible. The fix for Windows 32 bit, Mac and other storefronts will roll out over the next few days. Apologies for the confusing back-and-forth with this one - we released this update last night, but due to a change to aphids for a future update there was the unexpected effect of stripping aphids completely from the 4.x levels, so we had to revert it. All should now be well.

Patch Notes

Fixed fire ants not being able to place pheromone markers on the surface in some freeplay maps

[ 2022-09-06 14:25:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update V0.3011 - Fixes & Changes

A whole bunch of fixes have been made, mainly regarding the fire ant update and freeplay (theres plenty more changes to freeplay coming in a larger update a bit further down the line). Extremis fans will be pleased to know that level is now playable again, and the poor bullfrog will no longer get beaten up by its lunch! Thanks to everyone whos helped to test this patch over the last few days.

Patch Notes

4.1 Cold Blood

Bullfrog will now always eat creatures intended to feed it instead of being beaten up by them if they get too close
Titan health bar will no longer appear during feeding events if the bullfrog is dead or has hopped away

4.2 A Bridge Too Far

Players ants still in the Monomorium colony after it floods will now die
Monomorium nest entrance now looks correct after end-of-level flood cinematic
Reduced Top of the Hill level end requirements on all difficulties
Underground aesthetic updated

Formicarium Challenge 4

A few decals added to cupboard interior after FC4 for extra detail
Fixed an issue where continuing play too quickly after FC4 could cause the end to not properly happen

Freeplay

Little black ants & big-headed ants will no longer be called Atta cephalotes in defeat screen
Fixed a convoluted issue in freeplay causing random leafcutters to spawn in the place of dead queens
Fixed an issue in freeplay where if dead enemy colonies were in the game, creatures would be less likely to attack the player
Fixed an issue where the freeplay setup info would always appear as if 4 players were in the game (1v1v1v1)
Fixed an underground tile that was crashing games in Basin
Fixed an issue that could cause fire ant queens in freeplay to be off the ground

General Fixes

Extra level Extremis will not crash the game any more
Fixed carried aphids sometimes being removed if the ant is distracted whilst picking it up
Fixed refund being prevented for 2nd refuse tile / leaf drop-off chamber
Moving queens in 2.2 can no longer be killed by environmental creatures
Fixed army ants despawning in Beetles Rise Up! which sometimes made the level unwinnable
Fixed autoclicker food duplication issue
Various UI elements made more stretchy to account for languages with longer sentences
Distance increased between Battle Arena lanes to prevent knockback abilities hurling critters into the other lane
Fire ant & little black ant queen mesh repositioned so they should float less
Fixed population totals not being updated when a tile is cancelled before being built
Removed access to a decorative plant that looked appetising to leafcutters in 3.2
Buried creatures (! & ? icons underground) will now only ever be visible by their rendered outline; no more accidentally seeing the model poking out somewhere
Fixed an issue where Formicarium Challenge 2 would never end if all creatures were dead at some point after spider spawn
Can no longer click through augmentations menu to select a tile
Reduced size of fire ant worker eggs so they are not poking out the top of the queen
Cancelling a tile before it is built will now correctly update population totals
Corrected some spelling issues in the Freesound credits

General Changes

Replaced queen worker chamber crown icon with a flag
Team stripes added to abdomens of fire ants, little black ants & big-headed ants
Reduced size of all little black ant eggs to make them properly little
'Play More' button removed from 2.2
Couple more first-time playthrough hints added to the first formicarium
Numerous texture optimisations; they should pop in faster
Font update in minor improvements panel
Various animation optimisations added
Some lab decorations moved closer to the formicarium so they can be seen in play
Objectives will now update faster when something has changed
Star power scale is now taken into account for minimap & physical size of buried creatures
When an indestructible tile is made destructible (by, for example, a toad burrowing through it in 4.1) the tile break effect will play
Chinese localisations updated
Credits updated

Known Issues

Under some circumstances, fire ants seem unable to place pheromone markers on the surface in freeplay
On rare occasion, fire ants can get stuck when they're part of a bridge and the bridge is disassembled
Green lynx spiders can rarely get stuck at the base of a pitcher plant

please let us know in the discussions if you see any of these issues!

[ 2022-09-05 15:11:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta - Fixes, Changes

Weve made a bunch of fixes and some changes since the fire ant update, so many in fact that we want to run an optional beta before full release to make sure we havent damaged some vital system somewhere. This opt-in beta will run for a short while. Please note that optional betas are only accessible on the Steam Windows 64 bit build. If you would like to join the beta, the code is fireantfixtest. If you dont know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions below: [quote] [olist]

Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"

Choose the "Betas" tab

In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter fireantfixtest

After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu

Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch. [/olist][/quote] Any and all feedback on this optional beta is very much appreciated - please post it to the community discussions!

Patch Notes

4.1 Cold Blood

Bullfrog will now always eat creatures intended to feed it instead of being beaten up by them if they get too close
Titan health bar will no longer appear during feeding events if the bullfrog is dead or has hopped away

4.2 A Bridge Too Far

Players ants still in the Monomorium colony after it floods will now die
Monomorium nest entrance now looks correct after end-of-level flood cinematic
Reduced Top of the Hill level end requirements on all difficulties
Underground aesthetic updated

Formicarium Challenge 4

A few decals added to cupboard interior after FC4 for extra detail
Fixed an issue where continuing play too quickly after FC4 could cause the end to not properly happen

Freeplay

Little black ants & big-headed ants will no longer be called Atta cephalotes in defeat screen
Fixed a convoluted issue in freeplay causing random leafcutters to spawn in the place of dead queens
Fixed an issue in freeplay where if dead enemy colonies were in the game, creatures would be less likely to attack the player
Fixed an issue where the freeplay setup info would always appear as if 4 players were in the game (1v1v1v1)
Fixed an underground tile that was crashing games in Basin
Fixed an issue that could cause fire ant queens in freeplay to be off the ground

General

Fixed carried aphids sometimes being removed if the ant is distracted whilst picking it up
Fixed refund being prevented for 2nd refuse tile / leaf drop-off chamber
Moving queens in 2.2 can no longer be killed by environmental creatures
Replaced queen worker chamber crown icon with a flag
Extremis will not crash the game any more
Fixed army ants despawning in Beetles Rise Up! which sometimes made the level unwinnable
Fixed autoclicker food duplication issue
Various UI elements made more stretchy to account for languages with longer sentences
Distance increased between Battle Arena lanes to prevent abilities with knockback hurling critters into the other lane
Team stripes added to abdomens of fire ants, little black ants & big-headed ants
Fire ant & little black ant queen mesh repositioned so they should float less
Reduced size of all little black ant eggs to make them properly little
Fixed population totals not being updated when a tile is cancelled before being built
Removed access to a decorative plant that looked appetising to leafcutters in 3.2
'Play More' button removed from 2.2
Buried creatures (! & ? icons underground) will now only ever be visible by their rendered outline; no more accidentally seeing the model poking out somewhere
Couple more first-time playthrough hints added to the first formicarium
Fixed an issue where Formicarium Challenge 2 would never end if all creatures were dead at some point after spider spawn
Numerous texture optimisations; they should pop in faster
Various animation optimisations added
Font update in minor improvements panel
Some formicarium decorations moved closer to the formicarium so they can be seen in play
Can no longer click through augmentations menu to select a tile
Reduced size of fire ant worker eggs so they are not poking out the top of the queen
Cancelling a tile before it is built will now correctly update population totals
Objectives will now update faster when something has changed
Star level is now taken into account for minimap & physical size of buried creatures
When an indestructible tile is made destructible (by, for example, a toad burrowing through it in 4.1) the tile break effect will play
Corrected some spelling issues in the Freesound credits
Chinese localisations updated
Credits updated

EDIT 2nd September: A couple of things that don't warrant a new version number but have been added:

Mac package added to the beta
Windows 32 bit package added to the beta
Choice of DX11 or 12 removed - until we implement an engine upgrade, DX11 is the best option
Steam Deck issue resolved

[ 2022-09-01 10:59:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

August 2022 Newsletter - Roadmap To 1.0

Its been a while since the situation has warranted one of these newsletters we said that after the last one in March, we didnt want to spoil anything else and just wanted to concentrate purely on getting the fire ant update ready to go, and so we did! Welcome to the first newsletter as the sun rises in a post-fire ants world.
The Green Swamp Well be dividing this newsletter into a few sections - firstly, well talk about how the fire ant release went. After that, its time to talk about the future - well put forth a new roadmap to get us to version 1.0, and detail the steps that we will take to get there, including the development of a specific tutorial level to make player onboarding much better. After some internal discussion, we dont quite feel like we want to talk about the tier 5 species and setting just yet - just know that its been long-planned, scripted, voice-acted, and partially implemented already!

The Fire Ant Update

First and foremost, we would be remiss in our duties if we didnt express a heartfelt thankyou to all of our players for fire ant release day and the days after. We absolutely smashed our concurrent player record, which had been unbeaten since early access launch day in December 2017, and for an entire week we were trending on SteamDBs front page - which is an absolutely mind-boggling occurence for our tiny little development studio. [previewyoutube=LEQAm0yV3TQ;full][/previewyoutube] Dad's Gaming Addiction plays 4.2 Its been an utter delight following the content creators as they post (and continue to post) their coverage of our biggest update yet, whether that was Frazzz feeling the ominous presence of the skimmer, Man of the Antz giving the new camera rotation features a good outing, TheGamingBeaver putting in a very good argument for using Pervasive fire ants in 4.1, Drawing_Pin laughing his butt off at the scientists antics or Blitz clearly just living his best fire ant life. As the community manager, seeing the reaction of everyone whos followed and played this game over its lifetime, and interacting with them, is the best part of my job so naturally seeing the reactions to cool new stuff is even better.

Early 2022

Yes, yes, we know. Last year we estimated "early 2022" for the fire ant release date, and that was our original intent but as is always the case with game development, some things take a lot longer to complete than anticipated. We strained credulity of the definition of early until we made a final decision to wait until we didnt have to compromise on the update. [previewyoutube=LsHKsAv5a3U;full][/previewyoutube] A fine addition to the soundtrack July can at best be called mid-year, not early - see what happens when we give even the vaguest of vague hints! During April, we found that we likely could have pushed out the update in late May, which would qualify us for our targeted early 2022. However, we would have had to compromise in several ways here - there would not have been any new music, and the update would have been lacking that final polishing phase that the decision to wait a short while longer gave us. Were very glad we took the extra time! The update is shining from the extra layers of lacquer we were able to generously apply over it. Thanks so much for the feedback on the new soundtrack - it was music to our ears to hear that the new tracks may have supplanted earlier ones as some peoples favourites.

Balance

Theres been debate on both our official forums and the Steam discussions about the balance of the 4.x levels, and how it differs from the 2.x levels. Whilst weve included many ways for the player to gather food, theres some frustration being expressed about the relatively low amount given by dead creatures this time around.

Just doing amphibian stuff Weve explained this in several places but its worth putting our reasoning for the change in design philosophy here, agree or not. In the 2.x levels (particularly 2.1 Rising Tide), there comes a tipping point in which the aggressive creatures provide far more food than is lost respawning ants, and the levels essentially play themselves. The game becomes unintentionally un-interactive, and the other methods of food collection are forgotten. There are a few ways to address this, but outside of altering the food drop value of the creatures, they broadly involve re-working the narrative and creature behaviour in the missions. We very deliberately want the story of a vulnerable nest under attack; not siege. In nature, narrow-mouthed toads are excellent diggers and ants make up most of their diet, so they provide this setting-appropriate pressure in the 4.x missions. If we gave them a more substantial food drop value the problem would exist in these levels also.

The last thing you see before you fail - thanks to Geo ka lala on Steam for this shot Thats not to say that there isnt room for balance changes here, but its too soon to commit to anything just yet. When a relatively large change is made to a game, rashness is more likely in both developers and players, so we are still very much in the cooling off phase before we have an internal discussion and decide what changes, if any, are appropriate. Were keeping a close eye on those discussions as the dust settles, but for fear of inflaming anything unduly were keeping to low activity in them for now. Well come back to this at a later date, and perhaps have more to say about it in the next newsletter.

Tutorial

Heres an interesting statistic for you of all the Empires of the Undergrowth refund requests, by far the most common reason given is the lack of a proper tutorial or onboarding system. We have relied too much on the optional tips and hints to provide basic training to the player we have also regularly observed many players completely not noticing or ignoring this system. That is entirely our fault, and the time is ripe to address that.

Early in-editor shot of the tutorial level At this point in development, where version 1.0 is almost visible on the horizon, we want to make sure new players are not left in the lurch as far as understanding the core mechanics at play with pheromone control, nest construction, food gathering, combat and building goes. For the next few weeks, the development team will be working on ways to highlight the UI and bring up tutorial dialogue in a way that is not easily missed by the player in a dedicated tutorial level. We hope to take this to the Indie Arena Booth at Gamescom 2022 in Germany at the end of this month, where one of our team will be manning a booth and observing new players with the aim of getting some useful, hands-on feedback. If youre going to be at the event and are in the area, come by and let us know what you think!

Roadmap

Its been a hot minute since we committed to any sort of roadmap, given the uncertainty of the past couple of years and the time it took to push the fire ant update. However, we are in a clearer position now and will be in an even clearer one in the next few weeks. So, here we present our August 2022 roadmap, which is likely to be clarified and updated in the next newsletter. Click to see it in all its glory.

Its not about the destination, its about the ants we met along the way Youll notice that outside of the bug fixing update that will come next month, we are continuing with our policy of not putting dates, even vague ones, on things although we are certainly resolved to wrap up development up until version 1.0 in a speedier time frame than before, there is still significant uncertainty. As always, we will give firm dates when we are 100% sure we can meet them, but here are some reassuring words for the remainder of the project: we already have a significant head-start with tier 5 in that its been completely scripted, the voice acting is already recorded, many of the creatures are already modelled and animated, and we have a very clear picture of where we are headed with it.

Adventure

Theres a few things of note here firstly, the long-awaited leafcutter extra level Adventure is visible on the horizon! It will indeed feature the first in-game appearance of the velvet worm a soft-bodied predator of the jungle that was originally intended to be in the leafcutter update back in 2019, but was cut for time. It has now been finished and ascended to its full glory, with help of the long-bodied creature animation system perfected for the newt and salamander in the fire ant update.

Other Extra Levels

Outside of Adventure, youll notice mention of a sequel season for other extra levels. Without giving too much away, were going to revisit some of the ideas from earlier extra levels and come up with new spins on them for example, there is very likely to be a Tug of War II featuring a different set of ants to play with.

Freeplay

The large and (characteristically) vague interim update period is likely to manifest as several updates in a relatively short period of time that address the items listed. Most pressing is an update to freeplay the much more robust and customisable AI systems developed for 4.x will be integrated into freeplay to replace the current inferior one (*sad robot noises*).

Encountering a false bombardier beetle larva in freeplay from BrickyGraph631 Speaking of freeplay now is definitely the time to let us know about issues youre encountering in that game mode, big and small, in time for the time that weve set aside to do our upcoming changes. Let us know in the forums, or on our social media.

Tier 4 Challenge Mode

Weve previously revealed the challenge creature that will plague the swamps in the challenge mode for the 4.x levels its the six-spotted fishing spider (Dolomedes triton) that can water-walk in a similar way to the amphibians, and will be a menace to your fire ants bridging abilities. The exact details of how this works are yet to be revealed closer to the time well release a short trailer showcasing her abilities.

Achievements

Currently, there are only achievements for the 1.x levels and formicarium challenge 1. Before we reach the end of the roadmap, this will be addressed and all tiers will have their own unique achievements. If youd like to contribute your ideas of what some of these could be, please get in touch we had a good time streaming some of the development of the 1.x achievements and theres a non-zero possibility that we can do that again in the coming months!

Speed Running & the ICS

Over the past several months, its been delightful to see a completionist / speedrunning community spring up around our little ant game. An offshoot from our official Discord, Insane Completionist Slugs is a Discord server that keeps a track of users who have completed tricky challenges on insane difficulty, and records speedruns for the runnable levels (some levels are on a strict timer and not runnable).

If youre insane, a completionist, and a gastropod mollusc, this is for you If youd like to join this community then do so, but be ready to prove your mettle! This Discord is run by Solstitium and Heolx, and we couldnt be more gleeful and grateful for their contributions to the Empires of the Undergrowth community. There is also an Empires of the Undergrowth page on speedrun.com this is not officially affiliated with the ICS server but its somewhere else to submit your runs to! Spreedrun.com is recognised as the go-to site for fast lookup and logging of speedrun records for just about any game you can imagine.

Screenshot Central

Tier 4 has increased the graphical fidelity of the game significantly, and thats led to an absolute visual feast for me as Ive arrived at my favourite part of writing the newsletter. If youd like to submit a screenshot for a future edition of the newsletter, then the easiest way is to submit to the screenshots channel on our Discord where theyre easily seen by the team. F9 enters screenshot mode by default.

A wasp mantidfly perches on a pitcher from Idle309

All pile on the dragonfly from NapoleonBonaparte_the1st

The great skimmer escapes from BrickyGraph631 For the final three, we have to give a special shout-out to Metaxypod, a Discord regular and long-time contributor of art in screenshot form. An exceptional eye for framing and colour makes these screenies stand out from the crowd.

A bombardier beetle sprays fire ants with boiling liquid

Fire ants collect caterpillars

The Throne of Froge

[ 2022-08-12 13:25:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fire Ant Update OUT NOW!!

Here's a moment we've been waiting for as long as you have - we're burning with joy to be releasing the fire ant update to everyone! Let's keep this introduction short, because I'm certain you want to dive right into that lovely swamp as soon as you can. Here are the full patch notes for the update.

Patch Notes - The Fire Ant Update

The Fire Ants Invade!

Fire ants are nothing if not adaptable to new challenges. These swamplands that young queens, fresh from their nuptial flight, have landed in are not in their native range. The changing, often-flooded environment will test their flexibility to the limit.

A whole new formicarium tier, featuring 2 new documentary scenarios:
- 4.1 Cold Blood: a newly-settled fire ant queen must deal with the threat of the amphibians & other denizens of the green swamp
- 4.2 A Bridge Too Far: use the fire ants abilities to traverse water and reach all the resources you can, whilst an ominous shadow looms overhead

New focal ant species: fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) which come in two soldier variants:
- Pervasive fire ants will respawn for free after a while
- Vigorous fire ants will have a buff to their stats for a time after spawning
- The tiles of both variants can support 2 ants at a time at level 3

Fire ants introduce several new ant skills:
- Bridge building: fire ants can build floating pontoons over water to reach resources previously unplundered, but beware of changing water levels!
- Aphid relocation: relocate yellow aphids from distant milkweed plants and bring them closer to home for a reliable source of honeydew, but other colonies may not like that!
- Titan climbing: very large new enemies can be climbed for extra damage!

New auxiliary ant species:
- Big-headed ants (Pheidole morrisii) have an ancient genetic variant waiting to be awoken
- Little black ants (Monomorium minimum) use a chemical threat display called gaster flagging

New swamp environment
A menagerie of new swamp-dwelling critters with unique stats & abilities
New voice acting from the narrator & scientists
New music for our dynamic conductor system

Formicarium Challenge 4 Awaits!

Once youve completed the documentary scenarios and are back in the formicarium with your rewards, the fire ant soldiers will make a fine addition to your collection. Add them to your formicarium to help you with the challenges ahead! They have 4 formicarium upgrade options:

Surefooted: gains extra attack damage when mounted on an enemy
Evasive: gains a small chance to take no damage from a hit
Last Stand: at zero health, will survive for a short time longer with reduced attack speed
Last Laugh: upon death, the fire ant will deal high damage to its closest enemy if in range

After youve completed your upgrades and stocked up your resources, the scientist has an idea - and hell take the opportunity to put it into action. As always, Formicarium Challenge 4 will be a climactic test of your colonys prowess and your own skills as a player, so be prepared.

Other Changes

Buried creatures (! & ? icons underground) will now display on the minimap
Additions to the minimap & more consistent minimap pings
Woodworm & woodlice will now appear as food on the minimap
Escape key will now close the in-game menu
Made Formicarium Challenge 3 a little easier on Hard & Insane
Holding Insert & PageUp keys now rotates the camera view 90 left & right respectively
Added a quick build / upgrade tool which detects nearby tile type to use, thumb mouse button by default
Delete tool can now be used on tiles where building has not yet started
Added an entirely new set of icons for the Formica ereptor adaptations menu
Added a check for progress file corruption on game startup. If detected progress file is wiped and a new one made
Added victory & defeat images for Beetle Rise Up! & the Hungry Spider levels
Power-scaled creatures will have a star next to their health overlay displaying their scale level (currently only used in freeplay and some extra levels)
Creatures will now correctly display the status effect they are currently experiencing
Renamed worker "evasive" ability to "nimble" to avoid confusion with fire ants
Formicarium level setup rewards on gateway levels now appear as zero before difficulty select
Clicking an active underground minimap tab will now take you there from the surface
The Promised Land demo level reinstated
Moving buried creatures will now throb on the minimap
Dead harvestable creatures in the Battle Arena will now not sink for 2 seconds
Credits updated

Fixes & Optimisations

Colony rehousing will now give the correct jelly amount for level 3 tiles (previously it was counting level 3 tiles as level 2)
Fixed an issue where wood ants could get stuck in a deployment animation when a line-of-sight check was failing
Huge improvement to render times for all 2D overlays (upgrades, health, food, etc)
Numerous optimisations to swarming, pathfinding & movement
Numerous optimisations to rendering for many individual assets
Fixed an issue in Battle Arena where some ant levels werent working
Fix for a rare pheromone marker crash
Fixed a rounding error causing incorrect number of creatures to spawn in battle arena
Fixed an issue where creatures dying mid-air had their food collection point far from their corpse
Fixed an issue causing underground tile highlighting to stick on some tiles
Connecting bridge in the interlocking formicariums will now load correctly

Localisation

Updated, fixed and changed many interface & game narration lines in existing localisations
Various menus & UI elements adjusted to allow for translations that were the wrong size for them
Font changes for CJK languages
Added 7 new officially-supported localisations. These are:
- Czech / etina
- Spanish / Espaol
- French / Franais
- Korean /
- Japanese /
- Dutch / Nederlands
- Polish / Polski

Known Issues

Extra level Extremis is currently crashing on launch (caught this one too late to re-package the project in time; will be fixed for the next patch)

[ 2022-07-27 17:04:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fire Ant Update Coming 6 PM UK Time Tomorrow: 'How To Play', Launch Livestream

Just a very short post to confirm that the launch of the fire ant update won't be occurring at midnight but at 6 pm UK time tomorrow, or approximately 23 hours after this is posted. Converted to some other times this comes out as: 1 pm: US East Coast 10 am: US West Coast 7 pm: Most of Europe 3 am on the 28th: Most of Australia A quick search engine query should let you convert your own local time from the team's 6pm BST (British Summer Time). Today we posted a quick tutorial video that should help you quickly get up to speed with some of the major new mechanics introduced with this update. It doesn't spoil anything that hasn't already been revealed, but if you're trying to keep entirely unspoiled you'll probably want to skip this one. [previewyoutube=jqd791hvD-M;full][/previewyoutube] Roughly an hour before we launch the game, some of the team are going to do a livestream on YouTube going over some of the new mechanics, changes, and other such things. A quick breather before we push the button! Join us over there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jTm53w8fHk

[ 2022-07-26 17:36:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Summer Sale Developer Stream

Hey Just a quick post to allow streams to appear on the store page during the summer sale and to celebrate the release of the fire ant trailer: [previewyoutube=-JW8rmLDta0;full][/previewyoutube] Cheers! Dan

[ 2022-06-24 16:14:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fire Ant Update Coming July 27th - Trailer

We are delighted to announce that the fire ant update is coming on July 27th 2022! Grab an eyeful of the updated trailer that shows off the new environment and (some of) the new enemies that come along with it. [previewyoutube=-JW8rmLDta0;full][/previewyoutube] A whole new formicarium tier awaits - guide a young fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) queen and her first brood as she invades an unfamiliar swamp environment in two full new story missions. The swamp is swimming with amphibians that are not adverse to a spicy snack! As well as having by far the most critters weve added in a single update, the 4th tier includes a long-awaited class of enemy: titans. Titans are huge creatures - big enough, in fact, to be climbed. They do not represent an existential threat since theyre too big to invade the nest, but they must be dealt with in other ways and are a challenging obstacle to be overcome. Fire ants themselves have a unique ability, outside of their incessant stinging - by linking their bodies together, they can form floating pontoons that can cross water, reaching resources previously unplundered. This is a skill that will come in exceptionally handy in the regularly-flooded green swamp. They come in two very different soldier varieties - pervasive and vigorous. If you choose pervasive, they will spawn for free after the egg has been on the tile for a time. This can be a crucial advantage when food is scarce. Alternatively, vigorous fire ants will have a significant buff to stats for a time after birth. This opens up the potential for aggressive expansion, but beware of pushing too far too fast. At level 3, both variants will be able to spawn 2 ants from each tile. Once youve conquered the swamp, return to the formicarium where the scientist is far from done with you yet - what dastardly design has he decided is due to your Formica ereptor colony? Finally, welcome to new people who are finding us through the Steam Summer Sale! We hope you find our little ant game worth your attention, and if youre considering giving it a go youve joined us at a very good time. Well see you on July 27th for the invasion of the fire ants!

[ 2022-06-23 17:57:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

March 2022 Newsletter

This will be a shorter-than-usual newsletter, just catching up with the last of the things weve posted on our social media before the fire ant update. Were rounding the corner to the home stretch on that front now, and whilst were not quite ready to announce a date (that will come out of the blue one day with a trailer) we are at a point where we dont want to spoil anything else, as we still want there to be plenty of surprises for when the update drops. Well go over a few things that have been previously announced all of the things shown in this newsletter are from the 4.x missions.

Environment Showcase

Our environments for the fire ant update are near complete, and we put together this short video to highlight some of the artwork by our dedicated environment artist, Dan C. Level 4.1 will be called Cold Blood, and this is the arena in which it is set. The swampland has poor soil so many of the plants here have evolved to be carnivorous. [previewyoutube=2sA5i-qur_A;full][/previewyoutube]

Venus Flytrap in Action

One such carnivorous plant is the iconic Venus flytrap. The leaves are tipped with traps that exude nectar, attracting ants and flies. Trigger hairs on the inside of the trap cause it to snap shut when touched, effectively turning the traps into stomachs which then digest the prey. The flytrap will act as an area denial obstacle ants will climb it but will inevitably trigger the traps, before re-opening after a cooldown. [previewyoutube=7UUlc1KyT68;full][/previewyoutube]

Caterpillars & Sweetbay Magnolia

Caterpillars have recently hatched on this young sweetbay magnolia sapling. Such an infestation may well be fatal, but help is at hand the resident fire ants are very glad of the extra protein. Caterpillar-spawning plants will provide a rich food source for your fire ants, as long as you can survive the competition required to keep the supply lines open. [previewyoutube=ANBua0V29xA;full][/previewyoutube]

Milkweed & Aphids

Milkweed plants are often homes to sap-sucking aphids. The aphids excrete a sweet substance called honeydew, which fire ants find irresistable. The ants will care for their aphid flocks, protecting them from predators, jealously guarding them from competing colonies and even moving them to safer locations.

A fire ant tending to aphids on a milkweed

A milkweed stripped of aphids

Screenshot Central

Lets close out this shorter-than-usual newsletter with the traditional Screenshot Central post! The easiest way to get these to us is to post on the #screenshots channel of our Discord I usually have a look through it once a week or so for great snaps for social media and the newsletters.

A whip spider glows in the moonlight from realpumadog

rmy ants have defeated an uber mole cricket in this shot from Anthony Gaming

A ladybird beetle flies off from SamThePro

[ 2022-03-31 21:26:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

0.2331 Released - Controller Support, New Language Localisations

The main feature this time is full support for gamepads (Steam Deck, XBox One and PlayStation 4 controllers are all officially supported). If you prefer to play with a gamepad or would like to try it out, now is the time! We are also adding six new languages localisations (we are not updating our store page to say we officially support these yet; they should be considered to be in beta for now). The languages are Czech, French, Japanese, Korean, Dutch & Polish. Theres also some fixes and changes, detailed below, including a fix for Mac so Mac users should be able to play Hibernation now! We have also moved the game files to an encrypted form, so the download is likely to be larger than a regular patch since Steam wont recognise the encrypted files.

Headline Features

Gamepad support added
- All standard gamepad buttons now have functions which can be viewed from the options menu
- When using a gamepad, key bindings show gamepad glyphs
- Several notifications have been added or replaced to explain gamepad support when using them
- The Hungry Spider can now be properly controlled with a gamepad
- XBox One, PlayStation 4 and Steam Deck gamepads can be selected from the options menu to display the correct glyphs
- When using Big Picture mode on Steam, or the Steam Deck the on-screen keyboard will display when needed
Several new localisation languages added for testing (Czech, French, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish)

Other Fixes & Changes

Mac build is now updated to include the Hibernation extra level
Fixed a memory leak in creature despawning
Fixed some minor pathing bugs
Several areas in the game with small text have had their text size increased
Fixed an issue where the mouse pointer would not change until moved in some circumstances
Fixed an issue where brood chamber hover information would come up overground after having it come up underground
Fixed an issue where ants could get stuck on the overground nest exit
Fixed an issue where sometimes level setups could drop off the screen at the bottom
Minimap pings will now display more consistently
Fixed an issue where dragging the mouse during a cutscene could cause tiles to tag for digging
Fixed an issue where tiles would be left highlighted when tabbing to surface
Fixed an issue where dead creatures could sometimes be carried off to the side of the carrying ant
Fixed an issue where the mouse cursor would change when hovering over an enemy nest but not change back when moving off it
Added in quick build / upgrade key binding (default to thumb mouse button 1). Hold to automatically select the upgrade or build tool most suitable for where your cursor is

[ 2022-03-01 15:48:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

January 2022 Newsletter

Welcome to the year of the fire ant! For those of you wondering how were doing with the 4th / fire ant tier, weve recently gotten the last of the dialogue and voice acting into the game, and sent things off to translators for localisation. Keep an eye on our social media for further public narrowing of our release window. As always we wont give a date until were certain we can hit it. The marketing team have indeed been working on the trailer as the art team completes the detailing on the levels, and were positively itching to show it all off to you but we have to be patient too.
The Year of the Fire Ant is upon us! Lets talk about a few things that have come up over the last couple of months, including the exciting return of a creature long thought lost to the sands of time the velvet worm.

The Velvet Worm

Velvet worms were cut from the 3rd tier for time, since they used what was at the time a unique animation system for its trailing behind, which was not finished. Since two 4th tier creatures use this (the eastern newt and the dwarf salamander), weve been finishing and refining that system and we feel that once weve done with the 4th tier it would be a shame not to bring the velvet worm back into the fold. [previewyoutube=1NfAstddE5Y;full][/previewyoutube] Widespread in tropical South America, velvet worms are voracious, soft-bodied hunters with a special weapon they use to incapacitate their prey. When hunting, they use two specialised slime glands that are either side of the mouth, trapping the target in a sticky web of mucilage. This makes catching and consuming it significantly easier. In nature, it can also use this slime defensively, wriggling free of potential predators.

Two sizes of velvet worm Like many of the games creatures, the velvet worm comes in different sizes, from a juvenile to an adult of 7cm in length, which makes it one of the Undergrowths larger denizens. Well be reintroducing the velvet worm to the 3.x levels at some point, as well as giving it an appearance in an upcoming extra level called Adventure. Both of these are likely to happen post-4th tier, since right now our focus is to get that complete and out to everyone.

Pitcher Plants

Our environment artist Dan C continues to produce amazing swamp-related items for us, and one of his latest creations is the pitcher plant the second carnivorous plant of the 4th tier. This swamp-dwelling flora has specialised leaves that grow into a jug shape, which it fills with digestive enzymes. The rim of the plant is slippery, making it a treacherous surface for insects to be scaling.

As pretty as a pitcher The plant attracts victims with enticing scents and sweet nectar and there is a chance that a fire ant may escape with a prize, but the possibility of an unfortunate death is always present and in more ways than one. This pitcher is the favoured lurking spot of the green lynx spider, and its always ready for an easy meal.

Sorry, arachnophobes

The Gaster Flag

One of the peripheral species that will appear in the 4th tier is the little black ant, Monomorium minimum. They will be the smallest ants in the game even the diminutive fire ants will look big besides them! To even the odds, they have a chemical and visual threat known as gaster flagging which will cause a debuff to enemy units caught in it, and they will not use it sparingly. The video below shows them attacking a group of fire ants note the debuff symbols over the fire ant victims heads. [previewyoutube=OaknqwHQlkQ;full][/previewyoutube]

Steam Deck

We were lucky enough to be sent a little present from Valve a couple of weeks ago, a Steam Deck developer kit. Weve been testing all of the games we publish on it, and Empires of the Undergrowth runs exceptionally well without us having to make any modifications to the game when using Valves Proton system (software which allows a Windows program to run natively on a Linux operating system, like SteamOS that the Deck uses). This is a remarkable achievement for a hand-held PC equivalent, and its clear that Valve has made an exceptionally desirable product here. [previewyoutube=NkV87jnMAqE;full][/previewyoutube] There are things were working on to make the experience even better, such as including Valves controller glyphs, having a proper keyboard in the UI and creating an official control scheme. These will eventually get us the coveted Verified tick, but were not sure exactly when that will happen right now. Rest assured, the game works very well right now via Proton, and with some small tweaks and changes coming at some point in the future it will work fantastically. Testing on the Steam Deck has opened us up to some of the shortcomings that the Linux build of the game has, and it is very clear that the best way to play Empires of the Undergrowth on Linux is through Proton as things currently stand. Well talk more about this over the next few weeks.

Freeplay Balance

There has been some discussion on the forums (both the Steam ones and our official ones) about freeplay balance. In truth, freeplay is not in an excellent spot right now, since weve been focussing our attention elsewhere. This problem is likely to be compounded as we add more creatures and mechanics from the campaign into it. There are a few reasons for us waiting to make any major changes to freeplay, and the most obvious one is that weve been working almost exclusively on the 4th tier for some time now (with the odd exception of some extra levels here and there, but development time on them is practically nil compared to the campaign. Another reason is that we will be replacing the existing AI in freeplay with a new bot system that has been developed for use in the remainder of the campaign levels. It is significantly smarter than the current implementation, and can more easily be tweaked to play like a player rather than the more rigidly-behaved colonies in the campaign. We hope that it will be possible to make them competitive without having to cheat well see how we do on that front! The net result of this is that it would be inefficient for us to put much in the way of time into fixing freeplay as things stand, since our focus will switch to a pretty extensive overhaul of it once fire ants are released. This follows our usual development pattern of major release then interim update focusing on freeplay before the next major release. In short, we hope to be able to make freeplay a much more balanced and enjoyable experience, but not until we reach the interim update period between the 4th and 5th (final) tier. Until that point, we are aware that things are not exactly right where they should be.

Hibernation

Thanks to everyone who played our winter-themed extra level Hibernation over the festive season! Itll be sticking around permanently in extra levels, rather than disappearing like the Hungry Spider event levels. It features a unique resource vegetation and heating tiles, which must be stocked before the depths of winter arrive. If you havent seen it yet, check out the trailer below. The level features custom music and voice acting a first for an extra level. [previewyoutube=H2rb-MdPLI8;full][/previewyoutube] I just thought Id clear up a little confusion with this level, since it comes up semi-regularly you must have the specified stored vegetation in your heating tiles at the moment that the mid-winter hits. This is when the narrator says his bleak mid-winter line, and if youre not at the specified level at that point the queen will inevitably freeze. So, thats the targeted time you need to be aiming for!

Screenshot Central

Head on over to our Discord to submit your screenshots, its by far the easiest way when the time comes to write a newsletter Ill choose a few of my favourites to include! Alternatively upload them to Steam Community, or email mike@slugdisco.com. You can get some really nice shots by hitting shift + F9 to unlock the camera! [url=https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/28521019/b764d7bf6ad21d2dbe1a2fdb1b51b0a39cd1d9f0.jpg]

A whip spider lurks over The Crucible from Demoant

Flight of the ladybird by Mako

One last bit of festive cheer from DilphyThatsMe

[ 2022-01-28 18:31:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

0.2325 Patch Notes - Small Patch To Correct Freeplay Issue + Mac Rollback

A minor patch tonight to correct some small issues that have cropped up. This should resolve a recent freeplay crash related to leafcutters and a more long-standing issue causing problems with the "Play More" feature.

Fixed a crash related to changes made to resource collection for Hibernation that inadvertently affected leafcutters in freeplay
Fixed an issue that caused UI problems when selecting "Play More" after completing a level

Also, our apologies to Mac players - there's something that's making Hibernation crash on loading and we've not been able to get to the bottom of that yet. Since the Mac build also had the two issues detailed above, it is preferable to roll back to the previous build for now whilst we investigate further, so we've done that.

[ 2021-12-24 22:09:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hibernation - Our Winter-Themed Extra Level - OUT NOW!

We've recently been working with our voice cast to record all the lines for the remainder of the campaign. We realised that we wouldn't be able to hit our planned release of the 4th tier levels this year (see the most recent newsletter for more on this), but we still wanted to do something extra special to see out 2021. We asked Callum, the narrator, to record some extra voice lines for a special winter-themed extra level. Also, we spent some of our free time creating bespoke music for it. Behold, Hibernation! [previewyoutube=H2rb-MdPLI8;full][/previewyoutube] Many wood ant colonies live in Alpine mountains, where harsh winters close in fast. They have evolved a special way to survive these conditions - collecting vegetation which gives off heat as it decays, saving the near-frozen colony from certain doom. Hibernation has a special new resource and chamber to store it - pine needles are collected from the surface and stored in heating chambers. The nest will be saved from disaster by their decay, and ants walking through them will be able to visit the frozen surface for longer after walking through one. There's also some fixes and changes - here are the full patch notes for this update:

Added Hibernation - guide a wood ant colony to survive the Alpine winter
Fixed an issue where during rehousing the colony the UI would not always fade back in
Whip spider can now be harvested by 8 ants at a time
Slight buff to whip spider and is more likely to use its AOE bleed attack
Whip spider food value dropped to be in line with forthcoming titans
Fixed an issue with D key becoming unmapped
Beetles Rise Up! made easier on Insane and Hard (more beetles!)
The cookie on the Festive Spider level will now pause respawning if fighting a boss that stops the flow of the enemy waves (preventing the boss being held and getting infinite resources to build)
Hungry Spider abilities now cast instantly without a wind-up (wind-up has been moved to the wind-down)

This is likely to be the last time I post news this year, so from all of us at Slug Disco studios, I'd love to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year. As for the promised news before year's end, we've narrowed down our release window a little and our marketing team recently took the rare step of meeting in person (we are a work-from-home studio) to work on a trailer for the fire ants. We'll be releasing that hopefully early in the new year when it's done, and at that point we'll have a firm release date! See you in 2022 for the continuation of our journey into the Undergrowth, together.

[ 2021-12-22 09:00:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Roll-back on today's release

Today, we pre-emptively released a build with the intention of getting ahead of things for the planned release of our winter level on Wednesday. Unfortunately it seems that we missed a glitch when testing - level 2.1 Rising Tide seems to have problems with food spawning in the new patch. For now, we've rolled back these changes so the game is still completable. This shouldn't affect too much since the new level, Hibernation, wasn't due to be fully released until the 22nd anyway. We'll get everything fixed and re-packaged, and reinstate the update when we're ready!

[ 2021-12-20 00:26:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Hungry Spiders is Feeling Festive!

Once again, the Hungry Spider has crawled out of his hole. This time he's in a better mood, having just finished his Christmas shopping and gotten everything wrapped and ready for the little ones. However, envious eyes are looking over his haul - and he'll need to protect it! [previewyoutube=_IPkapEX60c;full][/previewyoutube] The Festive Spider level is here once again for the season. Find it by clicking on the gift that has appeared on the main menu. Whilst you may be familiar with the upgrade system and control scheme from the Hungry Spider level, this game mode is more akin to a tower defense. Like the Hungry Spider level, it is incredibly difficult - very few players have defeated all of the waves and saved Christmas for their spiderlings. Building towers is vital - whether recruiting funnel web spiders to slow enemies and snatch them away, or wood ants to launch acid at them, you'll need to think about tower placement and longevity to be succesful. Placing towers costs life, so you'll need to balance this single resource carefully. A little tip - the spider's abilities are also extremely useful for making sure enemies don't get away with your precious presents. It'd be a good idea to start with the Crippling Venom ability to slow enemies from afar. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!

[ 2021-12-02 12:14:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

November 2021 Newsletter

Welcome to 2021s last newsletter! Well get straight to the point about where were at with the fire ant release plans after this introduction. Weve also got a very special extra level set to come out shortly before the holidays next month so plenty of details on that. Theres a final creature we want to show off, some finished animations and game mechanics for a creature revealed a while back, and some finished artwork for the swamp environment in which the 4th tier will be set, as well as the first of our carnivorous plants.
Trap jaw ants on the march from Kacper on our Discord

4th Tier Release Plans

Those of you who have been following along on our social media and particularly our Discord will probably have gotten the impression over the last few months that we intended to get the fire ant update out before the end of the year. Indeed these were our plans, and obviously shortly before Christmas would have been the ideal time for that but weve realised that we wont be able to hit that goal. As is always the case with game development and ambitious projects, pinning down how long things take is exceedingly tricky. What would appear to be an easy task ends up taking a long time, unexpected complications arise, and priorities change. We are confident enough at this point to say that the update will come in early 2022, but exactly how early is yet to be finalised. Our marketing team will be getting together soon to work on some promotional material, and a short while after this we will have a much better idea of when well be able to give you a date for the long-awaited update. Expect some more firm news on this before the end of the year! We can let you know that weve been working with the voice cast again recently, and its been great hearing new words from devious scientists and sombre narrators again. We took advantage of this fact to have the narrator record some extra voice lines for a new extra level. Which leads us on to:

Extra Level Coming Soon Hibernation

Although we realised we wouldnt be releasing the 4th tier this year, we still wanted to do something a little special to close out 2021. Many of the extra levels are rather fanciful, playing fast and footloose with reality and we get very silly scenarios such as Beetles Rise Up! Not so with Hibernation, which will play out much more like a campaign level and is based on a real-world scenario. In it you play as wood ants living high in alpine mountains where winters are harsh and ants must adapt or die. It will be arriving shortly before Christmas, and itll be the first extra level to have completely new narration and music. Liam has snuck plenty of Yuletide-themed tunes in the new music! Heres a little preview of that: [previewyoutube=R6cSQhYIed8;full][/previewyoutube] To survive and compete against nearby colonies, your wood ants will have to gather not just food, but slow-decomposing vegetation as well. As vegetation is broken down, it releases heat in much the same way a compost heap does. Decaying pine needles will warm nearby creatures in the nest, staving off the harsh cold outside and allowing ants to remain active for longer. Its shaping up to be a really fantastic extra level, and combined with the winter-themed music it should feel suitably seasonal. The ultimate goal is to allow your colony to settle down for the winter, safe with its warm vegetation chambers gently giving off heat, and enter a state of torpor until the spring sun warms the colony again. Its set to be released just in time for all your holiday ant action.

Eastern Newt

The last of the amphibians that will be in the 4th tier update is the eastern newt (Notophthalmus viridescens) more specifically the juvenile version of it, known as the red eft. They are bright orange or red, and have toxic skin any assailant wishing harm upon the newt will have to cope with the potent tetrodotoxin. In-game, this is likely to manifest as them reflecting back some of the damage they receive back at their attacker as venom-type damage. [previewyoutube=c1vGv0glXW8;full][/previewyoutube] They love damp, swampy conditions and your fire ants have made their home nearby. They will be unimpeded by water, and will be able to swim across the surface to reach islands much more easily than the invertebrates.

Swamp Environment

Our small but skilled art team has been working away on the swamp environment for several months now, and were now at a point where we can show off some of the surface! Whilst underground is a teal-tinted world full of roots, slime moulds and other such growths, the surface is green with algae, mosses, leaves and carnivorous plants.

A ramped area in the swamp adorned with dead wood, moss, lichen and algae This damp environment will have changing water levels and a variety of new resource types, such as seed-rich pinecones and nectar-like secretions from the carnivorous plants. A huge variety of creatures live here, making their homes in the unique ecological niches allowed. This includes creatures adapted to hide amongst the traps of the meat-eating flora, such as the green lynx spider.

A wide area with a nest in the background on level 4.1, titled Cold Blood (WIP) Were well into the decoration phase now, with our dedicated environment artist Dan flexing his painting muscles to give the two campaign levels of the fire ant tier their distinctive final look. The rest of the team have been waiting as patiently as the rest of you have to see the results, and we think theyre stunning.

Venus Flytrap

When one thinks about carnivorous plants, the Venus flytrap is what immediately springs to mind. Although there are many kinds of plant adaptations that can extract nutrition from animals, such as pitchers and sticky traps, the iconic, dramatically-spiked leaf traps of the Venus flytrap are the most famous.

Two flourishing flytraps The trap heads themselves are adorned with tiny, barely-visible trigger hairs. If more than one of these hairs is touched in a short enough space of time, the hairs will trigger a relay of chemical and mechanical actions that close the trap, and the struggling of the doomed invertebrate only makes the trap hold on tighter. Eventually, the trap will seal, forming a kind of stomach in which to dissolve the prey. Inevitably the victim is broken down into a liquid by digestive enzymes which is then absorbed by the plant.

A closer view of the leaf traps themselves Despite their name, flying insects make up a very small proportion of the plants diet roughly a third of its prey items are ants. Plants that consume animals do so as an evolutionary adaptation to poor soil quality in their area, lacking in phosphorus and nitrogen.

A closeup of a single trap, showing the tiny trigger hairs The in-game mechanics of the flytrap will involve them exuding a kind of sugary nectar-like food on the traps, which will likely look similar to the honeydew globules that aphids provide. There will be a percentage chance to trigger the traps, killing any ants currently on them. There will be a balancing act to collecting enough of the nectar to make it worthwhile whilst being able to respawn lost ants sustainably.

Materials Breakdown

Related to the environment work detailed above, Dan C was kind enough to provide me with a breakdown of a rocky material used in the fourth tier campaign levels. It shows the amount of detailed layers needed to make surfaces realistically react to light, from the base layer, to displacement mapping (adds runtime detail to geometry), to normal mapping, which is a computationally efficient way to add extra non-geometric detail.

Many layers go into making a realistic material

Red Velvet Ant In Action

We announced the red velvet ant (Dasymutilla occidentalis) a while back, but we thought itd be nice to show some of its movement and in-game mechanics. This creature is in fact not an ant at all, but a kind of wingless wasp. The females crawl on the ground and amongst vegetation, their bright red striping a warning about their excruciating stinging capabilities. They are not colloquially called the cow killer for no reason! At high health, she will use her jaws to bite assailants. Eventually, as she feels more threatened, she will enter a state of panic when her health is reduced below a threshold amount. Her movement will become much faster, and she will switch to using her sting one of the most potent insect stings in existence. The sting will allow her to cut down fire ants much faster as she fights for her life. [previewyoutube=w_RON8mRELc;full][/previewyoutube] She also has an extremely tough exoskeleton, allowing her to take a lot of damage whilst in this frenzied state. Youll have to weigh up the cost of replacing the ants you will inevitably lose before engaging in a tussle with this notorious resident of the green swamp.

EGX 2021

Back in early October developer Liam, product marketing manager Dan and community manager Mike travelled down to London to go to our first live event in over two years EGX 2021 at the ExCeL centre. Our main aim was to get back into the swing of things with live events, and of course to show off the game to new and old players alike!

The three stages of man Dan P, Liam & Mike at our EGX booth It was fantastic to be able to see people playing the game in person after so long (whilst frantically taking mental notes on what needs to be improved, I think we should warn people off freeplay somehow until theyve played the campaign!) and it was wonderful to see people discovering it for the first time. Were hoping to do more live events again going forward if the world allows it.

We exhibited alongside Paul Herv, developer of Adapt

Screenshot Central

Every time I write a newsletter I look forward to this part. If youd like to submit an Empires of the Undergrowth screenshot for consideration in a future newsletter (or the occasional community Screenshot Saturday on Twitter and Facebook) then by far the easiest way to do so is to join our Discord and post in the screenshot channel. To get some nice angles, remember to use photo mode F9 by default. If you hold down shift whilst hitting F9, your camera will be unbound to the surface for added creativity.

An uber whip spider strikes in this shot from Frazzz (check out his YouTube!)

The truth revealed by Atta cephalotes Boi [url=https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/28521019/4ce152bf71486c478dd9cef52971ac582ea56ae1.jpg]

An uber falls from HamAndCheeseSandwich

Years End

With our bimonthly newsletter cycle, that concludes the newsletters for 2021. Its been a challenging year for all of us, for very obvious reasons, and I said the exact same thing last year. In spite of that, we sincerely hope youve had reasons to be thankful and celebrate too. Our friends in the US have just had thanksgiving, and this seems like a good moment to try and remember what were thankful for. We here at Slug Disco are eternally grateful and thankful for the patience, support and kindness youve shown to us, as we continue to shape our vision for EotU and Slug Disco as a whole. We know things take time but theyre worth the wait, and the wait is no longer so long. Look out for more news before the years end, and well see you in 2022 to continue our journey into the Undergrowth. Mike & the Slug Disco Team

[ 2021-11-26 23:25:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Hungry Spider Returns

It's that time of year again. The nights are drawing in, the air is getting colder.... and the Hungry Spider awakens, and finds that he is ravenous. [previewyoutube=L3QtFadJryI;full][/previewyoutube] The Hungry Spider level will be around for the remainder of the spooky season - to access it, click on the cobweb that has mysteriously appeared in the lab. In this level you directly control an endlessly starving wolf spider (although I am of the belief that he has some sort of terrible metabolic issue) as he eats his way around a web-shaped map. To those who haven't played this one before, it is a brutally difficult level and few have achieved victory in it. The uber creatures are the real killer, and you'll have to take them all out to win. Upgrade your abilities as you level up, improving your chances against the monsters. But in the end, of course, the real monster is you.

[ 2021-10-25 07:00:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Beetles Rise Up! New Extra Level Out NOW

Discard the shackles of oppression - in our latest extra level Beetles Rise Up!, you must grow your beetle pack to annihilate your captors. All of your beetles are controlled by a single pheromone marker - simply move near beetles to add them to your pack, bolstering your strength. Kill all enemies and free all beetles to win! Game knowledge from your campaign and freeplay experiences will be helpful; it'll allow you to gauge threats before you take them on. [previewyoutube=F7MWqlfuowU;full][/previewyoutube] Your game client will not need to update to get the new level; it will already be there. This extra level is inspired by Beetle Uprising, a game by our friends at Iocane Games! It's a deeply complex genetics game with real-time tactics and some colony management elements. Check it out here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/662680/Beetle_Uprising/ Notice about the campaign we must post with each new extra level: [quote]For those concerned about extra levels taking up dev time, please know that compared to the campaign content, these missions take practically no time at all to develop - just a few short hours apiece (you can watch us do most of the development for these on stream). Because they all use existing assets, systems and artwork, one of our devs can create an extra level very fast indeed. We're still charging full steam ahead with the fire ant update - we just thought there's plenty of you who would appreciate something new to play in the meantime.[/quote]

[ 2021-10-01 06:09:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

September 2021 Newsletter

At this stage in the development cycle for the rest of Empires of the Undergrowth, were very close to having all of the creatures for the 4th tier complete (as well as a sizable chunk of the 5th tier ones). Our environment artist is working hard on perfecting the aesthetic of the Green Swamp, as the art team populates it with appropriate (and sometimes dangerous) flora.
An infestation of harvestmen from TheRealStormCZE on our Discord Were ready to show off some of the underground look that the fire ants and their enemies will inhabit, as well as focusing on something that has, until now, evaded the Undergrowth entirely vertebrates! The fire ant levels will feature a number of backbone owners, and weve been dying to show them off to you. Well also talk about the events weve been part of recently.

Swamp Environment

We showed off some early work on the underground look for the 4th tier last time, but weve now completed it, so lets revisit! The fire ant levels are set in the Green Swamp, a nature preserve in North Carolina. Fire ants are not native to this area, but considering their invasiveness this is not an issue. We chose the green swamp specifically for its lush plant life, specifically the Venus fly trap (which were not quite ready to show just yet) and the wide variety of game-appropriate species inhabiting it.

The eerie glow of the underground A few months back we hired Dan C, who has taken to the role of environment artist with great enthusiasm. His vision for the Green Swamp was of an eerie, teal-lit underground, reminiscent of a glow worm cave.

Fire ant workers come to clear the nest entrance Inspired by various slime moulds that grow in damp conditions, hes created this wonderful aesthetic which is quite different to anything thats come before it, and adds some nice contrast to the bold redness of the fire ants themselves.

The slime mould-inspired lamps and growths are generated for us by the engine as we work Next time around were likely to have plenty to show for the surface too! We tend to show things off on Saturdays as part of Twitters Screenshot Saturday weekly hashtag, so remember to follow us on our socials to see stuff as soon as we post it.

Amphibians

The amphibians (the class Amphibia) are one of the five major classes of vertebrates. Theyre widespread around the globe, and modern amphibians all exist in three orders the frogs (Anura, 90% of amphibians), the salamanders (Urodela) and the caecilians (Apoda). Were representing frogs and salamanders in Empires of the Undergrowth. Coming into making this game, we were all beginners at nearly all aspects of game development. As weve continued the project all of us on the team have improved in the areas weve worked at. When we started all this, the idea of including the more complex considerations that go along with vertebrates (musculature, skin, more complex movements, etc) didnt seem like something we wanted to touch on but thats all changed. Lets talk about some of the 4th tiers amphibians.

Pine Woods Tree Frog

The pine woods tree frog (Hyla femoralis) is a small frog that favours dark, damp conditions making them ideal swamp dwellers. Despite their name, they are often found on the ground as well as in trees! They inflate their throats to make a distinctive, fast croaking sound (sound effects are a work in progress), especially at dusk. Theyre fond of an insect supper, and ants are certainly on the menu. [previewyoutube=ASaJ1X2mFJc;full][/previewyoutube]

Narrow-mouthed toad

The narrow-mouthed toad (Gastrophryne carolinensis) is native to much of the United States. Its diet consists primarily of ants a trait that will make it one of your bitter enemies when the fire ant update comes for Empires of the Undergrowth, despite its cuteness! It is not technically a toad, but is colloquially called one because it is mostly terrestrial. [previewyoutube=2VtvPg-akQ8;full][/previewyoutube]

Dwarf Salamander

The dwarf salamander (Eurycea quadridigitata) represents the Urodela order, one of the three modern orders that make up the amphibians. It prefers swampy conditions and spends much of its time burrowed in the leaf litter. Its serpentine movements will be based on older code that was never finished for the cut velvet worm from the 3rd tier. This system allows it to bend its flexible spine as it travels, trailing its long body after it. Theres still some tweaks and adjustments to be made to the animation systems of this creature, but its far enough along to show you the main points. [previewyoutube=vi00cJ6lTog;full][/previewyoutube]

American Bullfrog

So on to the biggest of them all! The American bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus) is widely spread around the world due to human introduction, but their native range is the eastern United States. Large, noisy and usually very hungry, bullfrogs are not fussy in their diet. In fact, generally speaking, the diet of the bullfrog consists of whatever will fit inside the bullfrog.

A bullfrog attacks a spicy snack (bombardier beetle) Like the other frogs, the bullfrog is able to use its long tongue to grab and eat enemies at a considerable distance. As a titan, it can be climbed upon by swarming ants, dealing extra damage to vulnerable spots on its body. We wont post any videos of this titan-class creature until closer to release. Its on course to be the largest actual creature that will be in the game, if you dont count the scientist (we dont).

Events

With much of the world getting closer to some semblence of normalcy, events are starting to happen and weve been fortunate enough to join a number of these remotely over the past couple of months. Our first in-person event in nearly 2 years will be EGX 2021 in London, starting on Thursday 7th October (next month at time of writing)!

EGX 2021

Three of us from the Slug Disco team (developer Liam, marketing content creator Dan and community manager Mike) will be joining our friend Paul Herve where well have two booths at EGX, one showing Empires of the Undergrowth (a great opportunity to talk to us about the fire ant update!) and the other showing Pauls awesome upcoming creature evolution game Adapt (more on this collaboration coming in the future). Well be in the EGX Rezzed Zone for all 4 days of the event (Thursday 7th October Sunday 10th); come and find us if youre in the area. Were quite friendly.

The last time they let us out in public EGX 2019 along with Ecosystem & Beetle Uprising

Indie Arena Booth

The most outright fun event we were virtually part of this year was the Indie Arena Booth as part of GamesCom 2021. The Summercamp of Doom event was presented in a top-down RPG format where you gained XP by interacting with NPCs, and unlocked badges by talking to the denizens of virtual booths. It was a ton of fun and certainly a unique way to present things! The demo we developed for this event included a fire ant demo level The Promised Land, which has disappeared for now but thanks to everyone who played it whilst it was there. Fire ants will be back with tier 4!

Our virtual booth in the Summercamp of Doom!

Big Indie Pitch

The Big Indie Pitch runs regular competitions for indie developers in a variety of categories. We entered a while back, and to our astonishment won first place in their Digital Big Indie Pitch (PC+Console Edition) #9! Liam was interviewed afterwards, so if youd like to hear a little of his perspective on how the games industry has treated us read through that article. Liam stresses that a combination of sheer optimism, belief in our product and a generous smattering of luck got us to where we are now. I feel he leaves out a lot of hard work over a long time! Thanks so very much to Steel Media Ltd. for running this fantastic event. Well be making good use of that promotion package!

We won!

BitSummit

Lastly but by no means leastly, we had a physical booth at this years BitSummit, which is Japans longest-running indie games festival. We couldnt be there in person due to the pandemic, but it was fantastic to know our game was being exhibited on the other side of the world! Japanese is one of the additional languages we intend to translate the game into for full release.

Our booth at BitSummit. One day, well be there in person!

Screenshot Central

Something a little different for Screenshot Central this time the three shots Ive chosen all come from one player. Frazzz is a YouTuber and long-time coverer of Empires of the Undergrowth, and he recently played the aforementioned The Promised Land on his channel whilst it was an event. Thanks to him for sending in these excellent fire ant snaps hes really got an eye for them. We look forward to lots more Empires content from him! Usually I take these screenshots either from our Discord or from the Steam community uploads; those are the easiest way for me to see them if youd like to have your screenshot selected for a future newsletter.

A fire ant hatches [url=https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/28521019/e4ca3c6ecf6ed3d339cfbaae7330759005470891.jpg]

Fire ants link their bodies to create a short bridge to a nearby island

The queen is attacked by a group of bombardier beetles the end is nigh

[ 2021-09-13 02:47:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Gamescom 2021 Fire Ant Demo Level Available Now! - 0.2313 Release

We love events, but for obvious reasons we've so rarely been able to attend them recently. Enter the Gamescom 2021 Indie Arena Booth, an online event that is running from 25th-29th August! We have a booth in the virtual world, which you can visit with your 2D avatar. There's an NPC representation of the scientist there to answer some questions, and of course we'll be there ourselves too! To celebrate this, from the moment of this post there is a limited-time demo level available. For the first time we're letting fire ants loose for a preview before their appearance in the upcoming 4th tier levels! In The Promised Land, you'll need to use the fire ant's bridge building skills to acquire resources from neighbouring islands, before building as long a bridge as you can to reach the aforementioned land that was promised on the right side of the map. Simply place a pheromone marker on an island you wish to reach, and your fire ants will use their bodies to make a floating bridge for their sisters to use. Beware of falling water levels stranding them - ants that get cut off from the colony will panic and quickly die. Also, keep an eye on the bombardier beetle population - they'll attack your colony together with their near-boiling liquid spray. The Promised Land will be available until August 29th, when Gamescom ends. Full patch notes below:

Features

Fire ant demo level The Promised Land available between 23rd and 29th of August (accessible through a pop-up in main menu) whilst Gamescom is running
Vulkan can now be used in Windows (add -vulkan to launch options)

Improvements / Changes

Improved walk cycles across game (creatures should now longer look like they are sliding when slowed)
Enemy underground tabs will now stretch to the full available size above the minimap rather than just taking a set size (this allows up to 6 colonies on a map, needed for future levels)
Creatures slow resist will now also resist attack slows

Fixes

Really slow creatures wiggle left and right less
Fixed an issue with creatures killed during pickup getting stuck in the creatures jaws
Disabled colony section of the colony setup tab in freeplay setup (due to a bug that could cause it to be inconsistent with the basic setup tab)
Fixed a bug that could sometimes cause ants to spin on the spot for a short amount of time
Reward tooltips will no longer display if the mouse is hovered over the invisible reward area on levels without rewards

The Promised Land

Your Solenopsis invicta fire ants are trying to reach a bountiful area of the jungle. Build floating bridges to nearby islands by placing a pheromone marker on it, when water allows. New objectives will appear as you complete the existing ones. Beware the bombardier beetles!

[ 2021-08-23 15:38:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Culling - Out Now! New Black Ant Extra Level

Time for the last of the extra levels we put out in beta earlier this year to be released - it's The Culling! In this black ant level, packs of enemies will slowly swell in number during the daytime. If you allow them to grow too large, they will overwhelm your colony when they attack en masse at night. [previewyoutube=R2CZO5CteR8;full][/previewyoutube] The trick is to keep their numbers in check by regular culling - every slain enemy will reduce the intensity of the nighttime onslaught. There are aphid farms to keep you supplied with food, but they'll need defending from ladybird beetles that can strip them bare. Also, beware the tiger beetle larvae lying in wait! The Culling represents the last of the four extra levels we had scheduled to release, but we're not done with extra content yet! We've got an exciting announcement regarding a special demo level due to coincide with our appearance at the Gamescom Indie Arena Booth which is open online from August 25th - 29th. And yes, it will feature fire ants. More on that when we're ready to update! Also, we might have managed to sneak in one more non-Gamescom related extra level whilst we were at it. Notice about the campaign we must post with each new extra level: [quote]For those concerned about extra levels taking up dev time, please know that compared to the campaign content, these missions take practically no time at all to develop - just a few short hours apiece (you can watch us do most of the development for these on stream). Because they all use existing assets, systems and artwork, one of our devs can create an extra level very fast indeed. We're still charging full steam ahead with the fire ant update - we just thought there's plenty of you who would appreciate something new to play in the meantime.[/quote]

[ 2021-08-16 00:16:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

July 2021 Newsletter

Its been an important last couple of months for Empires of the Undergrowth, and those of us at Slug Disco Studios! Work continues apace on the fire ant update, and were not too far away from having all of the 4th tier creatures complete and ready for placement in the levels. Weve also decided that now is the time to expand our dev team, and weve brought in a fantastic new artist to work on our environments Ill introduce you to Dan (yes, this is the 2nd time in the past year weve hired someone called Dan) a little later in the newsletter.
A whip spider observes a trail of Atta cephalotes from Crazlex9 on our Discord Last time, the creature feature was all about beetles. Were (almost) moving away from insects for our newly-finished critters this time, into the world of spiders! We apologise in advance to any arachnophobes who already find looking at them difficult. Theres also a beetle larva to show that wasnt ready in time for the last newsletter.

Spiders

Spiders elicit fascination in us as much as they instil dread. What is it about the form of the spider that makes them so intimidating to us, despite very few of them posing any real threat at all? Perhaps its the unpredictable stop-start movements they make. Maybe its that theyre all business at one end, many eyes and fangs staring right back at us. Or is it that, despite our intelligence, deep down we know that nature perfected functional physical form long before our ancestors could sharpen a stick? Whatever the reason, today we have three spiders to introduce that will battle your fire ants in the 4th tier levels!

Green Lynx Spider

The green lynx spider (Peucetia viridans) lurks in foliage, using its pigmentation as camouflage. It is an active hunter, seeking out prey rather than building webs, in a similar way to wolf spiders. It can also defensively spit venom a long distance a very rare adaptation, and we felt this trait made it ideal for our game.

A green lynx spider confronts fire ants Like all three of the spiders being introduced in this newsletter, it is what is known as a true spider, being a member of the order Araneae. This is in contrast to, for example, the whip spiders of the 3rd tier, which are arachnids but not true spiders.

Lurking in the leaves

Magnolia Green Jumper

The magnolia green jumper (Lyssomanes viridis) hunts using excellent eyesight & powerful back legs that allow it to jump many times its body length. It will be the 2nd jumping spider in the game, after Psecas viridipurpureus from the 3rd tier.

Cute but cunning a magnolia green jumper Jumping spiders are highly intelligent, even curious in nature, carefully observing targets before making the decision to pounce at the opportune moment. They represent the largest group of Aranae (true spiders).

Im not sure I like those odds

Six-Spotted Fishing Spider

The six-spotted fishing spider (Dolomedes triton) is a large semi-aquatic spider native to North America. It lurks near the bank, exploiting a hydrophobic (water-repelling) coating on its skin, surface tension and air bubbles to stay afloat. It can lie in wait (float in wait?) patiently for many hours for a suitable prey item to drift or swim to within striking distance.

They swim now?!? Its prey includes insects (both aquatic and ones that have fallen into the water) and small fish. It is capable of fully submerging itself for a time, breathing from a pocket of air it takes with it. Air bubbles that get trapped on its body mean that as long as it is not submerged for too long, it will emerge completely dry.

Ready to strike keep your distance, ants! The fishing spider will be the optional challenge creature for the 4th tier levels this means it is likely to not be in the game with the initial release of the fire ant levels, but added in after in an interim update between the 4th and 5th tiers (following the pattern for the 2nd and 3rd tier challenges).

False Bombardier Beetle Larva

And to finish off our creature reveals for this newsletter, lets leave the world of arachnids and return to a beetle weve talked about before, but this time in larval form. Like many ground beetles, the larval form of the false bombardier beetle (Galerita bicolor) is as voracious a predator as the adult.

Born ready for battle Theres an interesting difference between the larval form of the false bombardier and the true bombardier (Brachinus alternans). Although the false bombardier mimics the true bombardier in its pigmentation and shape, its larvae are much more fearsome than that of the true bombardier. Like devils coach horse larvae, they are born ready for combat, and are more than capable of tussling with fire ants on their home turf.

Our New Environment Artist

A couple of months back we recruited a new member of the Slug Disco team working alongside Matt on environments for upcoming levels of Empires of the Undergrowth (and perhaps adding his touch to existing ones) is artist Dan Coates. I asked him if he wouldnt mind introducing himself as a team member, so here he is in his own words: [quote]My name is Dan (Dan.C/Dan 2) and Im the new Environment Artist here at Slug Disco! This means Ill be working on some seriously cool level art for EotU and any future projects (spoilers). If you want to get in touch Im over on the Slug Disco Discord, you can also find me on Artstation where Ill be posting how the assets for EotU were made, as well as some personal projects! And if youre interested in seeing what an Environment Artist with an irrational fear of spiders looks like, make sure to tune in when we stream EotU! Keep an eye out for future screenshots and environment updates, I cant wait to share with you what weve been working on! Thanks guys, Dan.C[/quote]

Swamp Underground Environment

The most pressing concern for our new environment artist is of course the look of the Green Swamp, the nature reserve in North Carolina in which the fire ant levels are set. So far Dan has nearly completed work on the underground look for the levels, deciding on a teal glow to contrast the red of the critters themselves.

The new underground look. Fungus is a placeholder from the leafcutters; itll be replaced Its early days yet and theres lots more to come, but check out the general aesthetic that Dan is going for in these in-engine shots. One really big advantage of joining a small team is that you can have a quite sizeable influence on a project, and were looking forward to seeing Dan really get his creative teeth sunk into Empires of the Undergrowth.

Bathed in the teal glow of the swamp

Size Comparison

Ive found it to be a lot of fun to do size comparisons like this every so often, to give people some perspective of what to expect when new content arrives. The fire ant levels will feature our first official titan-class creature the great blue skimmer so here it is in comparison to some of the other new arrivals coming with the 4th tier. [previewyoutube=AlS0f3dB1jc;full][/previewyoutube] Heres one which is more thematic, given the spiders feel that this newsletter has! It should give you a clear idea of how our new green lynx spider compares to the big boys. The huge whip spider still reigns supreme in terms of sheer bulk, but the lynx gives the juvenile form a run for its money!

You have no idea how hard it was to get them to keep still

Deep Dive: AI

A couple of weeks back, Dan P (our marketing content creator) and Liam (dev) sat down to have a deep discussion about the colony AI systems in EotU, and the incoming changes that will be happening to them along with the 4th tier. Liam has been working on a much more flexible, modular AI system for the game, which will be used in all of the remaining campaign levels to varying degrees and will eventually find itself transplanted into freeplay, allowing for much more sensible decision making by the AI colonies in that game mode. Take a look at the vid if youve got a spare hour! [previewyoutube=K_FNnDNe1Dw;full][/previewyoutube] Whilst its often very appropriate to have more heavily scripted AI colonies, as in 2.2 or to a lesser extent in 3.1, the more generalised approach feels like its been worth the effort for us. Such a tweak-able system will be extremely useful for any future content we create, from potential post-release additions to future extra levels.

Screenshot Central

Think yourself pretty handy with the photo mode tools (F9 by default)? Im always glad to see them sent my way. By far the easiest way these days is to join our Discord; friendly nature-loving gamers guaranteed! We have dedicated screenshot categories for all three of our games. Alternatively, you can email your snaps in (mike@slugdisco.com). Lets have a look at this months selection!

Angry army ants attack an uber mole cricket from SheevPalpatineee

An uber jumping spider from TheRealStormCZE

Tip: hold shift whilst entering photo mode for a free camera, like in this shot from GamingAnt13

[ 2021-07-18 19:12:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Enemy of my Enemy - New Extra Level - Out Now!

There's a new extra level for Empires of the Undergrowth - and this one is rather unique. In Enemy of my Enemy, packs of enemies are hostile to each other - the trick is to get them to take each other out before they reach your queen. It's a short game mode, with lots of different solutions - the puzzle of how to unlock the packs gets more complex at higher difficulties. [previewyoutube=n-yIbi4rACc;full][/previewyoutube] Digging is instantaneous and done with the mouse, and marker placement is not allowed - instead, your queen is protected by a number of strong Royal Guard ants that will always stay near her. They're your last line of defense against the enemy packs, but of course you should be aiming to set them on each other and wipe each other out before they get close! A bit of trial and error is expected, but the average run of Enemy of my Enemy only lasts 10-15 minutes. Perhaps in the future we'll run a speedrun competition for this level; its short form factor would suit it! The mission will be in your Extra Levels menu now - your client will not need to be updated. Notice about the campaign we must post with each new extra level: [quote]For those concerned about extra levels taking up dev time, please know that compared to the campaign content, these missions take practically no time at all to develop - just a few short hours apiece (you can watch us do most of the development for these on stream). Because they all use existing assets, systems and artwork, one of our devs can create an extra level very fast indeed. We're still charging full steam ahead with the fire ant update - we just thought there's plenty of you who would appreciate something new to play in the meantime.[/quote]

[ 2021-07-01 07:39:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Cramped - New Extra Level - Out Now!

Cramped is a new extra level for Empires of the Undergrowth, and it's out right now! This leafcutter level is very tight on space - with a tiny underground nest and many enemies that must be slain, only a superior knowledge of the game systems will allow for victory. Find the level now in the "Extra Levels" section of the menu. [previewyoutube=klayhKhH5nk;full][/previewyoutube] Your game client will not need to be updated to play; the level will already be in the list. Thanks to everyone who helped test and balance this level when it was in beta. Notice about the campaign we must post with each new extra level: [quote]For those concerned about extra levels taking up dev time, please know that compared to the campaign content, these missions take practically no time at all to develop - just a few short hours apiece (you can watch John do most of the development for these on stream). Because they all use existing assets, systems and artwork, one of our devs can create an extra level very fast indeed. We're still charging full steam ahead with the fire ant update - we just thought there's plenty of you who would appreciate something new to play in the meantime.[/quote]

[ 2021-05-16 23:20:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

May 2021 Newsletter

Good lord, its May already. This newsletter will spotlight some more enemies coming for the fire ant update, with a particular focus on natures favoured form the beetle. We also have some talk about new AI systems that weve been working on over the past few weeks, which will be used in the last of the campaign levels and eventually in freeplay too!
A classically red Formica ereptor queen from GlitchyGamer Weve still got quite a few critters to show off as we complete work on them, as well as a few we dont want to spoil until we get very close to release time.

4th Tier Creatures Beetles

Ah, beetles. They are the most diverse group of insects, and arguably of all animals. They appear throughout human culture and history, in art and science they exist just about everywhere that we do. Naturally, we need more beetles in Empires of the Undergrowth (but perhaps not so many as to cause an uprising) so we have a few more joining our various tiger beetles and rove beetles in the upcoming fourth tier.

Bombardier Beetle

Bombardiers are a kind of well-armoured ground beetle. There are several species this one is called Brachinus alternans. They get their name from the distinctive popping sound they make when threatened, and a closer look at the cause of this sound reveals a defensive system that can be deadly if you happen to be small and in its way.

A bombardier beetle faces off against fire ants By mixing various chemicals and enzymes together in a special internal chamber, the beetle produces a violently exothermic reaction. The resultant mixture reaches close to the boiling point of water and is expelled by the rapid rise in pressure through an opening pointed at the beetles enemy.

Near-boiling liquid is explosively fired at the beetles enemies If youre a large vertebrate predator, this irritant is likely to be enough to put you off having a bombardier beetle for dinner. If youre the size of an insect, however, the momentary boiling temperature of this liquid can easily be fatal. With the large area of effect this defensive spray has, itd be wise to consider carefully whether the bombardier beetle is worth the inevitable casualties.

False Bombardier Beetle

Mimicry is seen everywhere in the animal kingdom creatures evolve to look like more dangerous ones, which gives them a deceptive advantage. The false bombardier beetle (Galerita bicolor) has evolved to look almost identical to its namesake, with some minor differences in colouration and morphology.

An impostor among us a false bombardier beetle looking sus This helps it avoid predation, but the false bombardier beetle is not without defences its significantly larger than the true bombardier, has the same chitinous armour, and uses muscle action to spray a solution that is mainly made of a familiar substance formic acid.

Size comparison to the false bombardier (left) and the true bombardier Whilst not as deadly as the boiling liquid that is explosively fired by the true bombardier, formic acid will still do considerable damage to small creatures. Its the same acid used by the ranged wood ants of the 2nd tier, and itll have a similar in-game consequences an area of effect venom-type attack.

Checkered Beetle

Cleridae the checkered beetles are distributed worldwide. This particular species is called Enoclerus rosmarus, and its a common sight in North America. Theyre active hunters, and their preferred habitats are moist and sunny qualities which will bring them into conflict with your fire ants.

A checkered beetle minding its own business

Checkered Beetle Larva

Checkered beetle larvae are also hunters, which in Empires of the Undergrowth will give them a similar role to rove beetle larvae in previous levels. Theyre more vulnerable in this state, before they develop the chitinous armour they have as adults but theyre still a force to be reckoned with.

Checkered beetle larva fights fire ants

AI Scanning

At the moment, the various AI colonies we have in the game are either heavily scripted (as in 2.2) or reliant on preset points of interest which they use to decide where to send their forces (3.1, freeplay). This makes them relatively robust but doesnt allow them to make very complex decisions on a changing battlefield. Liam has been working on a scanning solution that will let colonies periodically scan the surface for interesting things, giving them the ability to make much more relevant choices. [previewyoutube=yVcObGD57rc;full][/previewyoutube] Green squares represent areas of interest the AI scan has found These will be used on all of the remaining campaign levels, all of which will feature AI colonies in some form. Eventually, we hope to transplant this feature to freeplay to after fire ants, we are likely to do another big round of freeplay changes to bring that game mode closer to its release form. [previewyoutube=RAbjCkBHAjc;full][/previewyoutube] Two colonies scan for points of interest on one another light orange is the real scan, the maroon is a skipped scan where it decided to use saved data from a scan not so long ago in the same place

Community Wiki

Im sure many of you are familiar with the fan wikis that crop up; fandom.com is one of the more prominent ones. Weve been slightly bemused by these and not entirely sure what to make of them up until very recently, they were simply placeholders with very little in the way of articles. However, thanks to some dedicated community members, the Empires of the Undergrowth fandom.com wiki has had some big content additions over the past couple of months. Particular thanks to thanhmk28 on our forums for putting a lot of time into the fandom wiki, and writing / formatting a majority of the articles so far. On it youll see creature stats and abilities (taken from a version of the spreadsheets that the game uses that we host on our website) that might well be useful for people looking for a more solid idea of what various creatures strengths and weaknesses are until we implement a way to see these in the game.

The EotU Fandom Wiki Theres even a dedicated spoiler page for the upcoming 4th tier update, which details all of the new stuff weve revealed in Screenshot Saturdays and these newsletters. This wiki is open to further contributors, so if youd like to help thanhmk28 out with writing some new articles then by all means do! Our community continuously proves itself to be one of the best there is, and we couldnt be more thankful for that. For final release, there will be plenty of information accessible in-game with our own encyclopedia system. Even after thats implemented, there will always be a place for community-driven wikis like these theyre definitely an appropriate place to post guides, creative strategies and suchlike that wont be in the game itself.

Ecosystem Updates

A couple of months ago, Tom Johnson released his evolution simulation game Ecosystem into early access on Steam. Slug Disco are the publishers for it, and its been a joy to see how its been received and how community feedback is already shaping the direction Tom has decided to push things. About once fortnightly, Tom has been sharing his progress and direction with us and weve been posting these as articles on the games Steam page. Hes now at a point where he can share the path hes chosen for Ecosystems first major update, which will focus on graphs and analytical tools so the player can see plant, predator and prey relationships in much greater detail than before.

The graphs and analytical tools coming soon to Ecosystem Ecosystem continues to progress rapidly as a project and if you have an interest in speculative evolutionary biology, serene aquatic environments, or even just producing abominations such as human-like fish then we heartily recommend giving Ecosystem a spin. It has a demo which shows a lot of the basic features, but the full thing is gearing up to be something altogether more special.

Screenshot Central

Seriously, I feel like this section is just for me every time I write a newsletter, I look forward to the bit where I have a browse through some recent screenshots posted to our Discord or uploaded to the community, and select three of my favourites. If youd like to participate, by far the easiest way to get your screenshot to us these days is Discord. You can also email them directly to mike@slugdisco.com.

A pleasing formicarium from BrickyGraph631

Trapjaws under attack from a hidden jumping spider from Rarity

A close call in extra level Excavators from Crazlex9

[ 2021-05-10 06:55:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Occupation - New Extra Level - Out Now!

Occupation - a new extra level for Empires of the Undergrowth - is out now! In this level not unlike the campaign mission New Home, you control wood ants (with mortars) with the simple mission to kill all nearby creatures. Beware - your occupation of this prime nesting location will not go uncontested. [previewyoutube=P091qp-8f_Y;full][/previewyoutube] Although the level is definitely the most straightforward of the four that will be releasing over the next few months, that doesn't mean it's a walk in the park - it has a particularly tricky start, and you'll need to use your knowledge of the game systems to walk away from a very tricky early encounter with your queen still living. You can find the mission in Extra Levels right now - your game will not need to update first; as long as you're on version 0.23 it'll be there. It's worth reiterating at this point that compared to the campaign content, these missions take practically no time at all to develop - just a few short hours of dev time apiece (you can watch John do most of the development for these on stream). Because they all use existing assets, systems and artwork, one of our devs can create an extra level very fast indeed. We're still charging full steam ahead with the fire ant update - we just thought there's plenty of you who would appreciate something new to play in the meantime.

[ 2021-04-02 09:00:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

V0.23 REINSTATED - Issues Fixed with Localisation

A localisation issue that didn't come up in testing meant we had to roll back yesterday. This has now been rectified, and so version 0.23 has been reinstated. Other than that, all the patch notes from the 0.23 post apply. Thanks for your patience on this everyone, and thanks to the players who reported the issues they were having!

[ 2021-03-26 13:34:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

EMERGENCY ROLLBACK - Returning Temporarily to 0.22112

Hi all, Due to some Mac and localisation issues that didn't come up during testing we're going to have to do an emergency rollback from 0.23 to the previous version, 0.22112. This should only be temporary but it's vital since those groups are having major issues to do with saves and language defaults. We'll work fast to get everything sorted, re-packaged and re-uploaded. In the meantime this shouldn't affect much since there isn't any new content scheduled to come out until April 2nd - but we appreciate your patience on the matter!

[ 2021-03-25 11:29:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Empires of the Undergrowth 0.23 Out Now - Engine Upgrade, Planned Extra Levels

Apart from 4 new levels set to roll out over the next few months (thank you to everyone whos been helping test and balance them) the main bulk of this update is under-the-hood changes. To deal with a persistent problem experienced by a number of laptop users, weve accelerated plans to upgrade the game engine by several versions. Were always reluctant to do this since it invariably breaks lots of things, and most of the time over the past month has been spent dealing with the fallout. Once again, thank you to everyone whos helped us iron out those wrinkles. Particular thanks to Scyobi_Empire who helped us diagnose the initial laptop issue. Theres also a new menu for the extra levels, which will give a description of them and a preview of their minimap, as well as an estimate of how long theyll take to complete and any reward associated with them.

Features

Extra levels now come with a description and minimap preview when selecting them from the menu
New extra levels added to be rolled out every 6 weeks starting on April 2nd
- Occupation - a wood ant level not unlike the campaign level New Home
- Cramped - a heavily infested leafcutter level with a surface, kill all enemies!
- Enemy of my Enemy - a unique game where digging is instant and done with the mouse; packs of enemies are hostile to each other. Get them to kill each other before they kill the queen!
- The Culling - a black ant level with interesting enemy spawning mechanics

Fixes

The game will no longer crash on startup when using specific Intel graphics chips
Fixed an issue where non-aggressive buried enemies were heading to the queen when dug out
Fixed an issue where after a freeplay save one of the enemy colonies would become un-enterable
Fixed an issue where ubers were linked to the wrong freeplay setup check boxes
Fixed a pathing issue on The Crucible demo map
Fixed a crash that could occur at low frame rates
Fixed an issue in 2.1 where night creatures could get stuck in the tunnel exit
Fixed an issue where creatures on top of tunnel exits could get stuck
Fixed an issue on 2.1 where first night creatures to spawn would immediately despawn (there are now more creatures at night)
Night creatures in 2.1 will now be more attracted to combat
Fixed an issue with an ant getting stuck in 2.2 on a specific ramp
Enemy woodworm dug out at start of 3.1 are now friendly again and hence the narrator makes sense
Fixed an issue where the uber mole cricket would freeze instead of doing its thump attack
Creatures will no longer decelerate when they spot and item of food or an enemy (movement should look smoother when going to gather food)
Minor cosmetic painting issue fixed on 3.1
Fixed an issue where the scientist was not coaxing your ants out when you retreated underground in formicarium challenge 3
Fixed an issue where loaded food items underground could count as enemies being in your nest (this could cause a computer ally in freeplay to never stop protecting you)
Fixed an issue where the scientists finger jab would aim at dead ants
Changed victory animation on 3.1 and 3.2 so they correctly come out of the tunnel exit
Minor cosmetic fixes to 2.2 (water edges and painting issues)
Dug out a tile that should have been in the leafcutter demo level (on top of the tunnel exit)
Fixed some potential issues with bots
Freeplay AI enemy colonies will now leave an enemys nest faster after the queen is dead
Fixed an issue with freeplay AI colonies that caused them to sometimes place a marker off the map resulting in the associated ants breaking
Fixed various minor issues with Freeplay AI colonies
Fixed a minor issue where leafcutters could rarely teleport to a plant to climb

Changes

Upgraded to Unreal Engine 4.24 (up from 4.20)
Minor optimisations in plant climbing
Changes to how AI colonies in freeplay decide which resources to harvest from
Cheating freeplay colonies can now resurrect more than one dead group at a time if they have no resources and their ants in groups are all dead
Minor bot optimisations
Minor tweak to the way trails work
Improved checks added to food pickup meaning food should go ignored less

Known Issues on Linux

We have become aware that some Linux users are experiencing graphical problems with this version. In our tests these have only been minor but some may be having more serious issues. As a first step we would suggest ensuring you have the latest distribution of your particular OS (with an approved graphics driver), but if there's still no joy please let us know your distribution version and system specs, and we can put some time into properly troubleshooting the issue. It's possible that forcing use of the Vulkan API might fix some Linux graphical problems you're having. You'll need to add the -vulkan command line argument as a launch option. Thanks to DiloDog_ on Steam for the screenshot used in the artwork for this post!

[ 2021-03-24 20:31:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta 0.23 - Final Fixes for Engine Upgrade

We're likely to run this beta just overnight and get it out onto the main branch some time tomorrow, as long as no huge problems are discovered! Whilst it doesn't have much in the way of new features, v0.23 is a significant patch because we've upgraded the engine that Empires of the Undergrowth runs on (Unreal Engine 4), and we've spent a significant amount of time fixing problems that arise from that. So, just to reiterate - no major new features since the last optional beta, but there have been plenty of changes going on under the hood. This beta is available on all platforms. It will also remove the four extra levels, with the first of them (Occupation) being due for full release on April 2nd. If you'd like to join the beta just for the evening, the beta key is givemeextraextra. If you don't know how to join a beta, here's how to do it: [quote] [olist]

Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"

Choose the "Betas" tab

In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter givemeextraextra

After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu

Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch [/olist][/quote]

Patch Notes

Fixed randomised caverns in Freeplay
Fixed Chinese and Russian languages
Minor tweak to the way trails work
Fixed a minor issue where leafcutters could rarely teleport to a plant to climb
New extra levels removed from list & scheduled for release in future - set your system clock forward a few months to unlock them all if you'd like to continue beta testing them (at your own risk)
The Culling balance changes
- Slightly increased food dropped from creatures in hard and insane
- Slightly reduced creature spawn rate on insane
- Added an extra ramp to the south

Thanks to LilRenn on our Discord for the screenshot used in this post!

[ 2021-03-22 15:13:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

March 2021 Newsletter

Weve got another few Empires of the Undergrowth critters and some size comparisons from the upcoming fire ant update to show you in this edition of the newsletter. Weve also done an engine upgrade which has had us banging our heads against our keyboards for the past few weeks! Those of you who have been having issues on certain laptops, whilst a small number, will be pleased to know that the next update will fix this problem in a roundabout way. At the time of writing this patch (0.23) was coming towards the end of optional beta testing. See this thread for more detailed discussion of the issue.
A wood ant queen surveys her dinner from Steam user roobyRoss Well also be talking about the imminent release of Slug Discos foray into publishing, Ecosystem! Were not the developers of this game by Tom Johnson but are publishing it under our banner, and are of course hopping up and down on the spot in anticipation of playing the early access version after months of playing the demo.

Ecosystem Early Access March 16th

We first spoke about Ecosystem shortly after we brought Ecosystem on board as the first Slug Disco publishing-only project (we are not developing it), back in September of 2019. Tom Johnson is an accomplished developer and we were impressed with his ingenious ocean evolutionary sim based on real-world science. Were very pleased to announce that the game is ready to hit early access on March 16th! Please check out the launch trailer below and read on further to find out about this genuinely brilliant simulation game. [previewyoutube=diOH8eEhHtk;full][/previewyoutube] Set in an ocean world of your devising, the first task in Ecosystem is to design your marine environment using an array of terrain generation and decoration tools. Your world can look decidedly familiar at one extreme and positively alien at the other. A variety of plants, rocks and decorations can be used to enhance the look of your Ecosystem. Plants and corals have a direct affect on how your creatures will evolve they form the basis of the food chain on which all evolving animals ultimately depend. You can unlock new plants and corals as you progress. Ecosystem is a technical marvel and its been a joy to see how far the game has come. Its a remarkably satisfying experience to know your creatures are evolving in a true sense, using neurons that learn how to apply torque at the joints to push against the water, without any pre-ordained animation. The game will be available on Steam from Tuesday 16th March add it to your wish lists right now, and give the demo a spin if youre not convinced! Now, back to our regular programming!

Tier 4 Creatures

The Big-Headed Ant

Another species that will be tussling with fire ants in Empire of the Undergrowths 4th tier is the big-headed ant (Pheidole morrisii). Like many species, it has minor and major castes, but it also has a category of major often called supersoldier in scientific literature. This beast has a huge head and a wicked pair of pincers. The head powers huge bite force much like a leafcutter major, but in a much more awkwardly-proportioned form.

Pheidole morrisii about to drop the hottest album of 2021 The head is very big in comparison to the body (hence the name), so although the bite is formidable the supersoldiers do tend to be a little on the clumsy side! This is likely to translate in-game as the supersoldiers being very tough, but also having the unfortunate tendency to stumble and fall every so often simply due to the disproportionate size of their heads. The big-headed ant joins the little black ant (Monomorium minimum, see the previous newsletter for more details about them) as another peripheral species that will appear in the fire ant levels opposing them, but theyre not the focus of the update. Unlike the peripheral species of the leafcutter update (trap-jaw and army ants), both of these species are ideal candidates for inclusion in freeplay as their own distinct colonies, as they have suitable nesting and foraging behaviours. As always with unreleased in-development things, this is subject to change.

The Cow Killer

The cow killer, or red velvet ant (Dasymutilla occidentalis) is not an ant at all but is a kind of wingless wasp. In nature, the males fly to find mates but the females spend most of their lives looking remarkably ant-like as they busy themselves foraging. Seeing her resemblance to a queen ant but with distinct furry red patches, its quite easy to see how ants and wasps are closely-related in the insect kingdom both being members of the order Hymenoptera.

She doesnt actually kill cows, but her sting would certainly put one out of action for a while Red velvet ants are usually non-confrontational and will avoid conflict if they can, but if threatened the sting is so potent that the species gets its common nickname of cow killer. Her exoskeleton is remarkably tough for an insect it has been reported that entomologists have difficulty using metal pins to pierce it for display mounting! Her stats and abilities are related to the tough exoskeleton, reluctance to fight and exceptionally painful sting. Shes likely to be very tough for her size, and to only start using the stinger at low health, perhaps also sometimes fleeing with a speed boost. Overall the cow killer is a tough and deadly addition to the swamplands of North Carolina.

The Wasp Mantidfly

The wasp mantidfly (Climaciella brunnea) is neither a wasp nor a mantid the wasp-like pigmentation is mimicry to fool predators, and the mantis-like arms are an excellent example of convergent evolution, where similar solutions to a problem evolve in unrelated species.

Hello there! Voracious hunters of insects, they are more than willing to tussle with fire ants for a quick snack. They grab their prey very much like a praying mantis does using those uncanny front arms. They then fly off to devour it in peace. Expect to see them lurking among the flora of North Carolina waiting for your colony to stray too close!

Size Comparison Great Blue Skimmer

Titans huge creatures with unique behaviours that differentiate them from the regular denizens of the undergrowth will be coming to the game along with the fire ant update.

She's a beauty! We detailed the first confirmed titan, the great blue skimmer (Libellula vibrans) in the previous newsletter. Check out its animations to see it in action! What is difficult to see from these stills and video is just how big this dragonfly is. In the above picture, weve put it next to a very familiar ant type the Formica ereptor ant as well as the upcoming fire ants, who the skimmer will battle. You can see just how much of an absolute unit she is.

Screenshot Central

Always my favourite part of writing these newsletters this time round taken exclusively from our Discords screenshots channel. If you havent already, come along and join our nature-loving community! Friendly ant enthusiasts guaranteed.

Fezes are definitely cool in this shot from PeepsPlays_YT

The Hungry Spider never forgets his top hat. As long as you have arachnophobe mode on. From syrian dugong

The hermit crabs await the arrival of their uber-powered lord from Dr. Spooks

[ 2021-03-14 15:35:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta 0.2223 - Engine Upgrade & Fixes, Fix for Laptop Users

In order to fix a crash that was happening on certain laptops with Intel chips we have had to update the Unreal Engine version Empires of the Undergrowth is built on. Doing so may have some performance improvements but mostly the experience should be the same. Weve done plenty of testing ourselves but a change like this is systemic, so any part of the game could have issues that weve missed. We are running this beta to make sure there are no hidden bugs that cropped up during the engine update, and we appreciate anyone who can spend some time testing any and all aspects of the game for problems. If you would like to join the beta, the code is givemeextraextra. If you dont know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions below: [quote][olist]

Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"

Choose the "Betas" tab

In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter givemeextraextra

After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu

Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch. [/olist][/quote] We highly recommend making a backup of your saved games before you run an optional beta, on the off-chance that some changes cause them to be corrupted. To see where your saves are stored, see the information in this thread on the Steam forums.

Fixes

The game will no longer crash on startup when using specific Intel graphics chips
Fixed a crash that could occur at low frame rates
Fixed an issue with player-controlled spider movement
Fixed an issue in 2.1 where night creatures could get stuck in the tunnel exit
Fixed an issue where creatures on top of tunnel exits could get stuck
Fixed an issue on 2.1 where first night creatures to spawn would immediately despawn (there are now more creatures at night)
Night creatures in 2.1 will now be more attracted to combat
Fixed an issue with an ant getting stuck in 2.2 on a specific ramp
Enemy woodworm dug out at start of 3.1 are now friendly again and hence the narrator makes sense
The Culling is no longer stuck on easy
Fixed an issue where the uber mole cricket would freeze instead of doing its thump attack
Creatures will no longer decelerate when they spot and item of food or an enemy (movement should look smoother when going to gather food)
Minor cosmetic painting issue fixed on 3.1
Fixed an issue where the scientist was not coaxing your ants out when you retreated underground in formicarium challenge 3
Fixed an issue where loaded food items underground could count as enemies being in your nest (this could cause a computer ally in freeplay to never stop protecting you)
Fixed an issue where the scientists finger jab would aim at dead ants
Changed victory animation on 3.1 and 3.2 so they correctly come out of the tunnel exit
Minor cosmetic fixes to 2.2 (water edges and painting issues)
Dug out a tile that should have been in the leafcutter demo level (on top of the tunnel exit)
Fixed some potential issues with bots
Improved checks added to food pickup meaning food should go ignored less
Freeplay AI enemy colonies will now leave an enemys nest faster after the queen is dead
Fixed an issue with freeplay AI colonies that caused them to sometimes place a marker off the map resulting in the associated ants breaking
Fixed various minor issues with Freeplay AI colonies

Features

Extra levels now come with a description and minimap when selecting them from the menu

Updates

Minor bot optimisations

Thanks to syrian dugong on our Discord for the screenshot used in the artwork for this post!

[ 2021-03-05 10:18:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

January 2021 Newsletter

In our first newsletter of the new year, covering news from December 2020 and January 2021, we have some critters from the fourth tier of the formicarium story to talk about (and perhaps a tiny little sneak preview of a story mission), as well as some discussion of some new extra levels that will be coming your way over the next few months. Also, on the company side of things (which we do have to occasionally think about) weve recently launched an updated version of our website, which should make it easier to find information about Slug Disco Studios Ltd. and the games we publish. Thanks to Dan, our recently-hired marketing content creator, for his stellar work on bringing the website into the 2020s!
A screenshot from an upcoming extra level Cramped

4th Tier Creatures

With our artist Matt on a big drive to complete lots of 3D models, textures and animations for the fire ant update, we have a few new creatures to show off to you. Its exciting to be able to see some of the denizens of the swamp ready and in the game! The 4th tier levels take place in a nature preserve known as the Green Swamp in North Carolina, so all of the creatures in the 4th tier levels are either native or invasive to that place in real life. Since were talking about the 4th tier levels, its worth reiterating our policy on release dates. We do not do estimates for big content releases weve done that in the past and since game development is very unpredictable in how long certain tasks will take, weve ended up disappointing people before and end up having to push estimates back further. To that end, we stick to the old development adage of when its done and as soon as we have a date we are 100% sure we can hit, we will be very loud about letting everyone know.

Six-Spotted Tiger Beetle

We announced this critter some time back, but now we have completed artwork to show you. The six-spotted tiger beetle (Cicindela sexguttata) is a common sight in the undergrowth of North America. A fast daytime hunter, its large compound eyes scour the landscape as it also feels for vibrations. It is a voracious hunter of ants, and your Solenopsis invicta are very much on the menu. [url=https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/28521019/91077535e86cc45a6d35f39e87914a05487217fd.jpg]

Cicindela sexguttata, in-game model Cicindela sexguttata will be a little smaller than the other tiger beetle in the game (the beach tiger beetle), but just as deadly. We particularly like the motion that Matt has bestowed him with, just look at that elytra (wing casing) action in this animation showreel! [previewyoutube=UrC6s8TMt8I;full][/previewyoutube]

Great Blue Skimmer Dragonfly

The great blue skimmer (Libellula vibrans) is a large dragonfly native to eastern parts of the United States. It is the first creature that is officially in a new class known in-game as titans. These are invariably large enemies that have special behaviours beyond that of the regular fauna you encounter on your adventures in the undergrowth.

Libellula vibrans, in-game model In the case of the skimmer, it is of course capable of flight and will periodically land, and that is when you can attack it. Titans are always tough to take down and typically represent a large amount of resources if they can be beaten. Its animations are fun we particularly like its overly-dramatic death after attempting take-off! [previewyoutube=9-7F12XSR-E;full][/previewyoutube]

Little Black Ant

The little black ant (Monomorium minimum) is a tiny North American ant species that your fire ants will come up against. Although small (very likely the smallest ants that will ever be in the game), they are fierce and territorial they wave their gaster (hind section) in a technique called flagging, which releases secretions from their poison glands.

The 3 kinds of Monomorium minimum - soldier, queen and worker This intimidating chemical and visual threat display / territory marking is effective enough to see off most competition. The exact details of the gaster flagging are yet to be tested, but its likely to be an area-of-effect ability that will help them make up for their small stature.

Fire Ant Mission Preview

The layouts for the fire ant missions (and even missions beyond that) are completed at this point. With no further context, we thought itd be fun to show you a little in-editor preview of what one of them looks like from above. Remember that the fire ant levels take place in swampy conditions so expect plenty of water to be present in its final form! It looks fairly bland right now as we havent decorated it with the swamp flora just yet were not quite ready to show that off, but you can imagine how itll be with plants such as the Venus flytrap populating its shores.

New Mechanic: Aphid Relocation

Like many ant species, fire ants are resourceful and one of their many sources of food is honeydew that they milk from aphids. Some new aphids will be added to the game these ones will live amongst foliage instead of roots. A modification of the cart system used to let leafcutters climb plants will let other kinds of ant climb plants to harvest from aphids, and indeed move them.

The Unreal Engine 4 blueprint flowchart for the aphid relocation system A new system will be in place that allows the ants to relocate said aphids to suitable plants nearer the nest. This will be a type of command the player gives rather than the ants doing it themselves. Bringing aphids closer to the nest has the obvious advantage of reducing travel time to tend to the flock.

Titan Climbing

Weve spoken before about the ability to climb creatures coming along with the fire ant update. As part of their attack behaviours, ants will be able to climb onto certain large enemy creatures that have been rigged up for mounting. This once again involves using an extended version of the plant cart system, but this time attached to a mobile creature.

Some of the in-editor intricacies of the titan climbing system Not only can the target move, but its also likely trying to eat the ants that are trying to climb onto it. All sorts of problems came up, as you can imagine, from spinning creatures trying to attack ants that had mounted them, to ants jumping off creatures limbs that overhang the edge of the map and culling themselves in the process. A lot of these issues have to be considered to make the effect seamless and sensible! The climbing system will be extended to previous levels eventually, but probably not with the initial release of the fire ants as allowing creatures to be climbed will change the balance of levels. This will particularly affect the levels that have the most large creatures such as 3.1 and 3.2. Were likely to include the community in an update post-fire ants to rebalance levels around this new mechanic.

Upcoming Extra Levels

We have a number of extra levels awaiting release. We occasionally hear from people worried that these extras are taking development time away from the main campaign theres no need to be concerned there. They do not take anywhere near the amount of time that the campaign missions do because they all use existing assets and systems. A simple extra level can go from concept to the balancing phase in just a few short hours. John, who is the predominant creator of extra levels thus far, finds them a convenient thing to stream that doesnt spoil upcoming campaign levels, too.

Leafcutter extra level Cramped lives up to its name! Quite simply, they are a nice productive thing for one of the devs to do if theyre waiting on work from the other two they create some new content for everyone to be getting on with whilst we work on the big updates. They also allow experimentation outside of the comparatively rigid / realistic settings of the campaign levels (Tug of War is a perfect example of this). Below is a description of the four that are being tested and tweaked right now:

Occupation a wood ant level not unlike the campaign level New Home
Cramped a heavily infested leafcutter level with a surface; kill all enemies
The Culling a black ant level with interesting enemy spawning mechanics
Enemy of my Enemy a unique game where digging is instant and done with the mouse; packs of enemies are hostile to each other. Get them to kill each other before they kill the queen!

Extra level The Culling has some unique enemy spawning mechanics At the time of publishing (29th January 2021), these four levels have recently begun undergoing optional community testing on Steam. If youd like to help out, please follow this link and see the instructions there. Once the testing period is complete, they will be properly released a month apart, as with previous extra levels. Were thinking of running a little speed running competition for Enemy of my Enemy in particular!

Fixing Stuff

Quite a lot of time has been spent dealing with old issues, and new ones have cropped up in the meantime. Starting in early January, an issue started to be reported amongst a small subset of players of the game suddenly stopping working altogether, which puzzled us as the game hadnt been updated since before Christmas. Its almost certain that an operating system, driver or proprietary software update is to blame, but getting to the bottom of it has been very tricky. Weve found some commonality in that everyone who has this issue is using laptops with Intel processors, but frustratingly only a small percentage of that demographic is having any problems at all. Due to the kindness of the community (particular thanks to Scyobi_Empire who has uncomplainingly helped us test various things) weve found a workaround that involves upgrading the engine version. This is something we intended to do in the not-too-distant future anyway, but its likely that our priorities have changed because of this issue so that will be happening sooner rather than later. Upgrading the engine will inevitably lead to crashes and plenty of things game-wide that need fixing, so we may be asking for some help testing that in the near future. In other fixing stuff news, there have been some recently-reported resource gathering issues in the currently running beta. Liam spent time trying to get to the bottom of this by making a special scenario where he could quickly test ants trying to reach resources at the bottom of a cliff. The below video is representative of his entire afternoon. [previewyoutube=a1fSWVAqYqg;full][/previewyoutube]

Screenshot Central

Once again, the best part of writing a newsletter has arrived where I trawl through recent screenshots to find the real gems that show off the beauty, chaos, or both of Empires of the Undergrowth. If youd like to contribute a shot to Screenshot Central, either upload your shot to the Steam Community or to the screenshots channel in Discord. By default, press F9 to enter photo mode, and hold down shift whilst you do it to get an unlocked camera and some really neat angles.

Hydra? A quadruple threat of mantids from Dr. Spooks on Discord

Night is no time to halt the harvest from Josselin17 on Discord

A pleasingly-lit shot of beta level Occupation from BrickyGraph631 on Steam

Until Next Time

2020 was a uniquely challenging year for many of us, and 2021 hasnt shown many signs of being much different thus far but its going to be a big year for Empires of the Undergrowth, and indeed Slug Disco as a company. Thank you for being with us throughout, and your gentle patience is as appreciated as your boundless enthusiasm! Youre a uniquely lovely bunch and as community manager I love that a good proportion of my job is interacting with the fantastic group of people that has built up around EotU and our other games. If youre not already more closely involved and would like to be, wed be absolutely delighted to have you in our Discord (where weve recently begun doing pre-releases of the optional betas) and our official forums. We hope to see you there. Mike & The Slug Disco Team

[ 2021-01-29 17:21:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Available Now 0.2222 - Extra Levels for Testing

Its time for an optional beta! This beta has some fixes for long-standing issues and, more excitingly, comes with 4 (!) new extra levels for testing and balance. Extra levels are fast to develop as most of them don't need extensive new systems and artwork; we can make one of these in just a few short hours but testing them for balance is another thing. They need some feedback! We are looking for feedback on balance in the 4 new extra levels. You can leave them on our Discord, Steam forum, or official forums. If youd like to help out, wed be very happy for you to give them a spin now! Youll need to be a Windows 64 bit owner on Steam to join the beta. PLEASE NOTE! Once the testing phase is over and this update goes live on the main branch, the new extra levels will be removed from the list again, and will reappear monthly after that (exact dates to be announced as the time approaches). If you would like to join the beta, the code is givemeextraextra. If you dont know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions below: [quote][olist]

Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"

Choose the "Betas" tab

In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter givemeextraextra

After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu

Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch. [/olist][/quote]

0.2222 Patch Notes

New extra levels added to be rolled out monthly, but available in this beta for testing for a short time:
- Occupation - a wood ant level not unlike the campaign level New Home
- Cramped - a heavily infested leafcutter level with a surface, kill all enemies!
- The Culling - a black ant level with interesting enemy spawning mechanics
- Enemy of my Enemy - a unique game where digging is instant and done with the mouse; packs of enemies are hostile to each other. Get them to kill each other before they kill the queen!
Fixed an issue where non-aggressive buried enemies were heading to the queen when dug out
Fixed an issue where after a freeplay save one of the enemy colonies would become un-enterable
Fixed an issue where ubers were linked to the wrong freeplay setup check boxes
Fixed a pathing issue on The Crucible demo map
Minor optimisations in plant climbing
Changes to how AI colonies in freeplay decide which resources to harvest from
Cheating freeplay colonies can now resurrect more than one dead group at a time if they have no resources and their ants in groups are all dead

[ 2021-01-27 13:01:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

V0.22112 Update Out Now - Freeplay AI Saving, Fixes & Optimisation

Thanks for the people who have helped us identify a crash with the recent short optional beta. This has now been fixed and we're ready to move this patch to the main branch just in time for Christmas. It is now possible to save your freeplay games that include AI colonies! This should make them more viable for long-term games instead of short skirmishes. Freeplay AI should still be considered to be in its early days and there are a multitude of extra things we'd like to do for it (making it cleverer being the main one) but it's likely this is the last feature update for freeplay until after the 4th tier campaign levels (fire ants) are released.

Headline Features

Saving is now available with AI colonies in freeplay
- Please keep an eye out for strange behaviours of the enemy or allied colonies after a save and load in freeplay; it is possible some of their behaviour has not been correctly restored. Please report these on our forums or Discord!

Fixes

Fixed some underground visual tile bugs
Fixed a minor issue with the slave maker button in battle arena
Swarm slave makers now have team colours working properly
Fixed a surface tile painting issue on The Dunes
Removed some specks of dirt that were floating on the open nest entrances in The Dunes
Fixed an issue where AIs that were cheating could only get a free hatch once per game
Fixed issues with the AI colonys visibility of spawned landmarks (should lead to some more sensible landmark harvesting decisions)
Fixed an issue where surface tunnels could switch when a freeplay game was loaded
Fixed an issue where randomised caverns were not loading and saving
Fixed an issue where some creatures could freeze if interrupted during picking up another creature
Creatures eaten by other creatures will no longer drop invisible food
Festive Spider level funnel web kills now count towards your experience
Adjusted web size in Christmas spider level the better represent the area funnel webs can detect enemies
Webs in the Festive Spider level will no longer expand upwards covering the map
Webs stop increasing in size beyond level 9 in the Festive Spider level
Fixed an animation issue to do with wood ants rapid firing
In freeplay uber mole crickets now count towards the hunter victory condition
Can no longer tag and untag another colonys tunnel exit for excavation
Stopped aphids moving when being eaten by a ladybird; should fix floating honeydew

Optimisations

Optimisation added to creature spawning when looking up its class (should speed things up when lots of ants are hatching at once such as the beginning of a freeplay game)

Thanks to whoamijr for the screenshot used in the artwork of this post!

[ 2020-12-23 22:25:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta 0.22111 Available Now - Freeplay AI Saving, Fixes

Weve made big strides towards getting the freeplay AI save-able, and were at the point where we could do with some extra feedback before we declare it good to go. This opt-in beta build adds saving to freeplay games with AI colonies, which should make them much more viable in a long game. If you would like to participate, the beta code is christmasants. You will need to be a 64 bit Windows user to join. If youre unfamiliar with how to activate a Steam beta and would like to, follow the steps below: [quote] [olist]

Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"

Choose the "Betas" tab

In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter christmasants

After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu

Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch. [/olist] [/quote] WARNING - We highly recommend you backup your saves before testing this beta build. This beta is primarily testing saving so this is more important than usual - theres an above-normal chance of save files becoming corrupted. Save files are located at: C:/ Users / [YOUR USER NAME] / AppData / Local / EotU / Saved /SaveGames

Headline Features

Saving is now available with AI colonies in freeplay
- Please keep an eye out for strange behaviours of the enemy or allied colonies after a save and load in freeplay; it is possible some of their behaviour has not been correctly restored. Please report these on our forums or Discord!

Fixes

Fixed some underground visual tile bugs
Fixed a minor issue with the slave maker button in battle arena
Swarm slave makers now have team colours working properly
Fixed a surface tile painting issue on The Dunes
Removed some specks of dirt that were floating on the open nest entrances in The Dunes
Fixed an issue where AIs that were cheating could only get a free hatch once per game
Fixed issues with the AI colonys visibility of spawned landmarks (should lead to some more sensible landmark harvesting decisions)
Fixed an issue where surface tunnels could switch when a freeplay game was loaded
Fixed an issue where randomised caverns were not loading and saving
Fixed an issue where some creatures could freeze if interrupted during picking up another creature
Creatures eaten by other creatures will no longer drop invisible food
Festive Spider level funnel web kills now count towards your experience
Adjusted web size in Christmas spider level the better represent the area funnel webs can detect enemies
Webs in the Festive Spider level will no longer expand upwards covering the map
Webs stop increasing in size beyond level 9 in the Festive Spider level
Fixed an animation issue to do with wood ants rapid firing
In freeplay uber mole crickets now count towards the hunter victory condition
Can no longer tag and untag another colonys tunnel exit for excavation

Optimisations

Optimisation added to creature spawning when looking up its class (should speed things up when lots of ants are hatching at once such as the beginning of a freeplay game)

[ 2020-12-19 00:53:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Festive Spider

Did you think you'd seen the last of the Hungry Spider this year? He's back for Christmas, and his concerns are a little more wholesome this time. He's trying to protect his carefully-wrapped gifts for his spiderlings - but others are regarding his haul with envious eyes. [previewyoutube=_IPkapEX60c;full][/previewyoutube] Festive Spider is controlled similarly to the Hungry Spider level - except this time, you'll need to use a tower defence system to keep the gift-coveting hordes of enemies away! BE WARNED: like its predecessor, Festive Spider is a brutally difficult level and we expect very few will be able to complete it successfully. You'll need multiple runs to get a feel for the level, so set some time aside if you intend to complete it. You'll need to be selective with what spider weapons you use, and how you upgrade them. A small tip for those starting out - those ants taking your gifts are awfully quick. Starting out with Crippling Venom to reliably slow them down will make them much easier to keep in range.

He protec He attac But most importantly He still want snac

[/quote] "Ode to a Hungry Spider", anon, 2020

[ 2020-12-02 09:23:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

November 2020 Newsletter

Welcome to our November 2020 newsletter! The past few months have seen quite a few things happen, both for Empires of the Undergrowth and for us, Slug Disco, as a company. Very importantly, we are taking our first steps into expanding a little, and weve brought Dan on board as our Marketing Content Creator. Well have a little from Dan later on as he introduces himself to you all.
The modular formicariums from Steam user roobyRoss

Tier 4 / Fire Ant Systems

Im sure youll all be keen to see what weve been doing with regards to the fire ant update. Whilst we dont have artwork we want to spoil yet, we can show you a bit more of our systems development as we introduce a new concept for ants - strandings. With changing water levels and multiple small islands on the miniature archipelagos that make up the fire ants swampy environment, the possibility of them getting stranded is now a real threat. [previewyoutube=yAJqFGlJbk8;full][/previewyoutube] Stranded ants are panicky, and will die quickly if not reunited with the colony as a whole. This is thematic with ants being eusocial creatures that cannot survive for long by themselves. If you want to avoid a mass panic and death among your stranded ants, youll need to rescue them! Thankfully, fire ants are adept at using their own bodies to form bridges (as weve shown you previously) and sometimes, you might want to build a bridge not to reach new resources, but to rescue stranded colony members.

Planned Tier 4 Creature: Six-Spotted Tiger Beetle

Ive heard it said that if you lined up one of every kind of creature that exists in the world, one if every four is likely to be a beetle. Naturally, we want to include some more of natures little walking tanks in the undergrowth! The six-spotted tiger beetle Cicindela sexguttata is a common hunter in North America, and these beetles are easily identified by their ferocious-looking mandibles. Expect these daytime predators to be causing trouble for fire ants in the Green Swamp Preserve of North Carolina!

Cicindela sexguttata from Wikipedia. Photo by Marvin Smith. License: CC BY-SA 2.0. Rotated for newsletter Outside of this, large amounts of progress is being made on the levels, script and everything else well need to complete to bring fire ants to the game. With the addition of our new team member freeing up the devs for work on the 4.x levels, we expect to show you a lot of shiny new things very soon. Speaking of which...

Introducing our new Marketing Content Creator

One of the disadvantages of being a small team is that everyone has to be a generalist. The team has, until now, consisted of three developers (who are also the owners and company directors) and a community manager. Marketing responsibility has been shared between everyone, which is far from ideal - no project like this can be successful without a good marketing provision, but the developers want to spend their time developing. Enter Dan, our new marketing person and fifth team member! Hell be taking on the role of producing marketing materials for us as well as exploring other avenues for us to get the word out about Empires of the Undergrowth and our other two games. Ill let Dan introduce himself: [quote] As development continues on Empires of the Undergrowth and with the addition of Beetle Uprising and Ecosystem under the Slug Disco banner it became apparent that another slug needed to join the disco! And I am that latest slug (maybe this slug analogy needs some work). My name is Dan and I have joined the team as a Marketing Content Creator which means, well, I'll be creating content for marketing would you believe! Whether this is liaising with streamers and press to get content created for us - or making the content myself such as videos, digital graphics, the role covers a lot of elements. If you feel like saying hi then why not head on over to the Discord server or our newly revamped Reddit page? You can also find me on Twitter @DanPos_ and if you're interested in 3D modelling or game development I also have a YouTube channel where I post tutorials on those topics. See you in the Undergrowth! Dan"[/quote]

Pheromone Marker Changes - Ant Trails

Weve recently released version 0.22. As well as including some neat new extra levels like Excavators and Tug of War, as well as AI colonies in freeplay, some important changes to game systems have been made. Weve made some changes to the way pheromone trails work, and Liam put together a helpful video explaining whats been changed and why. In short, the updates to the way trails now work will mean more ants will reach the end of a trail faster, and some of the ants will be turned back along the way to form a seamless trail to the queen. [previewyoutube=9BQ2vdb4zGI;full][/previewyoutube] Newer players are sometimes confused as to why the game works like this instead of a more traditional RTS setup (for instance, units in StarCraft II). In short, we want the ants to feel like ants, and for the species that feature prominently in Empires of the Undergrowth that means trails. We can strike a balance between this naturalistic feeling behaviour and with the standardisation of the different methods of putting ants on and off trails, make the whole thing smoother and more responsive.

Using Beetles to Fix Bugs

A few bugs resurfaced since the 0.22 update and weve taken some time out to track these down. Since adding some new resource collection behaviours for fire ants and beyond, some issues with these systems manifested themselves in other parts of the game. Something that has apparently been a long-running problem that wasnt significantly on our radar until recently is that it is still possible for some creatures to get stuck in nest entrances. The reason we hadnt come across it was because it required very low frame rates to occur, and so we had to develop a test that suitably stretched our hardware far beyond its limit. Once we were able to reproduce the stuck creatures, it was quite easy to find the problem. [previewyoutube=xy2FZl0r16E;full][/previewyoutube] Just us testing our hardware to the absolute limit to see if we can get beetles stuck in nest chamber entrances The creatures usually sweep themselves forward when they move, stopping if they hit something, but sometimes it is possible that a creature is already intersecting something when it begins its movement routine and so it cant sweep itself anywhere. In this case the creature will teleport, but theres a problem with that the lower the framerate, the further the teleport and if the teleport is long enough, it can go straight through a wall to the other side (which is what happens with these beetles). Although we foresaw this problem, the routine to protect against it happening had a typo - but thats now been fixed!

Beetle Uprising Launch

The first game published by Slug Disco Studios to fully launch, Beetle Uprising by Iocane Games left early access and entered full release on the 5th of November. We had a fun launch for it, consisting of an informative if unconventional imgur post that talked about why sites like imgur are essential for marketing when youre a small team without a mega-budget for advertising! [previewyoutube=fLwrxRcdAyU;full][/previewyoutube] As well as the completion of the campaign levels, a new feature - Mystery Mode - has been added. This gives random rewards instead of set ones in the campaign, which could lead to some interesting beetle abilities and stats earlier on! We look forward to seeing what you get. Thanks so much to everyone thats helped get the game to this point through feedback and supporting it throughout its early access time.

Screenshot Central

And so we come to the end of an unusually beetle-heavy edition of the newsletter! As always my favourite bit about this job is finding the amazing screenshots our fans produce on a regular basis. As a reminder - you can take a nice artily-angled screenshot using photo mode (F9 by default - and if you hit shift whilst pressing F9 youll get an unlocked camera). Upload your screenshots to the Steam Community page, send them directly to me at mike@slugdisco.com, or how about join us on our Discord and share there!

Charge! A clash of giants as Steam user Alex and Raptors leafcutters take on a devils coach horse and uber spiny devil cricket

A beautiful overview of the jungle at night from Steam user BrickyGraph631

A pleasing shot of leafcutters doing their thing from Steam user Professor Puffer

[ 2020-11-26 22:44:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

You can now nominate Empires of the Undergrowth for a Labor of Love Award!

Hey everyone! Along side the Steam Autumn Sale the Steam Award Nominations are back! We are putting our hat in the [strike]undergrowth[/strike] ring for the Labor of Love award for Empires of the Undergrowth and we would love it if you could vote for the game (and maybe pester your friends to do so too!) We've been working on Empires of the Undergrowth for almost 3 years now and it truly is a labor of love. Along side the updates and the extra levels we've loved seeing our community grow. Whether it's the lovely folks over on our Discord or the players interacting with us on Twitter we couldn't be more thankful :) So no matter the outcome of the awards the team wants to say a massive thank you to you all and we can't wait to continue the journey. Oh and if you missed it - our latest extra level "Tug of War" is now live! [previewyoutube=AjpGA9iLgHE;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2020-11-25 18:00:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Tug Of War - New Extra Level - Out Now!

Not ones to miss a trend, we've made our own auto-battler game mode a good 18 months after it was properly in vogue in the form of Tug of War. [previewyoutube=AjpGA9iLgHE;full][/previewyoutube] In Tug of War, almost all of the macro decision making is taken care of for you - there's no food gathering or egg placement to concern yourself with. Instead, you'll be granted a regular income of food and eggs will be placed automatically. The meat of this game mode is in the choice of army composition - and you have lots of options available to you. You'll get some bonus income if your ants are past the mid-way point of the overworld. Kill the enemy queen to win! Thanks to everyone who's played this game mode in its various beta forms over the past few months - your feedback has informed it to the point where it is now!

[ 2020-11-24 11:58:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

0.22103 Release - Fixes, Changes & Improvements

Thanks for everyone who's tested our short optional beta over the weekend. We're confident that it's good for everyone now, so version 0.22103 is available for everyone from this point. There is one known issue detailed below the patch notes that didn't quite make it into this build on time - expect a fix for that next time round. We are still looking for more information about a known bug where a leafcutter gets stuck on a plant with an exclamation mark appearing above its head. If this happens to you we would appreciate anything you can tell us or show us (screenshots or videos) about how it happened and if the leafcutter was affected by a status effect at the time (for example confuse caused by a devils coach horse).

Fixes

Fixed an issue where food buried underground but not part of a cavern would not be labelled as buried and not seen as an outline
Randomised caverns for leafcutters now produce smaller leaves as so not poke through the surface and are randomly rotated
Placing a marker on an enemy nest exit whilst your ants are in a different enemy nest will now cause your ants to leave the nest they are in
Fixed a bug that allowed you to get a refund for a tile upgrade if cancelled the same frame it was completed (was easier on low FPS computers)
Fixed a couple of painting issues on the surface to do with tunnel exits when they are not tunnelled out
Fixed a crash that could occur in formicarium challenge 3 when the hand moved
Player not selecting a unit option in freeplay will no longer refer to wood ants
Fixed a crash that could occur on low end hardware
Tunnel door now correctly stops ants walking through on The Other Foot
Freeplay maps without a map option now grey out the option in the basic setup
Fixed an issue for Russian language in the main menu text
Fixed an issue that could cause creatures to freeze in an animation until the player looks at them
Fixed a couple of spellings on the freeplay scoreboard
Fixed an issue where creatures could get stuck in the tunnel exit at a low frame rate
Fixed an issue that could rarely cause a creature to get stuck in the air when picked up by a praying mantis
Fixed an issue where the praying mantis could on rare occasions freeze doing nothing
Fixed some visual underground tile bugs
Fixed some UI issues with freeplay setup
Fixed an issue with pathing at the northern end of Basin
Fixed an issue where status effects were not being dealt with correctly in priority order (for example a creature could flee when stunned)
Fixed an issue where turning gathering off whilst an ant was gathering caused it to walk back and forth to the food it was going to gather
Destructible barriers can no longer be knocked back or affected by other effects
Fixed some UI interaction issues with the freeplay setup menu especially when opening a saved setup
Fixed a typo in the Discord tooltip

Changes

Barrier between nests in Basin is no longer destructible if you are not allied with the colony on the other side
Barriers that are destructible in Basin now appear as pieces of wood rather than stone
Simplified some interaction in the freeplay menus that were causing issues to do with creature checkboxes and the creatures type dropdown
Hunter and Domination game modes in freeplay no longer disable colony attacks
The Hungry Spider levels uber beach wolf spider can now take more than 6 damage per hit (should be easier to kill with a bite build now)
Added in notifications explaining how to combat phorid flies in 3.1 and 3.2
The player is now given a warning that they could lose their rewards if they try and restart a level when rewards are waiting for them in the formicarium
Quitting or restarting Extremis now gives the player the reward points they had earned up to that point
Some creatures now cannot be knocked back or forced to flee
Some more improvement to funnel web performance in freeplay
Smoothed some of the landscape at the edge of 2.2 and prevented some tiles poking through the sea bed
Forum link changed to discord and patch notes link updated
Mole cricket (and uber mole cricket) added to the Battle Arena
Couple of icon updates for ant species in Battle Arena
Slave maker ants added to Battle Arena
Uber mole cricket can now be unlocked for freeplay by completing Excavators (should be retroactive)
Dropped creatures will now try and drop where they are held rather than the centre of the holding creature

Known Issues

Currently uber mole crickets do not count towards the Hunter victory condition. A fix for this will be out in the next patch
Some recent changes intended for future updates may cause some unintended weirdness. Although unlikely, please let us know about any unusual behaviours you see

[ 2020-11-18 11:13:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update to Optional Beta 0.22103 - Fixes & Changes

An update to the currently running short optional beta has been released. This will only affect you if you've opted into the beta - if you haven't and would like to, follow the instructions near the top of this link: https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/463530/view/2905346555607593463 Please note that this is a short beta and we are likely to set it to the main branch in short order anyway.

Hunter and Domination game modes in freeplay no longer disable colony attacks
Simplified some interaction in the freeplay menus that were causing issues to do with creature checkboxes and the creatures type dropdown
Fixed a typo in the Discord tooltip
Fixed an issue preventing uber mole crickets spawning in freeplay
Fixed an issue where status effects were not being dealt with correctly in priority order (for example a creature could flee when stunned)
Fixed an issue where turning food gathering off whilst an ant was gathering caused it to walk back and forth to the food it was going to gather
Fixed some UI interaction issues with the freeplay setup menu especially when opening a saved setup

[ 2020-11-16 19:21:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta 0.22102 - Short Beta To Test Changes

We're running a very short optional beta for this one. It's mainly a bug fixing patch, but the fixes potentially have some far reaching implications and we'd like to be sure we haven't missed anything huge. We'd appreciate any feedback on issues you experience in this beta - if you're on Windows 64 bit and would like to participate in this short beta, read on. We are looking for more information about a known bug where a leafcutter gets stuck on a plant with an exclamation mark appearing above its head. If this happens to you we would appreciate anything you can tell us or show us (screenshots or videos) about how it happened and if the leafcutter was affected by a status effect at the time (for example confuse caused by a devils coach horse). Additionally we would appreciate it if you could let us know if anything unusual happens with creatures using their abilities. Any freezing, stuck in animations or changes to how it worked before would help. We made a change to something fairly fundamental to do with abilities which is why we are asking for information around them. The beta code is summertimeants - the same as it has been recently. If youre unfamiliar with how to activate a Steam beta, heres how to do it: [olist]

Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"

Choose the "Betas" tab

In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter summertimeants

After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "openbeta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu

Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch. [/olist]

Fixes

Fixed an issue where food buried underground but not part of a cavern would not be labeled as buried and not seen as an outline
Randomised caverns for leafcutters now produce smaller leaves as so not poke through the surface and are randomly rotated
Placing a marker on an enemy nest exit whilst your ants are in a different enemy nest will now cause your ants to leave the nest they are in
Fixed a bug that allowed you to get a refund for a tile upgrade if canceled the same frame it was completed (was easier on low FPS computers)
Fixed a couple of painting issues on the surface to do with tunnel exits when they are not tunneled out
Fixed a crash that could occur in formicarium challenge 3 when the hand moved
Player not selecting a unit option in freeplay will no longer refer to wood ants
Fixed a crash that could occur on low end hardware
Tunnel door now correctly stops ants walking through on The Other Foot
Freeplay maps without a map option now grey out the option in the basic setup
Fixed an issue for Russian language in the main menu text
Fixed an issue that could cause creatures to freeze in an animation until the player looks at them
Fixed a couple of spellings on the freeplay scoreboard
Fixed an issue where creatures could get stuck in the tunnel exit at a low frame rate
Fixed an issue that could rarely cause a creature to get stuck in the air when picked up by a praying mantis
Fixed an issue where the praying mantis could on rare occasions freeze doing nothing
Fixed some visual underground tile bugs
Fixed some UI issues with freeplay setup
Fixed an issue with pathing at the northern end of Basin
Destructible barriers can no longer be knocked back or affected by other effects

Changes

Barrier between nests in Basin is no longer destructible if you are not allied with the colony on the other side
Barriers that are destructible in Basin now appear as pieces of wood rather than stone
The Hungry Spider levels uber beach wolf spider can now take more than 6 damage per hit (should be easier to kill with a bite build now)
Added in notifications explaining how to combat phorid flies in 3.1 and 3.2
The player is now given a warning that they could lose their rewards if they try and restart a level when rewards are waiting for them in the formicarium
Quitting or restarting Extremis now gives the player the reward points they had earned up to that point
Some creatures now cannot be knocked back or forced to flee
Some more improvement to funnel web performance in freeplay
Smoothed some of the landscape at the edge of 2.2 and prevented some tiles poking through the sea bed
Forum link changed to discord and patch notes link updated
Mole cricket (and uber mole cricket) added to the Battle Arena
Couple of icon updates for ant species in Battle Arena
Slave maker ants added to Battle Arena
Uber mole cricket can now be unlocked for freeplay by completing Excavators (should be retroactive)
Dropped creatures will now try and drop where they are held rather than the centre of the holding creature

[ 2020-11-12 19:30:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

0.22101 Release - Freeplay AI Colonies, New Freeplay Map, New Extra Levels

This update has been bubbling in the cauldron for quite some time, and we think it's finally tender enough for everyone to sink their teeth into. Thank you so much to everyone who has been helping us test this patch for the past couple of months - we've been able to resolve issues much faster than we would have done just by ourselves! We had hope to have full saving for AI colonies ready at this point but that hasn't been possible; that feature is still in the works and will hopefully appear soon. Other than that, we're good to go.

Headline Features

Freeplay Overhaul

AI Colonies are available in freeplay (NOTE: activating these will currently disable freeplay saving)
- They have Easy and Normal difficulty and can cheat (if you set them to) to create a greater challenge
- Up to 3 AI colonies can be added, and can be enemies or allies
  The new freeplay setup screen, showing the AI options
New freeplay map: Basin
- Designed for 2v2 but can be played in any configuration
- Map option adds in destructible barriers to open up new access routes on the map
  Basin in all its lush green glory
New option: randomised caverns allow for a different underground setup every game!
Freeplay game type selection allows quick and easy setups
- Victory conditions, creatures and other options are automatically setup when selecting the game type
- All other options can still be found in the tabs

New Extra Levels

Excavators is now available to all in the extra levels section wait.. did that exclamation mark just move?? [previewyoutube=-rhmL4VfQhs;full][/previewyoutube]
Tug Of War will be available at the end of November, an auto-battler against an AI

Other new features

Finishing The Other Foot extra level will unlock the Counterpart Colony for use in freeplay
More ramps have been added to Towhead to make it easier at the early stages
Rework of pheromone trails. Ants will now leave the nest immediately and some will turn around on their way to form the trail [previewyoutube=9BQ2vdb4zGI;full][/previewyoutube]

Full Patch Notes

Fixes

Fixed an issue where a loaded harvestmans leg could cause the game to crash
Can no longer place markers for nest group underground via minimap
Blocked side routes for the huge whip spider on Aggrandise (preventing your ants pathing through its chamber unintended)
Fixed an issue where switching from evasive worker upgrade would leave the camouflage on
Fixed an issue that could cause first wave to have no creatures in Extremis
Fixed an issue where creatures spawned on lab formicarium 2 after returning from a mission could be stuck slightly in the ground. The friendly spiders will now immediately attack; F in comments for spiderbro :(
Fixed a bug where reloading a freeplay game that has no manual save would cause the map to load in its default setup without workers or queen tiles
Fixed an issue where leafcutters were climbing empty plant leaves
Fixed an issue where the whip spider (and other large enemies) could potentially skip the line-of-sight check if switching targets while an enemy is actually visible (stops whip spider attacking ants above it on the ridge)
Minor improvement to target acquisition efficiency for abilities
Fixed an issue where only 20 refuse was removed when cancelling a build or upgrade job rather than the full amount that was created
Check added to prevent save files read-only crash and appropriate error message given to player
Fixed an issue where resource numbers could appear to float upwards when food drops close to and behind the camera
Fixed an issue on 3.2 where army ant scouts would not move (this may fix other issues as well)
When an ally uses a queen ability it now correctly says an ally used the queen ability instead of enemy
Fixed an issue where the wrong music would play when playing more after 2.1
Fixed a crash that would occur on The Other Foot when creatures got close to bridge edges (after the formicariums are connected)

Balance Changes

Reduced point value of army ant media
Leafcutter ant media buffed
- Attack damage increased to 4.5 / 6 / 7 (up from 3 / 4.5 / 6)
- Health increased to 100 / 115 / 130 (up from 90 / 105 / 120)
- Speed increased to 310 / 320 / 330 (up from 300 / 300 / 300)
- Piercing increased to 0.2 / 0.3 / 0.4 (up from 0.2 / 0.2 / 0.2)
Wood ant melee buffed
- Threat generation increased to 0.2 / 0.25 / 0.3 (up from 0.1 / 0.1 / 0.15)
- Damage increased to 0.6 / 1.2 / 1.8 (up from 0.5 / 1 / 1.5)
- Armour increased 0.2 / 0.4 / 0.6 (up from 0 / 0 / 0)
- Distance values altered so they will get slightly closer to enemies before attacking (should allow other melee units the ability to get closer to the fight)
Health regeneration on many melee units buffed
- Leafcutter major, army ant major and slave maker ants health regen increased to 0.1 / 0.15 / 0.2 (up from 0.1 / 0.1 / 0.1)
- Black ant, wood ant melee and leafcutter media health regeneration increased to 0.1 / 0.2 / 0.3 (up from 0.1 / 0.1 / 0.1)
Rapid fire wood ants will now get in and out of attack mode much more quickly
Reduced mortar arc height

Changes and Improvements

Underground enemy "!" icons are now scaled based on how many points they provide. This should make it easier to gauge threats before attacking
Ramp collision improvements
Marker calculations have been improved (should be more responsive)
Royal Guard are now immune to stun, confuse, pickup and execute
Royal Guard health increased to 200 (up from 120)
Infestation landmark is now defaulted to off
Dropdown boxes in freeplay setup now display tooltips for each individual option when hovered over
Freeplay now has an option to disable colonies entering one another (this turns on by default if playing Domination or Hunter game modes)
Can now select which ubers you wish to spawn in freeplay

Performance

Optimisations for creature movement
Changes to how certain checks are done on the behaviour tree to improve performance
Minor performance improvements on funnel web landmark (still needs more work)
Improved honeydew resource performance
When an egg hatches, the open egg and particle effect will only occur if the player is viewing that tile grid at the time (as will the hatch sound)

[ 2020-10-28 14:01:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta 0.22101 - Fixes, Mac & Linux

Mac & Linux are now included in the beta; we're very close to full release of this content for everyone.

Reloading in freeplay now selects the correct loading screen for the map
Root aphid clusters now spawn closer to the central point of interest in freeplay to prevent them spawning over cliff edges
Fixed an issue where being at the south end of Excavators map would map the world bright
Autosaves are now deleted when a game is deleted fixing an error that could try to load the wrong save into a freeplay level
Killing an uber with a damage over time (DOT) effect will now count the kill towards victory objective Hunter
Uber mole cricket now has 3000 food up from 30

[ 2020-10-27 19:39:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

He Has Returned

"Sticky innards..... glorious feast..... hunger still gnawing.... appetite must be sated!"

- The Hungry Spider, whenever he's awake Tucked away in a dark corner of the world, this wolf spider hungers. His appetite is insatiable, and there lies a feast nearby. The Hungry Spider is back for Halloween. If you've not seen him before, look for something that needs dusting away on the main menu. Be warned - this level is notoriously brutal, and few have accomplished it. If you do, you'll be rewarded an achievement - the rarest of them, of course. [previewyoutube=L3QtFadJryI;full][/previewyoutube] Thanks to Rensy for the screenshot used in the Steam artwork for this post!

[ 2020-10-25 09:18:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Update 0.221 - New Extra Level, Balance & Fixes

This is hopefully the last release in this current beta before we move it to the main branch. Enjoy the new extra level, Excavators, that features spooky crickets lurking in the dark, grouping up to attack you! Were fairly sure thats the first time anyone has ever called crickets spooky, but yknow, tis the season. This will currently only affect you if you're participating in the optional beta. If youre not participating in the beta and would like to, please see the details in this link. Note that the beta is only available to Windows Steam owners.

Extra level Excavators is now available to all wait.. did that exclamation mark just move???
Fixed some minor underground tile graphical bugs
Hungry Spider will no longer draw marker paths on the minimap
Hungry Spider will now path on left click release rather than walk in a strait line to the location (if you hold down left mouse or right click it is still a straight line)
Added in creature and food info toggles to the Hungry Spider levels (Halloween and Christmas)
Tiles no longer highlight when hovered in the Hungry Spider levels
Right clicking minimap is now disabled in hungry spider levels
Creature scaling in freeplay now affects thorns and knock-back at 10% the rate of other stats
Warning about AI colonies disabling save added into freeplay
Thorns now includes a range check to the affected target so thorns cannot be applied from far away
Fixed an issue where dead creatures would not show their food values
Destructible barriers should save their state in Basin (when playing without AI colonies)

[ 2020-10-23 15:29:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Official Discord - Open Now!

It's a bit overdue but due to popular demand we've set up an official Slug Disco Discord - and of course its main section is for Empires of the Undergrowth. If you'd like to talk with friendly, nature loving gamers about Empires of the Undergrowth (or the other two games in Slug Disco's portfolio - Ecosystem and Beetle Uprising) then this is the Discord for you. CLICK HERE for your Discord invite!

[ 2020-10-22 16:04:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hotfix v0.220351 - Crash fix and AI fix

Thanks to everyone who has reported issues, this has allowed us to get to the bottom of them quickly! Some issues remain however the worst ones have been solved.

Fixed a crash that would occur every time a save happened (such as starting a story colony or playing a story mission)
Fixed an issue causing certain landmarks to float on the map Basin
Fixed an issue in Tug Of War where ants were being sent home
Fixed an issue where having map appropriate creatures set on Basin map would not always be rainforest creatures
Fixed an issue where alliance starting points were not functional on map Towhead
Fixed an issue with AI colonies markers sending ants home shortly after they get to surface
Fixed a bug in freeplay setup where a setup is first saved it would not be selected from the menu but would act like it was
New freeplay games with open the setup window with default settings now instead of trying to restore your previous settings (they have been issues with this functionality so it is being disabled until a fix can be found)

[ 2020-10-11 19:55:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta v0.22035 - New Freeplay Map, Marker Changes

Weve updated the currently-running optional beta including a new freeplay map! - this will only affect you if you're participating in said currently-running optional beta, detailed in this post. New Features

New freeplay map - Basin (This map is designed around a 2v2 match)
- If you have a single ally, you will start in the same area and have quick access to each other's nests
- This map also has destructible barriers at the top and bottom of the map which when destroyed open up new routes of attack (make sure the map option is on)
Allied starting locations have been implemented on all freeplay maps (if possible allies in groups of two will be put next to one another)
Towhead has had ramps added near each players nest, reducing both distance to landmarks and chance of being trapped by an enemy

Changes

Markers rework
- Ants will now all immediately leave the nest
- In order to create trails some ant will turn around on their way to the destination and start coming home early
- This video explains the changes: [previewyoutube=9BQ2vdb4zGI;full][/previewyoutube]

Bug Fixes

Fixed a crash that would occur on the other foot level when creatures got close to bridge edges (after the formicariums are connected)

[ 2020-10-10 15:16:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Update 0.22034 - Crash Fixes

Some crash fixes for the optional beta today. This brings the beta version up to 0.22034. This will currently only affect you if you're participating in the optional beta. If youre not participating in the beta and would like to, please see the details in this link. Note that the beta is only available to Windows Steam owners.

Fixed a crash that could occur at multiple places when a creature without AI (such as a queen or a harvestman leg) would reset its behaviour (such as when it is stunned)
Fixed an issue that could occur in freeplay setup when the player does not have a formicarium colony. This would cause the game not to register any colonies being set ,including the players, and would crash when the game started
Some fixes for marker issues introduced in the last patch - keep an eye out for any further issues with markers as there may still be some lingering ones

[ 2020-09-28 12:05:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta 0.22033 Release - Freeplay Menu Overhaul, Features & Fixes

The latest changes to the optional beta have been released. This one includes an extensive overhaul of the freeplay setup menu as well as some extra features in freeplay, like randomised caverns below ground. This will currently only affect you if you're participating in the optional beta. If youre not participating in the beta and would like to, please see the details in this link. Note that the beta is only available to Windows Steam owners.

Headline Features

Freeplay setup menu overhaul
- This new menu allows faster setups of freeplay games with more focus given to other colonies and victory conditions
- All options are still available and have been grouped into tabs
- Games can be set up quickly through the game type dropdown which applies presets to options
Randomised underground caverns in freeplay
- When enabled, underground caverns are generated randomly on game start which hold basic resources and enemies. Resources and dangers can be altered in the game setup
Domination and Hunter victory conditions in freeplay are now team based and are a race to beat the other colonies

Changes

Work has been done on making marker behaviour more predictable (so if you move a marker to your queen or remove it all together it should now have similar effects)
- We are aware of some bugs with the marker changes such as the ants getting stuck at markers that have been removed. We are working to resolve these as fast as possible
Dropdown boxes in freeplay setup now display tooltips for each individual option when hovered if required
Freeplay now has an option to disable colonies entering one another (this turns on by default if playing Domination or Hunter game modes)
Reduced mortar arc height
Can now select which ubers you wish to spawn in freeplay
Easy AI colonies will no longer be more likely to attack the weakest player
AI colonies should be more likely the gather nearby food than far away
Freeplay will not allow the game to launch with Conquest as the victory condition if there are no enemy colonies
Tug of War extra level now allows fighting within the tunnel exit so colonies can no longer sneak past one another

Fixes

Fixed an issue preventing allied colonies defending one another
Fixed an issue where allied colonies would defend one another even after queen death
Fixed an issue where allied colonies would see their own presence in an allied nest as an enemy presence
Fixed an issue where the wrong music would play when playing more after 2_1
Possible fix for rapid fire wood ants strange behaviour when shooting and getting stuck

Performance

Optimisations for creature movement
Changes to how certain checks are done on the behaviour tree to improve performance
Performance improvements on funnel web landmark
Improved honeydew resource performance
When an egg hatches, the open egg and particle effect will only occur if the player is viewing that tile grid at the time (as does the hatch sound)

[ 2020-09-26 20:15:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

July-August 2020 Newsletter

The last couple of months have been focused on some complicated systems for the fire ants as well as some large changes to freeplay, which are currently in an optional beta for Steam Windows users (details below). Whilst complex from a game design point of view, the extensions to the movement systems needed for the fire ants is getting there. We're close to having the fire ant bridge building system the way we like it!
Uber vs Uber in this colourful shot from Steam user Kist7ck Whilst Liam and Matt are dealing with the complexities of fire ant systems, John has been adding some much-requested features to freeplay, most notable amongst them being AI colonies to battle against or with! Although they're in an early form right now, they will be improved on over time. Let's start this newsletter properly with details on the freeplay colonies.

AI Colonies in Freeplay

It's probably the most requested feature for freeplay, and it is now in an optional beta phase - AI colonies are being implemented properly into freeplay. In their early form, their intelligence is fairly basic but is being improved on iteratively with each update. As things stand, the player can choose up to 3 AI colonies to be active in their game, and can put them on different teams as they see fit. The AI has various levels of options to allow it to cheat - this helps level the playing field against human players. Over time, we anticipate most players will reduce the AI cheating level as we get better at making them cleverer.

AI leafcutter clash with AI wood ants in freeplay We've been running the optional beta for the AI colonies for a few weeks now and the feedback has been invaluable. We expect the beta to last for a few weeks longer yet at the time of writing (early September 2020) so if you haven't participated yet and would like to join in then please follow the instructions near the top of this post. You will need to be a Steam Windows 64 bit user to access the beta. Please note that for the time being freeplay saving is disabled in the beta; this is because we're still working on everything needed to fully save the AI's brains. The AI colonies add a lot of fun and replayability to freeplay, even in their first implementation. In the future, there are lots of things we would like to do to expand their functionality. At the moment, the AI uses a pre-built nest plan but there is a system we worked on a while back that could eventually allow AI to design its own underground, regardless of the map layout. Don't expect this system to be active in the near future but it's an example of where we could go with things.

Fire Ant Progress

As mentioned, fire ant progression is continuing apace. The expansion to the movement systems (and bending of the pre-established game rules) that things like bridge building requires has taken up a large chunk of our recent development time! Below, you can see a video we posted recently that shows how the fire ants form a floating bridge - they link together, walking on each other's backs, until they reach the other side of the gap they are intending to span. A bridge can be constructed at set points on a map to reach territory and resources otherwise unattainable. Once a bridge has served its purpose, it can be dismantled and the ants that formed it are freed up to act normally again. [previewyoutube=C5KYySOD14o;full][/previewyoutube] You can see in this short video we posted a few weeks back how things are improving with this system; compared to a few weeks ago the ants no longer queue up to form the bridge and it happens a lot quicker than it did before. There are still plenty of tweaks to get there to make it look a bit more natural and fluid, but we're pretty pleased with the results so far!

4th Tier Creature: Red Velvet Ant

The fourth tier levels will take place in a swampy area of North Carolina in the United States. We've already talked about some of the wildlife you'll encounter in these levels in a previous newsletter (for example the Venus fly trap and the bombardier beetle). We thought we'd reveal another creature in this newsletter, and it's an interesting one - the red velvet ant (Dasymutilla occidentalis)! This distinctive insect is named for the bright red fuzz that covers its back.

Red Velvet Ant, from Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY 2.0. Cropped for newsletter Despite its name, it is not an ant at all but instead a species of wasp. The female of this species is wingless, and given the close relation between wasps and ants you can see why it is often mistaken for an ant. The bright colouration should be a warning of its nature - it has an exceptionally painful sting, earning it its nickname of "cow killer". There are lots more creatures that are coming in the 4th formicarium tier, in fact it will feature the largest creature count so far by quite a way. Amongst these are titans, huge creatures that have some special rules applied to them. We're not ready to show off any of those yet, but we will talk about them in future newsletters closer to the time!

Tug of War

The next extra level, Tug of War, has been in beta at the same time as the AI colonies in freeplay. This is an auto-battler mode where your strategy comes down to the placement of tiles in your nest. Periodically, you will be given an injection of resources, as will your AI opponent. Eggs will hatch simultaneously on a timer, and the idea is to push back your enemy to their queen and kill her! It's a game mode that harkens back to Empires of the Undergrowth's origins; this is not too far from what the game would have been like when it was first envisaged as a game for mobile devices back in 2014. We've come a long way since then, but it is nice to return to our roots with this one-off game mode. It will be released as a new extra level with the next non-beta update.

Tug of War screeshot from Steam user whoamijr We're also working on the next extra level after that, called "Adventure" - John's been streaming some development of this level for some time now, and it looks to be another unique level altogether! More information on this as we get close to releasing it.

Yogscast Tiny Teams

In early August, we took part in the Yogscast Tiny Teams festival! This was an event that highlighted some of the really neat work that's produced by teams with 3 or fewer core members. As well as some of the better known ones and their own selection of titles, the festival featured lots of lesser known titles such as our own. Although it wasn't part of the festival, Tom of the Yogscast has been streaming Empires of the Undergrowth on his Twitch channel recently and as someone who's been following the Yogscast for nearly a decade, I consider that a personal accomplishment for us!

We're a Tiny Team! It was lovely to be part of such an event, and we'd definitely like to do more of them in the future!

Screenshot Central

We've been spoilt for choice for Screenshot Central this month! Some excellent stills and it's great to see more of you guys using photo mode to get some nice angles for your snaps! F9 by default enters photo mode; if you hold down shift whilst you press it you get an unconstrained camera for ultimate creativity! Take shots through Steam (F12 by default) and upload them to Steam Community if you'd like us to feature them in a future newsletter. Alternatively, you can email them to mike@slugdisco.com and I'll check them out.

A Counterpart Colony on the march from Steam user The Dreaded Kazoo

Nice shot of a Formica fusca queen from Steam user Liam

A stunning leafcutter major from Steam user Din0ll

[ 2020-09-12 20:58:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Update - 0.22032 Release

A small update to the currently-running optional beta has been released.

Fixed an issue where allied queens could count towards conquest victory condition
Altered rapid fire wood ants animation to fix an issue with them becoming stuck after attacking (there may still be issues with this; please let us know if you spot any)

[ 2020-08-29 10:47:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Update - 0.22031 Release

A small update to the currently-running optional beta has been released. No new features in this one, just some fixes for common issues. This brings the version number to 0.22031.

Disabled save on quit in freeplay when save should be disabled (currently save is disabled when playing with enemy colonies; the proper mechanisms for saving AI game states are not yet fully implemented)
Prevented creatures attacking dead queens if it was a player that killed the queen in freeplay
Fixed an issue where accepting advanced options in freeplay with the Counterpart Colony selected as your colony would turn it back to a Formica ereptor colony
Fixed an issue on 3.2 where army ant scouts would not move (this may fix other issues as well)
When an ally uses a queen ability it now correctly says an ally used the queen ability instead of enemy
Fixed an issue in tug of war where placing tiles down in the first second would cause an egg to spawn on them instantly
Fixed an issue where the enemy colony difficulty would flip to the other option (easy or normal) when opening the AI colony setup
Fixed a crash that occurred when a medium AI colony tried to pause an attack

[ 2020-08-28 15:34:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Update - 0.2203 Release

Weve updated the currently-running optional beta. As well as fixes and changes to the freeplay AI, this one also includes some rather extensive balance changes that will affect the campaign levels as well. Were particularly looking forward to feedback on these. This will currently only affect you if you're participating in the optional beta. If youre not participating in the beta and would like to, please see the details in this link. Note that the beta is only available to Windows Steam owners.

Freeplay and AI changes

Easy AI Player added
- Will not attack another colony for at least the first 20 minutes
- Far less likely to attack another colony
- Attacks on enemy colonies are shorter
- Will wait longer between attacks
- Makes decisions less often
Medium AI Player added
- Can regroup during an attack if it is going poorly (briefly pause an attack)
- Can come to the aid of an ally if they have more than 10 enemies in their nest and are not currently attacking
Raiding defeated colonies added
- Players may now remain inside enemy colonies once they are defeated
- Defeated players colony is dismantled at a rate of 1 tile per half second, dropping resources to the ground
- These resources can be carried off by an opposing colony
Players can now see into nests where allied ants are located

Balance Changes

Lower difficulties of cheats starting base size and resources reduced slightly
Leafcutter ant media buffed
- Attack damage increased to 4.5 / 6 / 7 (up from 3 / 4.5 / 6)
- Health increased to 100 / 115 / 130 (up from 90 / 105 / 120)
- Speed increased to 310 / 320 / 330 (up from 300 / 300 / 300)
- Piercing increased to 0.2 / 0.3 / 0.4 (up from 0.2 / 0.2 / 0.2)
Wood ant melee buffed
- Threat generation increased to 0.2 / 0.25 / 0.3 (up from 0.1 / 0.1 / 0.15)
- Damage increased to 0.6 / 1.2 / 1.8 (up from 0.5 / 1 / 1.5)
- Armour increased 0.2 / 0.4 / 0.6 (up from 0 / 0 / 0)
- Distance values altered so they will get slightly closer to enemies before attacking (should allow other melee units the ability to get closer to the fight)
Health regeneration on many melee units buffed
- Leafcutter major, army ant major and slave maker ants health regen increased to 0.1 / 0.15 / 0.2 (up from 0.1 / 0.1 / 0.1)
- Black ant, wood ant melee and leafcutter media health regeneration increased to 0.1 / 0.2 / 0.3 (up from 0.1 / 0.1 / 0.1)
Rapid fire wood ants will now get in and out of attack mode much more quickly

Fixes

Fixed an issue preventing movement avoidance code working properly
Fixed an issue where enemy colonies would continue building after their queen had been killed

[ 2020-08-27 15:50:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Update - 0.2202 Release

Weve updated the currently-running optional beta - this will only affect you if you're participating in said currently-running optional beta, detailed in this post.

New Features

Freeplay teams implemented - AI colonies in freeplay can now be assigned a team (including allied with the player)
If the player places a marker on an enemy colony, AI allies will join the attack if it deems it sensible
Allied players ping the minimap when they themselves are attacking an enemy colony to let the player know
AI allies will join in each other's attacks on enemy colonies
Conquest victory condition now takes into account allies
Counterpart colony will now be available to play in freeplay once you beat extra level The Other Foot (you will need to beat it again if you already have done so; difficulty doesnt matter)

Changes

Royal Guard are now immune to stun, confuse, pickup and execute
Royal Guard health increased to 200 (up from 120)
AI colonies now build more rooms and should have a more sensible distribution of ants in their marker groups
Formica ereptor AI colonies can now build from the entire pool of ants available to them (even those unlocked by editing the save files)
Formica ereptor AI colonies will now build up to 4 species in freeplay
Infestation landmark is now defaulted to off
AI now turns off harvesting and turns on attacking when going into combat with a colony and turns both on when leaving combat with a colony
AI cheats now have bigger pre-built bases at lower difficulties
AI cheats now have smaller pre-built bases and higher difficulties
AI cheats now have more starting resources at lower difficulties

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where switching from evasive worker upgrade would leave the camouflage on
Fixed an issue that could cause the first wave to have no creatures in Extremis
Fixed an issue where creatures spawned on lab formicarium 2 after returning from a mission could be stuck slightly in the ground. The previously friendly spiders will now immediately attack; F in comments for spiderbro :(
Fixed a bug where reloading a freeplay game that has no manual save would cause the map to load in its default setup without workers or queen tiles
Fixed an issue where an AI colony ants could be carrying eggs on the surface
If no AI player exists and Conquest is selected a Formica fusca colony is added in freeplay
Fixed an issue where leafcutters were climbing empty plant leaves
Fixed an issue that would cause AI colonies to attack player 0 even if no colony exists in the game with that ID (AI ants will no longer attack inactive nests)
Fixed the revenge mechanic for AI colonies; they will now be more likely to attack a player that has killed some of their ants recently
Fixed an issue where the whip spider (and other large enemies) could potentially skip the line-of-sight check if switching targets while an enemy is actually visible (stops whip spider attacking ants above it on the ridge)
Minor improvement to target acquisition efficiency for abilities
Fixed an issue where only 20 refuse was removed when cancelling a build or upgrade job rather than the full amount that was created
Check added to prevent save files read-only crash and appropriate error message given to player
Fixed an issue where resource numbers could appear to float upwards when food drops close to and behind the camera
Fixed a crash that would occur when loading a level with pre-set leaves

[ 2020-08-22 18:33:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Update 0.2201 - A Few Fixes

An update to the currently running beta has been released - this will only affect you if you're participating in the currently-running optional beta, detailed in this post. Here are the notes for this beta release:

Fixed an issue where formicarium colonys territory and jelly were set to zero and tunnel exit closed. (If you saved a formicarium in this state we advise restoring it from a backup, detailed here)
Fixed an issue where Tug of War map would display formicarium rewards at the end
Enemy ants should no longer provide vision in freeplay with Fog of War active
Fixed an issue where freeplay enemy colonies unit selection was the opposite of what was chosen
Fixed the game icon

[ 2020-08-14 19:17:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Optional Beta Available Now - 0.22 Tug of War, AI in Freeplay

An optional beta is available to all Steam owners of the game running a 64 bit Windows system. The idea with these occasional builds is to give people access to new things that need wider testing, with the understanding that there are likely to be crashes and balance issues. We would appreciate feedback if you can provide it - post on our Steam forums, or our official forums. The beta code is summertimeants. If youre unfamiliar with how to activate a Steam beta, heres how to do it: [olist]

Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"

Choose the "Betas" tab

In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter summertimeants

After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "openbeta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu

Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch. [/olist] Due to the unpredictable nature of beta tests, we strongly recommend you back up your formicarium saves before you play: You will find your saves on Windows in: C:\Users\YOUR USER NAME\AppData\Local\EotU\Saved\SaveGames Note that AppData is usually hidden; you can either un-hide the folder in the files settings or just type it into the bar. If you make a copy of this folder and save it somewhere else, you can restore your saves by replacing this folder with the backed up one.

Headline Features

New Extra Level - Tug Of War

An auto-battler game mode in which you pit your chosen build against an AI opponent
The enemy has a number of different builds to choose from; to beat it youll need to be smarter and faster!
Instead of gathering resources you are given food periodically based on how well youre doing
Push back the enemy and kill their queen to claim victory

Freeplay AI Colonies

AI enemy colonies can now be added to a new freeplay game in the setup menu
In this first implementation their AI is basic so they dont have a difficulty setting (it is greyed out; this will be expanded on later) but you can give yourself a challenge by having them cheat to varying degrees
A new victory condition - Conquest - can be set in Advanced Options. To achieve it, all enemy queens must be killed

Fixes & Balance

Fixed an issue where a loaded harvestmans leg could cause the game to crash
Can no longer place markers for nest group underground via minimap
Blocked side routes for the huge whip spider on Aggrandise (preventing your ants pathing through its chamber unintended)
Underground enemy icons are now scaled based on how many points they provide. This should make it easier to gauge threats before attacking
Allied creatures now show health when camouflaged
Ramp collision improvements
Reduced point value of army ant media
Marker calculations have been improved (should be more responsive)

[ 2020-08-13 13:24:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Yogscast Tiny Teams Festival - Featuring Empires of the Undergrowth!

It's a regular query, but we imagine not many of you here on Steam know the answer. We are often asked how big our team size is, and that's a very valid question - it affects many things about a game's development cycle. In our case, the answer is three - three developers on a very ambitious project that is laden with pitfalls. Despite the extra difficulties in being very small, really neat things can come from tiny teams - we'd like to think that Empires of the Undergrowth, for all its small-team shortcomings (our big updates take a long time, but you're all super understanding!) is a quality game worthy of your time investment. There are many other indie devs that operate solo or in tiny teams, and some of the best works of this generation of gaming have come from that. The Yogscast agree with us. We've been selected to be a part of their Tiny Teams games festival, which is running from 8PM BST tonight (9th August) until the 15th. It'll be highlighting and celebrating the very small teams (a core team of 1-3) who produce amazing things with limited resources. As well as this Steam event, the Yogscast will be running tie-in Twitch streams to go along with the festival. Empires of the Undergrowth will feature. Join the Yogscast stream at https://www.twitch.tv/yogscast. We'll see you in Twitch chat! Also for you guys who don't visit the forum very often - here's a very early work-in-progress of fire ants building bridges with their own bodies. [previewyoutube=-3-R2l0Q_vk;full][/previewyoutube]

[ 2020-08-09 16:01:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Extra Level - The Other Foot - Available Now!

Did you think your colony was the only one the scientists have been giving a hard time? How would things look from the perspective of the counterpart Formica ereptor colony - the one that has been providing feeder ants for the primary colony to fight against in its challenges? [previewyoutube=8g4_siq7UwA;full][/previewyoutube] It's time for some payback! In The Other Foot, you take command of the counterpart colony, controlling different units such as army ants, trap jaws and slave makers. To start off with, you'll need to provide workers for the scientist's diabolical experiments, working through challenges 1 and 2 before finally reaching the ultimate goal - the defeat of the primary colony in challenge 3. Considering the context of this level, we do not recommend you play it until you've completed formicarium challenge 3. Change history - because this time, the shoe is on The Other Foot. Available now in the Extra Levels menu!

[ 2020-06-24 09:05:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

May / June 2020 Newsletter - All About Fire Ants

During the last few weeks we've been able to really crack on with the fire ant update. After the long and arduous process that was re-designing the game's movement code from the ground up, we're really glad to be concentrated nearly solely on our Solenopsis invicta ants and all the accompanying flora and fauna that will bring them to life. As is always the case when we add a new formicarium tier to the game, there are several new systems that have to be designed and those are also in the works.
Taking down an uber Spiny Devil from Steam user BrickyGraph631 It's important to note that although this newsletter will concentrate mainly on the fire ant update, as a matter of policy we do not do estimates for the timings of our updates. That's because historically we've been pretty terrible at even guessing these, and given the small size of our team it's better for us to be 100% sure we can hit a deadline before we announce it. At the moment the best we can say is it's a while off yet, but as soon as we have a date we'll be very loud about broadcasting it!

Fire Ant Models / Animation

Whilst he's our engine specialist and deals with lots of deep-level gubbins of Unreal Engine 4 which powers the game, Matt is also our artist. He's recently been working on the models and animations for the fire ants - the first one here is of the fire ant queen. By comparison to the existing queens in the game, she's positively miniscule!

The Solenopsis invicta queen Below shows the queen next to some fire ant workers. There's a direct side-by-side later in the newsletter but they're comparable in size to Atta cephalotes minims. They'll do the nest jobs - digging and tending to brood. Fire ants will be a swarm-style unit - small, individually relatively cheap but high in numbers. [url=https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/28521019/13a18e38e82e002ea485fe5593a6749a3392b8cb.jpg]

Some workers with their queen Fire ants will also have a soldier unit. These are significantly bigger than the workers and will specialise in fighting, in a similar way to the Formica fusca black ants currently in the game. In our research for fire ants we've found that there's significant debate amongst myrmecologists about the existence of true fire ant polymorphism. Whilst there are a range of sizes, there does not appear to be discrete castes in the way that, for example, leafcutters clearly have. For this reason, we are simplifying things and calling the larger ants "soldiers" and the smaller ones "workers".

Soldiers and workers vs wood ants. Fire ants won't be fighting wood ants in the campaign; they're included for size comparison only! Fire ants get their name from the burning sensation their sting delivers- ouch! In-game, as well as their regular bite attacks they have a sting which they will use periodically. The bite will deliver regular physical-time damage whilst the sting will deliver venom-type damage. Below is a short video showing off the animations for these attacks. [previewyoutube=m7h-4s9PtTw;full][/previewyoutube] Fire ant animations The system that will allow these ants to swarm over larger enemies (titan climbing) is still in development but they have their own unique animation for that too, whereby they will bite hold of the victim and deliver several stings in quick succession. We're looking forward to showing off this system once it's closer to completion - it's one of the main new mechanics that will enrich the game and differentiate the fire ant update from others.

Fire Ant Sizes

Fire ants are, for the most part, quite small in stature compared to other ants in the game. In the below pictures you can see the level 1 worker being slightly smaller than the leafcutter minims, which are currently the smallest ants in the game.

Solenopsis invicta worker vs Atta cephalotes minim Pictured below is a rather unfair comparison - the largest queen (again, leafcutter) versus the smallest. Do not be deceived by the small stature of the fire ant - theyve earned their name!

I wouldnt mess with either of them, TBH

Fire Ant Bridges & Water Traversing

The fire ant levels are set in the swamps of North Carolina in the USA. As such, the levels will feature a lot of water. Back when we did our Kickstarter, one of the stretch goals was to include fire ant bridges as a gameplay mechanic. That goal was reached, and Matt has been puzzling out the details in his head ever since. Were not quite ready to show off the results of this yet, but theres an offshoot of this mechanic that has expanded things significantly. There are of course many creatures that swim in or on the surface of still water, the latter exploiting surface tension to avoid sinking. Liam, the developer who's been working on this system, has shared the below picture and paragraphs explaining the technical details. "In anticipation of floating fire ants in the next update we have been tacking on some upgrades to our new movement systems to allow creatures to do a few things that were previously impossible. While we were at it, it seemed a shame to have the realm of water limited to fire ants and so we loosened the rules a bit to potentially support a few other water-faring critters."

"To start with, the navigation rules in the game have always been based on a single, connected, immovable mesh (a structure that informs the navigation system). This was the first problem to overcome as if water is a walkable surface it could create routes to previously unconnected zones. Now instead of being connected or disconnected, meshes are now members of zones that can be linked or separated. Next, we needed to account for water being able to rise and fall. On the campaign levels Rising Tide and Queen of the Hill, the water is very dynamic and we wanted to be able to keep this sort of movement as an option. The plan at the moment is to do this with multiple static layers of mesh, rather than having a single layer of movable mesh. Layers are generated for every height the water is expected to reach and baked into the level data (baked here means pre-calculated and included in the level file)."

Fire Ant Abilities

Following suit from previous species, fire ants will have selectable types for their soldiers. Like with the wood ant ranged units (mortar or rapid fire) and leafcutter majors (stun and taunt), on starting a fire ant level you'll have the choice to take one of two kinds of soldier into battle with you. Fire ant abilities encourage aggression, which is very true to their nature. They're detailed below: Pervasive - if pervasive soldiers are selected, hatching new soldiers after the previous ones have died will be free if the egg has been on the soldier tile for a set period of time. The exact time will be down to balance, so we'll decide on that when we're in a position to properly test them. Vigorous - soldiers with this upgrade will have a buff to their stats (attack damage, speed and health) for a time after they are born. Again, the exact time and buffs will be down to balance. As you can see, these abilities encourage aggression and you are actively rewarded for spawning new ants as the old ones die. It wouldn't be very fitting of the reputation of fire ants to be retreating into their nest to hide from danger - much more becoming of their character to attack it until there's no longer a threat!

Can it be done? Formicarium Challenge 2

A question was asked on our Steam forums - is it possible to complete the formicarium challenges using only workers? We knew it was possible for Challenge 1 - in fact theres an achievement for it. We werent so sure beyond that; and in fact said wed only believe it given video footage. Cue Phoenix7786, who proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Challenge 2 can be done using only workers, using a very simple yet clever nest layout and appropriate queen abilities. https://youtu.be/BHWclleyCu0

Screenshot Central

Always my favourite part of writing a newsletter - if youd like to submit a nice screenshot for this part of the newsletter, simply upload it to Steam (by default F12 takes a shot - youll be given an upload option on exiting the game) or email it directly to mike@slugdisco.com. F9 activates photo mode for artistic composition!

I think you got him! Overwhelming numbers from Steam user Raptorr575

Those mandibles though - from Steam user The Great Empire of Japan [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2127883695]

F in comments to pay respects to Steam user YOZEN 22's Formica fusca queen

[ 2020-06-13 12:14:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Extremis - New Extra Level - Out Now!

A new extra level is available now for Empires of the Undergrowth - Extremis. The aim is to survive all the waves - but you won't do it first time. After you die, you are given a number of points (based on how far you got) to unlock new units for your army the next time you play! You might need to reinforce your colony with some wood ant ranged units, or save up for the mighty tanks of the leafcutters! [previewyoutube=bty83tsLaQ0;full][/previewyoutube] To find the new level, choose "Other Modes" from the main menu, then "Extra Levels". Please note that your game client will not need to update to unlock Extremis - it will be present in version 0.2131.

[ 2020-05-24 09:05:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

V0.2131 Update - Changes Balance, Languages

Some fairly significant balance changes for the game in todays patch, as well as important updates to localisation and a bunch of fixes and minor changes, all detailed below! Thanks to Raptorr575 for the screenshot used in the artwork for this post!

Language

Updated translations for Russian, German, Chinese and Spanish
Fixed some interface element issues that could occur in some languages

Changes / Balance

Story now always highlights if the player does not have a formicarium colony
Small army ants (media) now cost 3 to hatch down from 5 (this will affect both formicarium challenge 3 and an upcoming extra level)
The Evasive worker ability now avoids damage 60% of the time down from 95% and the workers are now camouflaged (enemy creatures need to be a lot closer to see them)
Leaf landmarks in freeplay now regenerate every 5 minutes up from 4
Aggrandise balance: Hard and Insane mode now have slightly more food available (an extra 10% of each creatures base level food)
Aggrandise balance: The fish provides 50 more food in Insane and 100 more food in Hard
Aggrandise balance: Woodlice and woodworm will not wander about and are located closer to the players starting location
Aggrandise balance: There is now a 3 tile wide access route between the player and the huge whip spider. If it or its two bodyguards are disturbed they will all now attack the players queen
Freeplay now has an autosave feature. The time between saves can be set from the options menu. When loading a freeplay save you can choose to load the most recent save, the autosave or the manual save. Load most recent save from the in-game menu will now load whichever of those is most recent

Fixes

Tooltip for allied colony minimaps no longer says you need to be in their colony to see them
Fixed an issue where the new ubers had incorrect (low) food values and too few harvesting points
Pebbles will now be removed from web landmarks even in loaded games
Fixed some issues with ants falling through ramps
Fixed an issue where sometimes in freeplay egg collection would take multiple attempts
Moved a problematic pebble in 2.1
Fixed an issue with player starting ants being grey in an upcoming extra level
Balance changes and fixes for upcoming extra levels
Fixed an issue where the nest group marker could be placed via the minimap
Fixed an issue on 2.1 where a voice line was not playing
Creatures that do not wander such as wolf spiders can no longer stay still if they are inside a nest entrance (fixes the issue on Baby Sitting with the wolf spider hiding in the allied nest entrance)
Potential fix for ladybirds being harvestable after they have flown away
Fixed an issue in freeplay setup where play difficulty would not change if changed from advanced game setup
Fixed an issue on 2.2 where a ramp near an enemy colony was trapping ants (the dreaded BOX 4 has been removed)
Collision updated for cliff edges; should mitigate some movement issues
Movement robustness improved around ramps (gaps should be removed)
Fixed an issue allowing players to name their colony with the same name twice (or no name)

[ 2020-05-23 11:00:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

March / April 2020 Newsletter - Extra Level News, Fire Ant Progress, Publishing

Welcome to our March / April 2020 newsletter! First of all, I'll address the corona-elephant in the room and hope that you and your families are staying safe during the lockdown. Let's all remember to be kind to everyone, especially to ourselves, during this pandemic. Let's hope things return to normal in a safe and steady manner. Play some video games, read a book, keep in touch with your loved ones, stay indoors when you can. Now, on to slightly more cheerful matters - including a new game that is joining Ecosystem as a Slug Disco publishing project - Beetle Uprising!
Uber wolf spider from Steam user fetisov.a

The 0.21 Update

A month ago we released the 0.21 update for Empires of the Undergrowth. This update concentrated on an overhaul of freeplay mode, but more fundamentally it included a near-complete rewrite of the crucial pathfinding and movement code that all creatures in the game use. It's difficult to exaggerate the importance of this change, as well as how fundamental it is to the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptjMDWqm3QU Ants working out how to avoid each other in the new movement system when it was in development in August It took us many months to get to this point with it, since it replaces nearly all of the default Unreal Engine equivalents (which are excellent built-in functions but not ideally suited to our purposes) and thankfully there don't seem to be any major issues with the new system. Thanks so much to everyone who helped us test these updates - in particular HofNerd on our official forums, who I think has submitted more bug reports than everyone else combined!

More Extra Levels - Baby Sitting & Beyond

On 24th April, a second extra level was added to the game to join Aggrandise - Baby Sitting. You can find the extra levels, which aren't part of the main campaign, from the "Other Modes" option on the main menu. We will be adding to these regularly - we're aiming for a month apart for them, but it might sometimes take us longer (hence us calling them "regular" rather than "monthly" - you know how it is with game development!). [previewyoutube=1b9Xx4onP5A;full][/previewyoutube] For the first time in the game, Baby Sitting introduces allied colonies. In real-world nature, Formica rufa (wood ant) colonies often form large super-colonies, where an individual nest buds off from a larger one when queens move to a new location. Although they often have different birth queens, the ants recognise the pheromone signature of their cousins and sisters, and operate as one.

The two nest entrances of the allied colonies in Babysitting In this level, you take command of a queen who has recently relocated to a new nest, apart from the larger colony. One of her sisters has also set up nearby - her ants are controlled by an allied AI. However, the sister nest's offspring are not quite as wily as you are - they will need help to survive! What they lack in intelligence, though, they make up for with fearlessness. They will charge to your aid when they think you need help, and may take on challenges a little beyond their capabilities. As the wiser of the colonies, it's your job to make sure they don't bite off more than they can chew - kill all enemy creatures and keep both queens alive to complete the mission!

The allied colony's underground nest Next time for the extra levels, there will be a mission called "Extremis" - which is a wave-based survival mode with a rogue-like twist. Other maps in the works include a mode where you'll play as the other formicarium colony from the 3rd tier challenge and a tug-of-war style map, which is rather like the very first implementation of the game we made way back in 2014, when it was still a project for tablets and mobile devices. Keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook for more info on extra levels.

Fire Ant Progress - Location, Plant & Critter Species

As you're aware, the species of the 4.x formicarium tier will be fire ants. Now that we're tackling the very last of the issues with the new movement and pathing code, we can concentrate on the next batch of preparations for the fire ant levels. A while back we completed the final list of creepy crawlies we'd like to include in these levels, and whilst we can't be sure they will all make it into the final build (the sadly-cut velvet worm from the 3.x levels is testament to this) we would like to share the names of a couple we're pretty sure will make the cut, as well as the setting weve homed in on for these level - North Carolina in the United States.

Venus Flytrap

The determining factor of where wed like to set our fire ant levels was dictated by the natural range of this fascinating plant. Because of the range of the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula), the fire ant levels will be set in the swamps of North Carolina - more specifically an area called the Green Swamp Preserve. Fire ants are not native to this area, but are invasive to it as they are in many parts of the world.

Fly in a flytrap, from Wikimedia Commons. License: CC-BY-SA 4.0. Cropped for newsletter I scarcely need to introduce the iconic Venus flytrap to you - it is by far the most famous carnivorous plant at least in the west, with dramatic traps that use a trigger system to close and trap insect prey. Nectar is secreted on the surface of the traps, but if an insect touches two of the trigger hairs inside, its fate is slow digestion. Lovely! Mechanics will evolve with development but it seems likely ants will be able to collect nectar from the traps, with a chance of triggering them.

Bombardier Beetle

Firing hot, noxious liquid from the end of its abdomen, the bombardier beetle lives up to its name. There are many kinds of these ground beetles - this one is specifically Brachinus alternans. They hunt other insects at night, but are also remarkably social - they will tend to congregate with others of their species when not actively looking for food.

A bombardier beetle, from Wikimedia Commons. License: CC-BY-SA 2.5 When threatened, these insects can unleash a mix of two chemicals - hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide - which very quickly gets to near the boiling point of water. As the hot gases expand, they are ejected explosively from the end of the abdomen, often with a distinct popping sound. This may inflict a mild stinging burn to an amphibian or bird, but will certainly be fatal to any small insects threatening the beetle. We're not quite ready to show finished artwork for these yet, but as always, follow us on our Twitter and Facebook and we'll be sure to start sharing things with you all as soon as we can! The bombardier beetle is a convenient segue into the introduction below...

Introducing: Beetle Uprising

About seven months ago, we announced our partnership with our friend Tom Johnson, who is working on a complex evolution-based sandbox game called Ecosystem. Although we're not developing the project (it's entirely Tom's baby) we are acting as the publisher for it through Steam and other platforms. During our time developing Empires of the Undergrowth, we'd like to think that we've learned a few things about media and marketing for a nature-based game project, and we've kept our eye out for projects that fall under this banner. We'd now like to talk about Beetle Uprising! [previewyoutube=KZEU1eVX4wY;full][/previewyoutube] Beetle Uprising has been on Steam for some time now. John and Mike played it on a live stream at one point - we've had a friendly rivalry with Iocane Games (who are developing it) ever since we heard that in the game you can be awarded a trophy commemorating beetle dominance over ants. Whilst we were expecting an enjoyable mix of Sims-like home building and real-time tactics (RTT) combat, we weren't expecting the deep complexity of its genetics breeding system, which kind of blew us away. These systems are remarkably close to real-world genetics, with all the subtleties of genes, alleles, gametes and all those words you'd nearly forgotten about from school. [previewyoutube=3EfgLemWsZc;full][/previewyoutube] We thought this game really deserved to see the light of day more than it had, so we got in touch with the guys at Iocane to see if they'd like to work with us to that end, and to our delight they did. We've been advising them on getting a demo up for the game (in a similar vein to the one we have for Empires of the Undergrowth and Ecosystem) and improving its website and the like. The demo is available now to download from IndieDB, follow this link to download it from IndieDB, and also the project is near completion and can be purchased from Steam! The demo is currently in the review process on Steam - once it's been approved, this newsletter will be updated to reflect that.

Click above to visit the Beetle Uprising IndieDB page and download the demo! Steam demo pending We really hope you give the demo of this surprisingly complex, genre-defying genetics / home building / tactics game a go, and if you enjoy it support the project. The Iocane guys are looking forward to your feedback on this game - jump into the discussion forums on Steam or on our official forums to let us know what you think. Now, back to regular programming!

Community Screenshot Saturday

This time in lockdown has been a bit difficult for us all - even I, who normally only likes to actually leave the house a few times a week, have found it difficult not being able to walk my dog in the park very often or even just be out in nature for a short while. I thought the time we have indoors would be a great opportunity to concentrate on community-submitted screenshots, so that's what I've been doing for a few weeks on Saturdays. Here's links to the Twitter posts for them, each week following various themes. I'll do a few more of these whilst the pandemic is ongoing, so if you'd like to suggest a theme for future weeks please comment! Theme: "Monsters" https://twitter.com/SlugDisco/status/1246461641614639111?s=20 Theme: "Huge Armies", suggested Gustav Bckstrm on Facebook https://twitter.com/SlugDisco/status/1249020783256535040?s=20 Theme: "Nest Design", suggested by Mr_Ced on our forums https://twitter.com/SlugDisco/status/1251622985619955713?s=20 Theme: "Up Close", suggested by Hunh Cm Thnh on Facebook https://twitter.com/SlugDisco/status/1254073977045164032?s=20

Screenshot Central

And finally, my favourite part of the newsletter - as I have done for the Community Screenshot Saturday, I trawled through recent submissions to the Steam screenshots section of our community tab, and submissions directly to me mike@slugdisco.com. No particular theme for these ones, I just select ones that look the most striking. To take a screenshot, press F12 (by default) in-game. To get a really nice screenshot, press F9 to enter photo mode with camera controls, or press shift + F9 for a completely free camera. [url=https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/28521019/e07022291d33ec852daae08b17f52529aff4b6b2.jpg]

An excellently-designed hexagonal nest by Mr_Ced. It includes paths between the hexes for efficient nest movement

Leafcutter majors charge in the formicarium from Steam user Bilbo Baggins

Looks like an argument between rove beetles from Steam user Atta Republic

[ 2020-05-01 22:31:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

V0.213 Update - Changes Fixes

For patch 0.213 weve addressed some issues that have come up in the past few weeks - in particular one which has prevented new content (the 4 jungle uber creatures) from appearing. Freeplay map Towhead has seen a fair few changes - increased landmark numbers and some new paths. Also a bunch of quality-of-life changes in this one.
Towhead has seen several changes this time round

Freeplay Fixes and Changes

Solved a bug preventing the 4 new ubers showing up in freeplay (they would be announced but not show)
Landmark spawn rate with leafcutters reduced down to 200% (from 250%) as it was filling all available landmark spots causing landmark droughts on some maps
Leaves now regenerate every 4m down from 5m
Increased the number of landmark locations on Towhead by about 8 (and shuffled some around)
Added a couple of central crossing paths into Towhead to allow better access to the new landmark locations from all spawn points
Funnel web landmarks no longer spawn pebbles (eliminates a bug making ramps inaccessible if the web spawns near one)
Fixed an issue where creatures could end up stuck on top of your nest in freeplay
Uber spawn chance increased when playing Hunter victory condition
Creative mode now automatically spends resources allowing you to harvest resources if you wish
Wave number will no longer increase if defeated before the timer for the next wave starts in freeplay
Added option in freeplay to disable difficulty increase when approaching victory
Renamed a couple of difficulty options in freeplay
Uber spawns now cause a minimap ping
Funnel web landmark despawn timer will tick down 4x as fast if all its inhabitants are dead
Funnel web spiders will not be given targets until they reach their nest
Besieged victory now occurs on final wave defeat rather than just before spawn
You can no longer save the game during an attack wave

Other Fixes and Changes

Achievement fail and success messages are now off by default and can be turned on from an option in the menu or from the scoreboard (achievement tracking)
Added a widget to the main menu that will show up after you have completed the campaign and will highlight games made by our friends (only on Steam)
Fixed a bug that could break formicarium challenge 2 if you kill the tube spawning ants too quickly after they spawn
Fixed a bug that could cause a green riser to appear if you cancel a dig job the moment a cavern is tunnelled out
Fixed more issues with creatures or food getting stuck under ramps
Funnel web now has immunities to several crowd control effects
Hungry Spider projectile is now visible again
Hungry Spider mouse movement should feel a lot smoother however it no longer paths around walls so you need to manually manoeuvrer it
Fixed an issue where Hungry Spider bite and venom strike were doing less damage than intended further from the centre of the attack
Creatures with low visual range can now see enemies that attack them from further away
Fixed some text issues
Fixed an issue that could cause aphids to float (sometimes very high in the sky) when ladybirds attempt to pick them up
Ladybirds will no longer try and escape once they have started picking up an aphid (they will escape after anyway)
Fixed an issue with brood tile hotkeys not functioning correctly
Massively reduced issues with chamber rep panel thinking the mouse is hovering over a chamber when it is not (worse at lower FPS)

[ 2020-05-01 22:11:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Baby Sitting - New Extra Level - Available Now!

There's a new Empires of the Undergrowth extra level available now! In Baby Sitting, you have an AI-controlled sister colony. They're very plucky, but not that bright. You'll have to make sure they don't bite off more than they can chew and keep them out of trouble! Both queens must survive to win the level. To find the new level, choose "Other Modes" from the main menu, then "Extra Levels". Good luck! [previewyoutube=1b9Xx4onP5A;full][/previewyoutube] Note: your game client will not need to update for this level to be unlocked.

[ 2020-04-24 09:18:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

0.21 Early Access Out Now - Freeplay, Phorids, Extra Levels and Achievements

For many months we have been working hard on improving movement in Empires of the Undergrowth, and this patch represents successes in this area but also a bunch of content and quality-of-life changes that we hope you will be pleased with. Thanks so much for those of you who have helped out during the beta phase for this update; were very glad to be able to release it for everyone! [previewyoutube=ErWhxEVW3ss;full][/previewyoutube]

Headline Features

Updated Movement Code

After replacing most of the movement code in the game and running extensive beta tests, this is now ready to go. This will lead to a noticeable performance boost for all which ultimately means more creatures and bigger maps! This will also help fix bugs that have been persistent in movement for a long time. Bugs to do with ants freezing or getting stuck on ramps should, for the most part, be eliminated.

Freeplay Overhaul

Freeplay has seen many changes and should feel very different now than it used to.

Leaf cutters make their way to freeplay, along with climbable plants!
New rainforest map Embankment
Difficulty has been tuned and and extra difficulty option added that affects how quickly and how far the games difficulty will change
Optional victory conditions have been added allowing you to set goals (these also affect the difficulty as you approach victory)
Freeplay setups can be saved, and can also be shared via a string
Ubers have been rebalanced bringing them to a fairer difficulty level. They have also been altered to be strong / weak against various enemy combinations
As difficulty increases, creatures will now get stronger (rather than just more numerous) and will have much less food reduction

Extra Levels

We will be bringing regular extra missions to the game apart from the main campaign. Here we have allowed ourselves more freedom to do things in a more game-like fashion rather than true to nature, like we strive to be in the story.The first 3 maps will be released a month apart!

Aggrandise launches today! Command a Formica ereptor colony featuring the fierce trap jaw ants and carefully choose your targets as your colony grows large enough to take on a large foe!
More are on the way - follow our social media for details!

Third Tier Challenge Mode

Phorid flies are tiny, inconspicuous-looking insects that could easily be mistaken for fruit flies but are far deadlier. They lay their eggs between the armoured carapaces of insects, in particular your ants, leading to a time where they will be less effective followed by inevitable death as the larva eats away at the innards. All ants have a chance of fighting off the flies when they are attacked, but level 3 mediae and majors have a 100% chance to fight them off.

First Tier Achievements

We have also added a bunch of achievements for the first tier levels of the game. This includes New Home, Subjugation and the first formicarium challenge. Multiple achievements have been added for various difficulties and challenge modes. There are the generic achievements, such as finishing a level on a specific difficulty, but also tasks that have specific conditions to achieve. Check your achievements from the in-game menu.

Optimisation and Balance

On top of all these additions there has been a raft of optimisation changes made that should also improve performance. Some areas have also seen balance changes including area-of-effect (AOE) attacks, insane difficulty on 3.2 Front Line and many others. Many of these changes are listed below.

Optimisations

Projectiles have been significantly optimised (very noticeable with rapid fire wood ants)
Substantially reduced the cost of rendering the Isolepis Cernua (spiky plant)
And many more! See previous patch notes from beta testing for extensive details

Balance

Black ants now take 20% less damage from AOE attacks
3.2 Front Line on harder difficulties will spawn less environmental creatures and more higher level army ants
Formicarium challenge 3 has been made much easier on harder difficulties:
Reduced the number of resource refills the enemy colony receives across various difficulties (now 0/1/2/4 down from 0/1/5/10)
Reduced reload quantity to 1800 (down from 2000)
Resource reloads will now appear gradually (10 per second) rather than instantly
Reduced size of cricket drops on harder difficulties
Damage falloff implemented on wood ant mortar, uber basic attacks and some whip spider attacks. This deals less damage the further away from the epicentre of the attack the creature is (reaching zero at the very edge)

Selected Improvements

Multiple frame rate limits added
Added an option slider for a darkened square behind resource counters for visibility
Markers should feel more responsive with faster movement between different markers, more ants at the end of the marker and far fewer ants waiting at home to head to the marker
Camera zoom now interpolates very rapidly
Visuals added for leafcutter major auras
Difficulty levels have been added for Formicarium challenges 1 and 2
Trail calculations have been updated. Should lead to more ants at the end of trails, more consistent flows and less ants waiting underground
And many more! See previous patch notes from beta testing for extensive details

Selected Fixes

Significantly less ants getting caught on corners
Corrected an error that could cause creatures to get stuck at the entrance to ramps
A previously dormant patrol route behind the players nest has been reactivated in 3.2
Fixed an issue where workers could survive their tiles being deleted if they have the evasive skill
After purchasing a queen ability, all queen cool-downs need to recharge (prevents switching queen abilities during formicarium challenge exploit)
Ladybirds now immune to many crowd control effects to prevent them being affected whilst eating an aphid
Attack when favourable creatures (such as mantis and jumping spider) now take nearby allies into account when deciding to attack or not
Improvements to ant crowd movement - particularly in combat
Mole crickets now take room size into account when selecting a room to spawn in
Improvements to collision detection with difficult shapes
Battle arena now only removes creatures that are not in combat
Ubers will no longer ignore the nest invasion setting in freeplay setup
Moved all pebbles off walkable area in the original Hungry Spider level
Fixed a visual error with the wood ant projectile splash
And many more! See previous patch notes from beta testing for extensive details

[ 2020-03-24 18:38:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Beta 0.21152 - Last Bits of Balance and Fixes, Mac Linux Builds

Last bits of balance and fixes! Just a very short test to make sure nothing weve added or fixed causes any major issues - and then this should be the last one before we set it on the main branch. Hang tight just a little longer if youve been waiting for the beta to finish! This beta now includes Mac, Linux and Win32 builds if anyone would like to test for them! For those familiar with how to activate a beta password the word is christmasants. For more detailed instructions see this post on the forum. Thanks to ant27rex for the screenshot used in the header and cover of this post!

Balance - Baby Sitting

Reduced number of funnel web spiders on hard and insane difficulties
Provided slightly more time between computer actions on insane difficulty
Dead creatures provide more food on hard and insane difficulties

Fixes

Just Isnt Cricket achievement will now correctly complete instead of completing a different one
Slave makers now correctly drop resources when they see an enemy
Fixed an issue where an invisible enemy could be present in replays of formicarium challenge 3
Fixed an issue where you would autocomplete Rapid Growth and NOPE after beating 1.2 insane
Achievements will now only give their failed or succeeded announcement if you do not already have them
Fixed an issue where tunnelling enemies (Extremis and Surrounded) could get stuck digging nothing or standing still if they tunnelled out and could not see an enemy

[ 2020-03-23 14:53:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Beta Testing - 0.2115 - Achieving Balance

We're entering the final stages of beta testing for the 0.21 update now - and for the first time in the game this update introduces achievements! The first batch (formicarium tier 1) are present here - more will follow suit later down the line. Weve also done some fairly extensive balancing. This is an optional beta - if youd like to join the beta whilst its still running, follow the instructions in the box near the top of this previous post. If you're already on the beta branch you won't need to do this; the game should update by itself. Thanks so much to everyone who has helped us test this large update; were nearly there now! NOTE: The beta will only run on Windows. Once we've finished the beta period Mac and Linux will get the full finished update! Thanks to whoamijr for the screenshot used for the header and cover of this post!

Achieving Balance

Headline Features

Achievements are now active on Steam for the first tier of the formicarium. Note you will currently only be able to get these in the beta
Some level balance changes, more details below

Balance Changes

Aggrandise

Raised the cost of trap jaw ant build to 90 (up from 60)
Added black ants to the players build options to give a mid-way unit now trap jaw cost has been increased so much

3.2 Front Line

On higher difficulties less patrolling creatures appear
On higher difficulties more level 2 and 3 army ants will appear

Formicarium Challenge 3

Reduced the number of resource refills the enemy colony receives across various difficulties (now 0/1/2/4 down from 0/1/5/10)
Reduced reload quantity to 1800 (down from 2000)
Resource reloads will now appear gradually (10 per second) rather than instantly
Reduced size of cricket drops on harder difficulties

General

A couple of achievement times adjusted for balance reasons
Creatures set to attack player when damaged now only attack the first player that attacked them and do not switch

Fixes

Food reservation now affects leaves and harvestable creatures, so you will not harvest from these unless there is space available for ants to reserve a slot to place them
Minor change to a web on 1.2 allowing the spider to see other ants that are on top of its nest
Fixed another resource pickup issue that could cause an ant to get stuck trying to pick up a resource
Funnel web spider can no longer be introduced after its death has been announced in 1.2
Fixed an issue where leaves could be dropped in a way that made them inaccessible around nest entrances
Fixed an issue with recent changes to mole crickets that made them spawn on the same spot (and could crash)
Fixed an issue that could occur with harvesters when harvesting was turned off (they could walk back and forth to the thing they were previously harvesting for a time)
Fixed some bugs with achievements in 1.2
Resources dropped from deleting tiles now correctly display food values and appear on the minimap
Fixed an issue where ubers were still invading with invasions turned off (again!)
Moved some food in the old demo levels to be in caverns
Fix added for water rising on low frame rates that could cause it to overshoot (sometimes enough to kill ants coming out of their nest)
Fixed an issue where an ant could briefly be given a job as it was heading to the surface, causing its AI to break and not move when it reached the surface
Potential fix for ants locking out harvesting of plant from a long distance away
Minor adjustments in food size in critters to help flickering
Fixed a bug with plant disembarking
Leaf sizes are now more sensible in 3.1
Fixed a rare crash that could occur in pathfinding
Fixed an issue where an ant targeted by a funnel web that was killed could not be targeted by another until ants stopped entering the nest

[ 2020-03-19 15:10:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Beta Testing - 0.21142 - Freeplay Changes Fixes

Some help for leafcutters in freeplay with regenerating leaves now being a thing (in freeplay only - campaign level leaves do not grow back). This is an optional beta - if youd like to join the beta whilst its still running, follow the instructions in the box near the top of this previous post. If you're already on the beta branch you won't need to do this; the game should update by itself. NOTE: The beta will only run on Windows. Once we've finished the beta period Mac and Linux will get the full finished update!

Freeplay Balance Changes

Leaves will now regenerate in freeplay five minutes after some have been harvested (saplings regenerate 100, red rusty plant 200 and green plant 300)
Food reduction in freeplay now kicks in at 200% difficulty (up from 50%) and drops to a minimum at 960% difficulty (up from 150%).
Creatures in freeplay will more rapidly get to scale level 5 between difficulty values of 100 and 200% but will then only increase 1 level per 20% after that point (up from 10%)
Physical creature size now increases slower and caps totally at triple size (in practice it should never reach this value)
Chance of uber spawning now increases the longer one has not spawned. At max at 45 mins after last spawn. This will cause more ubers to spawn at lower difficulties or if one has not spawned in a while

Fixes and Optimisations

Minims should now appear on both sides of carried leaves by level 3 majors and mediae
Creatures should no longer get stuck in pickup state (appearing static picking up food)
Some tweaks to creature movement
Possible fix for issues where creatures can end up inside ramps
Corrected an error that could cause creatures to get stuck at the entrance to ramps
Fixed an issue (again) with the scientists hand not squashing ants
Can no longer see water in tunnels during cinematics in 2.1 and 2.2
A patrol route behind the players nest has been reactivated in 3.2
Tweaked some patrols in 3.2
Phorid flies will now display little health bars to make them more visible
Fixed an issue where a creature could get stuck trying to harvest a resource if combat started and ended briefly during it heading to the resource
Fixed an issue where workers could survive their tiles being deleted if they have the evasive skill
Fixed a crash caused by placing markers in banned areas using the minimap
After purchasing a queen ability, all queen cool-downs need to recharge (prevents switching queen abilities during formicarium challenge exploit)
An ant may only remove one phorid fly every three minutes to prevent clearing a patch by a single level 3 ant
The huge whip spider will now walk normally again in 3.2
Food visually can only be 40% its default size so small food items are more visible and scales slower at the upper end of values
Fixed an issue where loaded eggs could be tiny if saved in their frozen state
Update to how markers work fixing an exploit where you could use two markers to completely empty a trail
Updates to markers to pull ants from more old marker locations and changed these locations priorities. It should feel smoother and is more forgiving to army repositioning
Ladybirds now immune to many crowd control effects to prevent them being affected whilst eating an aphid
Camera now correctly exits victory animation after continuing freeplay post victory
Music restarts when continuing freeplay post victory
Fixed a crash that could occur on maps that have tiles removed such as the second lab formicarium
Got rid of some buried harvestable beetles in 3.1
Fixed a crash with swarm point in underground only maps
Attack when favourable creatures (such as mantis and jumping spider) now takes nearby allies into account when deciding to attack or not
Optimisations added to path following
Improvements to ant crowd movement - particularly in combat
Fixed an issue where leafcutters were not making digging noises
Fixed a rare crash in path finding
Fixed an issue where building and upgrading was no longer making noise
Mole crickets now take room size into account when selecting a room to spawn in
Fixed issues with funnel web movement

[ 2020-03-06 15:56:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Beta Testing - 0.21141 - Fixes Optimisations

A bug fixing update for the optional beta, dealing mainly with the fallout from reintroducing the story campaign back into it. Were homing in on having this update ready for the main branch but if youd like to join the beta whilst its still running, follow the instructions in the box near the top of this previous post!

Fixes & Optimisations

Fixed issues caused by creatures jumping up ledges
Fixed creatures stuck near ramp tops
Fixed an issue that could cause infinite spawning of wood ants from fish landmark (and other issues in infestation landmark)
Fixed a crash related to creatures disappearing whilst climbing
Hidden some development boxes from ramps in 3.2
Minims will now appear on leaves carried by level 3 majors and mediae to represent their 100% chance of defending from phorid flies
Fixed underground marker path arrows being wrong way round when placing marker on surface
Improvements to collision detection with difficult shapes
Adjusted ramp collisions
Adjusted some plants and collision settings in 3.1 to help with creatures getting stuck
Difficulty applied due to getting close to completing an objective in freeplay is now removed once the objective is complete
Improved leafcutter repel phorid fly animation
Fixed some issues where loaded ants from old games could be moved to the top of a tunnel and get stuck
Food stuck under lab formicarium is now correctly on the surface
Fixed an issue where beach tiger beetle larvae would not attack in 2.x challenge modes
Fixed an issue where mole crickets were spawning in 1.2 far too quickly with the challenge on
Added some fixes for creatures dropping food, will now do a check to see if the dropped tile is accessible and can successfully drop off cliff without becoming inaccessible
Some fixes added to phorid fly spawners making spawn failures less likely
Removed excessive resource scans for creatures
Fixed an issue where creatures could get stuck trying to pick up a food item
Fixed an issue on 3.2 where army ants would ignore other enemies until attacked
Fixed an issue where Formicarium Challenge 2 could be won with spiders still alive in rare circumstances
Creatures should no longer get stuck on one another if they reload at same location or jump to same location

As mentioned, we're not far from fixing the issues and bringing this update to the main branch. We likely have a round of balance changes to go before we reach that point, so we'll be taking into account all of your feedback before we set about doing this. Thanks to everyone who has been particularly helpful during this beta period (you know who you are!) and thank you to everyone who's given us clues about where glitches might be hiding - you've made the process much smoother.

[ 2020-02-20 14:24:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

January / February 2020 Newsletter

Welcome to 2020! We've been running an optional beta on Steam since late December which mainly introduces a reworked freeplay mode, and more recently adds the challenge mode for the third tier formicarium levels. Since that time we've been working through the veritable mountain of issues and other feedback with it, and we're now in the home stretch for bringing this out of beta and to the main branch for everyone to play. There's still time to join the beta if you haven't already - see the instructions near the top of this link if you'd like to join in.
Leafcutters on the march from Limey21 We'll start this newsletter by talking about the changes to freeplay mode, then have a look at the mechanics of phorid flies in the campaign challenge mode. We'll also talk about the first of the new extra missions to come along with the update - Aggrandise. Lastly, we'll go over what has taken us many months to get to this point - the laborious changes to the movement and path finding code.

Freeplay Mode Changes

Leafcutters in Freeplay

The update to freeplay will include leafcutters as their own independent colony type. When you play as leafcutters many of the landmarks that appear on the surface will be patches of leaves, since the sole source of food for them is their fungus gardens fuelled by leaf cuttings. This puts them at somewhat of a disadvantage at the start of a freeplay run, since they cannot attain food from underground and must quickly venture to the surface to collect foliage. To help with this, we have extended the exclusion zone around active nest entrances which should help leafcutter colonies get a foothold. Later in the run, the majors should more than make up for the humble beginnings!

Leafcutters doing their thing in Towhead

New Freeplay Map - Embankment

To thematically celebrate bringing leafcutters to freeplay, we are also introducing a new rainforest-themed map! Embankment is set in the Ecuadorian jungle, like the third tier story missions, along the banks of a trickling forest stream which splits the map in two lengthways. You can of course play with any of the other species on this level, but I personally find it particularly satisfying to make a freeplay setup that only spawns wood and rainforest creatures, disable everything but the rainforest enemies, and immerse myself in jungle ambience.

Click the thumbnails to see the full Embankment screenshots

Scaled Enemies

A big change to the way freeplay works is that now as difficulty increases, you will get enemies that are scaled up in both size and strength, rather than just more enemies inhabiting the world. In this way we can increase the challenge without having a lot of creatures running around reducing performance. By mousing over the "menu" icon in the top right of the screen, you can see the current difficulty setting and will notice enemies getting quite significantly larger as it goes up.

Some big boys here from Ainz Ooal Gown - note he was playing a Creative game here (another new freeplay option), so their size is unlikely to be reached in a normal game!

Rebalanced Uber Creatures

Up until this point uber creatures have always simultaneously been the most interesting and frustrating thing about a freeplay run. They represent an immediate existential threat to your colony and only the foolhardy would underestimate their presence after it is announced. However, even for well-run colonies, an uber creature currently spells almost certain death unless you are very advanced into the game. Furthermore some colonies like Formica fusca can do very little against them. Whilst we certainly want players to feel that squirm of panic when ubers are around, we don't want them to spell a definite end to proceedings. In the current way of doing things, ubers spawn and immediately go about deciding if they're going to attack the player or just mill around for a while. With the new update, there will be a grace period of eight minutes during which the uber will definitely not attack the nest - this gives players ample time to get home if they feel they need to or start to swarm the uber before it becomes invasive. Furthermore, they will no longer ignore the "Nest invasions" setting in freeplay so if you've turned invasions off, they will never threaten your queen.

Pro tip - holding down an appropriate creature's spawn button for 10 seconds in the Battle Arena will spawn its uber version! On top of this, each uber in the game has been tweaked and changed to give it specific strengths and weaknesses. They've all had health and strength reduced somewhat - they are all still very strong creatures that need measured resistance, but they should feel much fairer now. This isn't a blanket change to all ubers and each one has been tweaked individually, in both stats and abilities - we will detail these in the patch notes when the time comes. A lot of uber effects are based on AOE (area of effect) and a game-wide change to the way AOE works will affect just about every uber creature (there is now pronounced falloff of AOE damage from the epicentre of an attack to its edge - this incidentally also affects wood ant mortars).

Victory Conditions

When you set up your freeplay game, in the advanced options there will be a section that allows you to choose from several different ways to officially "win" your freeplay game, and to set a threshold for that goal. There are several of these, detailed below:

Biomass - raise your colony to reach a specific size, with more expensive tiles contributing more points
Domination - defeat enemies to earn points towards your goal
Survival - survive for an amount of time
Score - reach a set score by defeating enemies, building tiles and harvesting resources
Hunter - kill a set number of uber creatures
Besieged - survive a set number of attack waves

Advanced freeplay settings, showing optional victory conditions As you approach your goal you will notice difficulty increasing sharply, so be prepared for the onslaught! After you attain your goal you will be given your score - you can then either quit to the menu or continue playing, having achieved what was set. Well done you.

Exporting / Importing Freeplay Setup

You will be able to alter freeplay settings to your heart's content, save them as a preset, and easily export them to share with other players. Exporting works by creating a string you can copy to your clipboard, and importing works by reading such a string. Share on your medium of choice - in fact we'll be making a dedicated forum thread for your favourite setups when the update is released.

Sharing a string for a freeplay setup called Island Nation

3.x Challenge Mode - Phorid Flies

Along with the freeplay update, we will be completing the third tier formicarium levels by introducing the challenge mode to them. Phorid flies are tiny, inconspicuous-looking insects that could easily be mistaken for fruit flies but are far deadlier. They lay their eggs between the armoured carapaces of insects, in particular your ants, leading to a time where they will be less effective followed by inevitable death.

A tiny phorid fly, very close to the camera, prepares to lay eggs on leafcutter ants All ants have a chance of fighting off the flies when they are attacked, but level 3 mediae and majors have a 100% chance to fight them off (there's an incentive to get upgrading!). A successful defence will cause the fly to leave. They appear on the minimap as a distinctive fly icon - so try to keep clear of these areas unless you have no other choice.

Extra Level - Aggrandise

We've long spoken about including extra levels apart from the main campaign, and with the coming update we're introducing the first of these - Aggrandise. It has a simple aim - kill the giant whip spider.

Your objective: kill that guy There are no tricks here, no enemies hidden in caverns or surprise nest invasions. Simply start in the middle of the map, expand cautiously and use your knowledge of the game to decide which enemies to take down next for food. Once you have the forces, it's time to take on the big guy.

The overview In this level you command a Formica ereptor colony with access to wood ant mortars and, for the first time, trap jaw ants! These ants have a powerful bite and can use their fast-moving jaws to propel themselves out of combat, healing in the process. This makes them deadly close range units with impressive survivability for their size.

Control trap jaw ants in Aggrandise!

Movement Code

The primary focus of the coming update may be a rework of freeplay, but it is not the most fundamental change that will come along with it. For the past several months a majority of the work we've been doing has been completely gutting and re-writing the movement and path finding system that creatures use to navigate the map. Although this results in very few visible changes, it has been a monumental undertaking when considering the size of our small team - we've been replacing built-in Unreal Engine 4 functions with bespoke ones which are more fit for our purposes. We had used the default functions all over the project, and such a basal change to things is obviously going to have lots of issues. We're nearly there in working through these now. The primary motivation for all this work is optimisation - removing unnecessary calculations which reduce the frame rate and restrict the number of creatures that can exist in the world. We've previously announced that the focal species of the next formicarium tier will be fire ants, and we want there to be a lot of them - swarming over enemies and overwhelming them. As well as making current content smoother for everyone, the groundwork put into this now will improve everything for the future.

Twitch Highlight - CnRNaggarock

We've been delighted to see EotU get some great coverage recently, and lots of people have been getting lots out of the beta despite the issues it has had! Scottish streamer CnRNaggarock is a long-time player of Empires of the Undergrowth, and as far as I'm aware is the only person with a documented win of the Hungry Spider Halloween / full moon level with video evidence. We always get a kick out of watching his streams. Give him a follow on Twitter, subscribe to him on Twitch, and support his content! Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/cnrnaggarock Twitter - https://twitter.com/CNaggarock

Screenshot Central

So after writing a particularly long newsletter, I finally come to my favourite part - looking through a few of the fantastic screenshots you lovely people take of our game on a regular basis, making it look much better than it has any right to be. If you'd like to contribute simply upload your screenshots to Steam - F12 by default takes a snap. To get some interesting angles press F9 in-game to get to photo mode. If you hold down shift whilst you do this, the camera will be freed up for some really nice photographic potential. You can also email your snaps to me at mike@slugdisco.com.

At first glance this shot from ant27rex looks like a crab nestling down in hay for the night, until you realise its a whole bunch of whip spiders

A cheeky jumping spider waits for leaf cutters to emerge in another shot from Limey21

A pleasingly purple Formica ereptor queen from whoamijr

[ 2020-02-16 20:14:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Beta Testing - 0.2114 - Phorid Fly Challenge, Uber Balances, Fixes Changes

We're not far from concluding the beta testing for this upcoming large update - withj this patch we are re-activating the campaign mode with the entirely new movement code. If any of you in the optional beta feel like starting a new campaign run, now is the time, and report back any issues to us! It's not too late to join in the optional beta if you would like: [quote]To access the beta, follow the below steps: [olist]

Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"

Choose the "Betas" tab

In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter christmasants

After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "openbeta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu

Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch. [/olist] By doing so, you are acknowledging that this is a beta and things are not in their finished state. [/quote] We have renamed Formicarium to Story as we feel it points better to where a player should start. Some content and settings have been added to the story. Additionally, there are a load of fixes added, some projectile optimisations and some substantial balance changes to ubers and AOE attacks.

New Content

Challenge mode added for levels 3.1 and 3.2 - Phorid Flies!
- Avoid leaf patches infested with these critters; they will inject their eggs into the heads of your ants causing 2 minutes of reduced stats followed by inevitable death
- All ants have a chance of fighting off the flies when they are attacked, but level 3 mediae and majors have a 100% chance to fight them off. A successful defence will cause the fly to leave
Difficulty settings added for formicarium challenge levels 1 and 2. You can now take these on in easier difficulties or harder if you feel you were not punished enough!

Balance Changes

Damage falloff implemented for some area of effect abilities doing less damage the further away from the epicentre of the attack the creature is (reaching zero at the very edge)
- Implemented on level 3 wood ant mortar attacks
- Implemented on all uber basic attacks
- Implemented on some whip spider attacks
All Uber creatures have been rebalanced and should now be possible to take on with any colony
All have had their damage, health and resistances reduced
- Hermit crab, beach tiger beetle and devil's coach horse ubers scaled down to be defeatable by a very large black ant army
- Beach wolf spider uber rebalanced to be strong against leafcutter majors but weak to larger armies of lower powered units (no AOE damage on main attack, very strong single target damage) also given high venom resist
- Jumping spider uber is now very dangerous to wood ants (very high venom resistance, ability that deals enough damage in an area to one-hit kill them)
- Spiny devil uber is now strong against black ants and other low health melee
- Whip spider uber is now strong against wood ants (high venom resist, strong, midrange attacked tuned to do well against them)
- Praying mantis uber is now strong against majors, weak to black ants and medium to wood ants
Black ants now have all AOE damage dealt to them that they are not at the epicentre of reduced by 20% (new stat AOE damage resistance)

Optimisations

Projectiles have seen significant optimisations and are now handled differently (this should be most noticeable with rapid fire wood ants)
Projectiles visuals tweaked

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where the player's ants could appear red on the surface minimap with fog of war turned on
Fixed some visual issues in Crucible
Alleviated some flickering shading issues
Eaten creatures not part of a colony will now correctly disappear the moment they are eaten
Battle arena now only removes creatures that are not in combat
Uber whip spider now moves properly
Fixed an issue with projectiles that could cause the explosion to veer to the bottom right
Woodlouse is no longer in the floor
Removed an unneeded sound from various rove beetle sprays
Moved a food item out of the wall in Embankment
ixed an issue where items dropped inside another undug tile were removed (they are now repositioned onto a dug out tile)
Fixed an issue where a jumping spider that is killed mid jump would continue to be attacked even after its death
Trap jaw walking animation should now better follow its movement
Fixed an issue where rove beetle type B and its larvae would be switched around in tick boxes in freeplay advanced creature settings
Fixed an issue where marker paths could go past the marker and loop back
Fixed an issue where marker path arrows were pointing the wrong direction
Fixed an issue where dead minims refuse model was blocking mouse tile interactions
Photo mode is forced off when the menu opens to prevent confusion with it unpausing the game
Seeds will no longer land part way up the stem on poppy plants
Ubers will no longer ignore the nest invasion setting in freeplay setup
Woodworm will no longer float

[ 2020-02-16 00:48:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Beta Testing - 0.2113 - Some Balance, Some Optimisation, Some Other Stuff

Some freeplay balance, some monthly level fixes and improvements, some optimisations, some other fixes a bit of everything! If you're not participating in the optional beta and would like to, follow the instructions in the original beta post for details of how to participate. You'll need to be running the game on Windows and through Steam. https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/1705107447279697254

General and Extra Level Fixes and Balance Changes

Fixed an issue where a picked up creature would kill the creature picking it up and would cause it yo be locked in an attack animation permanently
Fixed issues where ants in another colonies nest could could freeze when the marker was removed and other situations
Fixed an issue that could cause flickering with moving static meshes
Fixed some aesthetic issues on the crucible
Substantially reduced the cost of rendering the Isolepis Cernua (spiky plant)
Movement changes preventing creatures rubber banding off one another (the vibrating woodlouse for example)
Added in a minimap ping and alert message on babysitting when the enemy colony is attacked, when they head out to attack some enemies and when they head out to defend the player
Increased the amount of time the allied colony has to gather the starting resources
Fixed a crash that could occur when viewing climbable plants resource quantities and it is deleted
Fixed an issue where vines could show as harvestable above tiles that were not accessible
Victory condition now works in Extremis (wave 30) and will provide a reward
Small optimisations with auras
Wood ants will no longer target allied colonies
Fixed a crash that could happen with loaded freeplay games (and harvestman legs)
Fixed an issue that could cause abilities not to trigger
Fixed an issue that reduced wood ant range dramatically and cased them to freeze

Optimisations

Nativised some costly classes
Some additional optimisations in creature scanning
Creatures scanning for other creatures has seen several optimisations (this should lead to better performance when lots of creatures are in close proximity). Please note there may be bugs with this change, if you notice any strange behaviour please let us know

Freeplay Changes and Balance

Small creatures now cannot invade for half the amount of time large creatures cannot invade for
Fixed a bug that caused the large creature invasion block to not change with difficulty setting
Massively reduced the chance a passive swarm will invade the player nest
Slightly reduced the chance an aggressive swarm will invade the players nest
Reduced chance aggressive swarms will spawn early on
Moderately reduced the chance defensive and neutral swarms will invade the players nest
Creature swarms are now removed when all creatures belonging to the swarm are killed
More than doubled the range at which enemies cannot loiter around the players nest entrance

[ 2020-02-01 12:18:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

HOTFIX for Beta Test V0.2112 - Crash Fix

Thanks to plenty of reports from everyone kind enough to help us test, we've identified a very common crash in the most recent beta test (V0.2112). It was to do with creatures spawning underground and therefore affected just about every level, eventually. Due to lots of people very kindly taking the time to send in their crash reports to us it took us practically no time to identify the issue - this is a hotfix for the currently running beta to fix this issue only.

Patch Notes

Fixed a crash caused by any creatures not belonging to the player colony spawning underground or entering the nest

If you're currently participating in the beta your game should update automatically to fix this issue. Again, thank you to everyone who helped us - you made finding this issue super easy.

[ 2020-01-26 11:10:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Beta Testing - 0.2112 - Balance In All Things Freeplay

This beta patch includes several fixes, some new freeplay features and optimisations! This is an update for the currently running optional beta. If you're not participating in the optional beta and would like to, follow the instructions in the original beta post for details of how to participate. You'll need to be running the game on Windows and through Steam. https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/1705107447279697254 Full patch notes for beta update 0.2112 are detailed below:

General Fixes

Some funnel web tile surfers on Baby Sitting will now correctly spawn when your ally tunnels them out.
Moved all pebbles of walkable area in the original spider level
Fixed more pathing issues to do with ramps (some issue that arose on Baby Sitting and other areas)
Fixed an issue where if an enemy died on top of a tile that used to be a cavern it would be un-harvestable
Minor optimisation in ant eggs
Ice plants in Baby Sitting no longer block clicks
Prevented creatures from hanging out within the ant nest tunnel where they cannot be attacked or attack (both on surface and underground)
Shortened text on score screen of a bonus multiplier that was overlapping the score
Fixed an issue where if graphics setting were changed during some particle effects, then they would exist forever
Fixed an aesthetic issue with leafcutter minors attack animation loop
Several optimisations for pathing and location functions
Overground minimap will now stop flashing if tabbing to the overground
When trying to place a marker in an un-pathable underground zone it will try and snap to a neighbouring pathable tile, if this fails and error sound plays
Fixed a visual error with the wood ant projectile splash
Players can now place markers on ramps via the minimap
Minor optimisations to do with marker placement
Optimisation added to repathing due to tunnelled out tiles
Optimisation added in various areas that required a calculated path length

Freeplay

Fixed an issue where loaded minims would immediately drop their leaves
Saved plant climbers will now correctly harvest when they reach there harvest points
Fixed an issue where climbers could load stuck climbing a plant and in the wrong place (and unstuck and saved stuck ones)
Fixed an issue where creatures could exit the maps from the position they were standing (and hence could just ping out of existence)
Fixed an issue where sometimes right clicking the minimap would not draw the path of a marker on the surface
Infestation landmark now obeys disabled creature fighting
Fixed victory / defeat animations in Embankment
Moved a log outside of play area on Embankment
Harvestman severed legs will now save and load with a visual mesh and will no longer walk around on their own when loaded
Minor leaf cosmetic changes in Embankment
Rounded victory condition goals to nearest whole number
Deletion jobs for full refuse tiles are now correctly saved and loaded
Default difficulty is now 20%
The time period where the player does not get invaded in freeplay now slowly allows invasions based on a weighted dice roll (first 10 minutes no large creature invasions, next 10 minutes moving from very few, to normal amount by the end)
Added a Play Difficulty that affects multiple things including:
- Constant difficulty max and ramp rates in difficulty
- Extends grace periods before ubers can spawn and enemy creatures can attack
- Wave sizes
- Difficulty increase due to victory condition getting close
- Score multipliers added for the above
Swarms of creatures should no longer hang around nest entrances of active players
25% increased spawn rate of landmarks when playing as leafcutters (slightly more leaves)
Ubers will not invade a player nest until they have existed on the map for eight minutes, then it is up to them!

[ 2020-01-25 23:42:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Beta Testing - 0.2111 Beta Update - Bug Fixes

We've released a bug-fixing (yes, we've heard the joke before!) update for the currently running beta. All of the most recent changes are listed below. If you're not participating in the optional beta and would like to, it is still running and as long as you own the game on Steam and use Windows, you can participate. [url=https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/1705107447279697254]Follow the instructions in the original beta post for details of how to participate. https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/1705107447279697254

Changes / Bug Fixes

Added an option slider for a darkened square behind resource counters for visibility
Fixed a problem with creatures moving on z axis when they shouldnt
Fixed an issue with creature movement on thin ramps
Fixed a sound issue with rove beetles and wood ants
Trail calculations have been updated. Should lead to more ants at the end of trails, more consistent flows and less ants waiting underground
Minor optimisation of markers
Baby Sitting map no longer says Return to Formicarium at the end and now returns to the main menu
Framerate changes will now correctly save and reload when changed
Fixed an issue that could cause honeydew to appear as big grey spheres on food tiles
Fixed an issue when a minim looks for a drop off point and re-paths at the same time (it will no longer lose the food)
Beach wolf spider hats (in arachnophobe mode) can now be clicked through for marker placement
Fixed issues with minims getting stuck in walls
Fixed an issue where leaf plant landmarks in freeplay would never despawn and constantly hold a landmark spot (this should lead to more leaves spawning in freeplay)
Fixed an issue that could cause one landmark to spawn on top of another in freeplay after a save and load
Optimisation added to leaves
Increased areas landmarks can spawn on Embankment threefold
Starting landmarks in Embankment increased to 16 (up from 10) and landmark spawns per day increased to 13 (up from 9)
Leafcutter queen death will now trigger defeat in freeplay
Embankment map text and image added to freeplay setup
Embankment minimap colour changed to rainforest colours
Moved some starting food on Embankment
Fixed various movement and pathing issues
Fixed an issue where creatures colliding with walls were picking bad locations to pop out to
Optimisations added to ant jobs
Fixed an issue where freeplay difficulty was set to zero at the start of playing ramp (no matter what setting you had for start difficulty)
Level 1 ants that are swarm creatures (such as the ones in the Battle Arena) will now display their level
Fixed an issue where a praying mantis could crash the game when using abilities
Fixed a crash that could happen if a projectile shooter (wood ant) was eaten before the projectile collided (could happen with wood ants vs. praying mantis)
Fixed Embankment lighting and some cosmetic issues
Fixed an issue where the AI of an ant could break if a marker is placed in its own nest when ants are in an enemy nest
Fixed an issue where a praying mantis could pick up a creature being held by another creature
Removed food in impenetrable rock on Baby Sitting
Fixed an issue where night and day were not correctly progressing on some levels
Camera zoom now interpolates (very rapidly)
Freeplay import / export boxes no longer allow clicking other things when active
Plant climbing speed is now based on the current ant speed, not its speed when it started climbing
Improved food store space reservation
Allied creatures now properly avoid one another
Fixed an issue where tile refund costs would not remain constant through a save for initial builds and upgrades
Optimisation on buried harvestable creatures
Slight smoothing of camera movement (it is improved further by setting a framerate limit)
Improved pathing for dig jobs
Fixed an issue where saving and loading a freeplay game with leafcutters would cause extra creatures objects to spawn each time (potentially leading to a lot of wasted processing)
Wave spawning in freeplay now takes food height into account and no longer spawns in the floor
Fixed a memory leak to do with leafcutter majors with the Sharp upgrade infinitely adding more Thorns auras to nearby creatures
Thorns aura now drops off as was intended when leaving the range of the leafcutter major
Thorns aura is now correctly positioned on affected creatures
Fixed an issue where certain food items would think they were under the wrong tile when buried
Removed the phantom log that would float through the middle of the Embankment map from time to time
Beach tiger beetle larvae will no longer try to attack creatures that cannot be killed and will no longer attack creatures that cannot be picked up

[ 2020-01-18 22:33:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Beta Testing - V0.211 Update - New Extra Level, New Freeplay Map, Bug Fixes

Thanks to everyone who has taken part in the beta test that has been running since Christmas eve! We have an update to that beta, available now, that introduces a new extra level (Baby Sitting) and a new freeplay map (Embankment) set in the rainforest environment, as well as a lot of bug fixes from the extensive feedback we've received. We're also extending the Christmas Hungry Spider event until the end of January to allow more people to play it - look for the gift on the main menu! If you haven't participated in the beta yet and would like to join in, it is still open to all Windows owners on Steam. Follow the instructions in the previous post about the beta.

New Maps

A new extra level has been added - Baby Sitting! Can you keep an allied colony alive whilst it makes some questionable decisions?
A new freeplay map added - Embankment. Setup your freeplay colony next to a stream in the rainforest.

Fixes

Restored minimap path drawing
Fixed a divide by zero crash that could occur whenever a creature jumps (the trapjaw crash)
Fixed an issue causing large frame rate drops when funnel webs were checking for targets
Fixed an issue where green food capsules would display if playing freeplay leafcutters with fog of war on
Fixed an issue on the monthly levels where the starting units were displaying colourless
Fixed an issue on Extremis where waves would stop at wave 23
Media and trapjaws will now properly say selected once they have been purchased in Extremis
Tunnellers will now head to the queen if their dig targets are tunnelled out in Extremis
Fixed an issue on Extremis where a wood ant upgrade purchase would display the wrong one
Fixed a tile exclamation mark that was mispositioned on Hold Out
Exclamation mark enemies should now always spawn when tunnelled out
Fixed an issue with Beach Tiger Beetle Larvae where they could sometimes get stuck attacking and will no longer attempt to attack a target that cannot be picked up
Media belonging to a Formica ereptor colony should no longer have fungus waste, minims and be able to pick up normal resources
Fixed an issue with Crucible where colony creatures could not get above ground
Fixed an issue with paint work on closed tunnel exits in the dunes and other similar issues in freeplay levels
Fixed an issue where mantis chirping could be heard after death
Exclamation mark spawning should more consistently be at the location of the mark
Plant shoots should no longer spawn off the visible edge of a cliff
Black ant workers feet pulled out of the floor
Fixed an issue where used fungus quantities could go negative in the top bar
Fixed a tick box issue with freeplay landmarks
Fixed an issue where food would still think it was buried if generated on a cavern (and the ants could not pick it up)
Fixed an issue where creatures could pick food up from long distances
Fixed an issue where dropped items would appear anywhere with 300 radius of the drop
Fixed an issues with leafcutter colony economy when loaded in freeplay (wrong storage values, and used fungus not being regenerated properly on tiles)
Corrected some translation errors

Changes

Allied creatures now show as yellow on the minimap and health bars
Extended the Christmas level until the end of January
Added in extra frame rate limits

Movement changes and fixes

Improved movement around ramp entrances
Fixed issues with creatures trying constantly to walk off some cliff edges (and being teleported back onto the cliff)
Fixed an issue where creatures would attempt to path through pebbles and other obstacles

[ 2020-01-10 17:21:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Leafcutter Freeplay / Christmas Level Beta NOW!

Merry Christmas all! We've got an optional beta build for testing the freeplay leafcutters & reworked freeplay setup ready for those that would like to help us test. We also have a very festive special level for you to try! WARNING: This is a beta build and the new movement code still needs to be perfected. Formicarium levels have been disabled until we have dealt with specific issues in these levels. If you wish to play these levels, disable the beta in steam which will opt you back out. It is available to all Steam Windows players. The beta code is christmasants. The main features for you to test in this beta build are:

Leafcutter ants are now a playable colony in freeplay
Under "Other Modes" there is a new menu - Extra Levels - and the first two of these, Aggrandise and Extremis, are there to be tested
A special Christmas level - click the gift on the main menu!

Guess who's back? WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND BACKING UP YOUR SAVE GAME FILES before attempting to play freeplay. Please see this thread on the forums for information about where your saved games are stored so you can back them up.

How to Access the Beta

To access the beta, follow the below steps: 1) Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties" 2) Choose the "Betas" tab 3) In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter christmasants 4) After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "openbeta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu 5) Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch. By doing so, you are acknowledging that this is a beta and things are not in their finished state. We are quite happy for you to post and share videos / screenshots of everything in this beta - in fact we're looking forward to seeing if anyone can beat the new Christmas level, which is just as devilishly difficult as the legendary Halloween one! In fact, you might recognise the protagonist... To access the new Christmas level, simply click on the gift that appears on the main menu after opting into the beta.

Oh boy! I wonder what it could be? Our aim is to expand the scope of the beta after the Christmas break, bringing the formicarium levels back in with the re-worked code and add a few extra bits and bobs, such as the challenge modes for 3.1 and 3.2. Once this is all sorted we'll activate support for achievements and release the update for everyone.

[ 2019-12-24 21:06:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

November 2019 Newsletter

And so, winter came. And with it, the season of darkness and cold but also the season of goodwill and cheer. A little bit of a shorter newsletter this month, as we are still (I know, I know) working through the last of the movement code changes. Keep an eye open for the beta announcement - before putting it onto the main branch, we will run an optional beta for all Steam Windows players to help us pin down the last of the issues.
Night-time jungle from returning contributor MorPacke There are a couple of new things to show, however - the extended time it's taken to get the rewrite done has meant that John has had the time to get ahead on some other systems whilst Liam and Matt are busy with that. We're ready to show off the creature that will feature in challenge mode for levels 3.1 The Harvest and 3.2 Front Line, so let's get right to that!

Phorid Flies

The mortal enemy of many ant species, the tiny phorid fly may look as unassuming but it harbours a deadly secret. It can quickly lay its eggs on the bodies of vulnerable ants. The eggs will hatch into maggots that burrow into the body of the ant, eating its innards and inevitably killing it.

Innocuous-looking and tiny, but deadly - the phorid fly Leafcutter ants are not entirely defenseless against such a gruesome fate, however. The tiny minims - which under normal circumstances rarely if ever leave the nest - can hitch a ride on the back of their much larger nest-mates, fending off the attacking phorids and sparing their sisters from being eaten from the inside out. In Empires of the Undergrowth, phorid flies will join the mole crickets and tiger beetle larvae in our menagerie of critters for people who like an extra twist on their levels, or who just want to collect some extra royal jelly! The exact mechanics of the minims riding on the backs of the bigger ants are yet to be fully implemented but we can't wait to show you once they are. The current plan is to get the challenge modes into the game along with the upcoming freeplay update. As always, until we're entirely sure we don't want to speculate on when we'll be ready - we will announce a firm date when we can be certain of meeting it.

Achievements Unlocked!

Another system that we've been itching to get into the game is achievements, as mentioned a couple of newsletters ago. John did a successful test of these working with Steam on one of his live streams - see the below video of the wonderful moment he managed this (around the 1: 43: 15 mark)! Along with the upcoming update the first batch of achievements will be added to Steam, with more coming later. [previewyoutube=I0T4rm0bvDo;full][/previewyoutube] This means the first set of achievements is now locked in, but if you have suggestions for fun hidden achievements then please drop by the thread we've set up for this purpose on our official forums.

EGX Berlin

At the start of November, Liam travelled to Germany along with Tom (who is working on his sandbox evolution game Ecosystem, which we're publishing and you should play the demo of) to meet up with Matt and exhibit both Empires of the Undergrowth and Ecosystem to the attendees at EGX Berlin. We always love doing these events for a specific purpose - the true value of them lies in observing the reactions to someone entirely new to the experience. It gives a level of insight that is entirely different than curated feedback sent to us over the internet - the hands-on approach is just not achievable any other way.

Ecosystem and EotU, and some curious beetles at the end... hmmm We'd like to thank everyone who stopped by our booths to play for a while, and we loved hearing (and seeing) what you felt about the way things are going! We don't go to many of these events, perhaps one a year - but we make the most of them whilst we're there. Off the back of EGX Berlin we're also very grateful to Nicholas Montegriffo of PC Invasion for including Empires of the Undergrowth in his list of 5 indies to watch from the event! Go and give his article a read.

Just For Fun - Scale Difference

Just a little fun here that gives a bit of an insight into the way scaling works in Empires of the Undergrowth. Unreal Engine 4, which is the engine system we use, uses a convention of 1 engine unit = 1cm, which would be a bit fiddly for Empires of the Undergrowth given our subject matter of tiny creatures. So we scale creatures up an order of magnitude, for our own convenience. The main menu has very little in the way of tiny creatures in it, however, so that is made at the standard scale. I wonder, then, what would happen if I put a normal creature into the main menu OH NOOOOOOOOOOO

And the scientist's hand from the third formicarium? Well, I've gone this far already, I've only myself to blame. Actually, it was suggested by someone on Facebook so you can blame them.

What have I done?!?

Screenshot Central

If you'd like to contribute to our monthly screenshot section then simply upload your screenshots to Steam (F12 by default) or mail them to mike@slugdisco.com. I'll look through them and choose some of the real lookers. You can enter the cinematic photo mode by pressing F9 - and if you do that whilst holding shift you'll have free movement of the camera, allowing you to get some really interesting angles. Give it a spin! [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1921809883]

An unfair end to freeplay from klagana6166 - we're working on balancing it!

Nice wide shot of the jungle from WraTTaFix

The scientist waits impatiently for ereptors to clash from Cthulaid42

[ 2019-12-02 20:12:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Hungry Spider Level Returns!

The Hungry Spider level is now back for the spooky season! This devlishly difficult level sees you play as the aforementioned arachnid as he eats his way through a web-shaped map. Okay, enough alliteration. Unlike other levels, you control him directly with the mouse or buttons you'd usually use for moving the camera. There's a special apparition on the main menu to let you access the level - see the YouTube video for help in finding it. [previewyoutube=L3QtFadJryI;full][/previewyoutube] Be warned: this level is legendarily difficult and very, very few have succeeded! Those enemy spiders are a real killer. If you don't beat the level this time round, it'll also show up on full moons.

[ 2019-10-29 19:27:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

October 2019 Newsletter

Autumn (or fall if you're that way inclined) has well and truly began to take a hold in our part of the world. The nights are drawing in, the temperature is dropping and there is some fun stuff being worked on for Empires of the Undergrowth. Or boring technical stuff, depending on your point of view. Either way, we shall detail it here for your perusal!
Nighttime crab hunting from Steam user Bald Hippo z With there not being much in the way of visual newness at the moment (a large majority of the recent work has been on systems and algorithms rather than artwork) I asked each of our three developers to give me some background information about what they've been working on. John has been expanding current systems to handle the upcoming fire ants, Liam has been finishing off his overhaul of the movement code, and Matt has been working on a long-anticipated feature, the titan climbing system!

Titans of the Undergrowth - Matt

In real life, ants do not live on a flat plane with incremental steps, battling their enemies from the ground. They swarm and conquer, clambering all over their foes to get at weak spots they otherwise couldn't reach. Although we are definitely making a game rather than a simulation, and many of our game systems are reliant on the incrementally-layered flat plane, we want to introduce some more three dimensional elements when it is both fun and appropriate to do so. Having ants swarm and climb over their foes has been in our plans for a very long time. We liked the idea of describing the larger creatures as the Titans of the Undergrowth, and they had the climbable functionality to distinguish them from smaller creatures. There are some videos from very early development, back when we were using our own custom-built engine, of this system being tested. When we made the move to Unreal Engine 4 this system fell to the wayside somewhat when the planned levels for the start of early access did not require it. Now is the time to bring it back. Matt has recently been working on doing just that. As a test case until he has models for new creatures, he has been using the whip spider from the leafcutter levels. It's a suitably massive creature, and although he doesn't promise that it will be climbable in the game it seems quite likely.

Whip spider with skeletal "cart rails" to help ants climb it. The system he's creating works in a similar way to how leafcutters climb plants in the current game. In the above GIF, the green lines represent "rails" along which "carts" travel. In this example, an ant will get close to the titan, choose a climbing point, and board one of these imaginary "carts". The cart travels along the length of the green path and deposits the ant at the end (the end representing a weak point on the body that ants would attack) which along with its walk cycle animation will give a very convincing representation of the ant scurrying over the titan. At the end of its allotted time, or when the titan is defeated, it will board another imaginary cart back to the ground and end up back on the normal ground plane. The exact mechanics gameplay-wise of how this will affect the damage to the titan are yet to be entirely worked out, but the visual side of things is coming along nicely. The system is a very flexible one - although in this example Matt is using six paths, any number can be added to creatures for variety. It'll see heavy use in the fire ant levels, as the furiously aggressive fire ants overwhelm their enemies.

Movement Code - Liam

Although Liam's new movement and pathing code is up and running, there are lots of little outlier issues that were solved in the past and need to be thought about again. This is what happens when you remove a core piece of the game engine that has been built upon since 2016! Below you can see the new overground tunnel exit. You should notice that the whole thing is now made from hexagons, so it fits snugly on the tile grid (in the real levels you won't be able to see the join). Whilst we were doing this, we took the opportunity to change the exit hole layout (they used to all face the same way). You can also see some colourful spheres and lines, if you really want to know what they are about, read on.

Movement on the over ground tile grid is very predictable: the creatures are always walking horizontally at a multiple of tile block height and for any given point on the plane X,Y, there is only one tile. Each tile contains a "node" that links to 12 surrounding nodes - these relationships are used for the fast jump pathfinding algorithm (so ants know how to get from A to B). The highlighted overground tunnel exit piece works a little differently; nodes can have heights between two tile levels (on the ramps) and there are areas that have two viable locations for a given X,Y position (down the tunnels and above the tunnels). Not only does this complicate the pathfinding system, so that X,Y locations on the overground tunnel link to arrays of pathing nodes rather than single nodes, we also need a way to sew in to the surrounding tiles. The turquoise arrows show the pathing information on the exit itself this is like a directional net (the ants can travel anywhere the arrows point to). The black hexagons indicate the edges of the exit that need to attach to surrounding tiles. The red lines represent these attachments, any tiles they connect to are aware of links to both the exit (red) and links to normal tiles (blue). The pink spheres are just to brighten Liam's day as he works.

Fire Ants and Extra Missions - John

Breaking Your Own Rules

Recently John has been working on the fire ants and trying to bring something new to the table with this fascinating species that works with them narratively. Several of their new abilities attempt something that is new to the game. One variant of them has the eggs hatch for free if the egg has been on the tile for longer than a minute leading to an attack-retreat style play to get the most value out of the colony. A recent issue has been making multiple ants hatch from the same tile. One ant per tile has been a rule since the first demo and is ingrained in many core systems of the game. For instance, tiles are often used to work out how many ants should join a trail quickly, whether an enemy colony should attack and even saving and loading the colony. All of these are expecting to work with a single ant. Similarly the UI needed to be updated to work with the array of ants rather than a single object. Fire ant tiles will allow 2 ants at level 3 and we are very much looking forward to how this will change your strategies when playing with this species.

Extremis

John's upcoming survival map Extremis (previously known by its working title of Holdout Extreme) now has a unique unlock system - upon defeat, you will be given points to spend on unlocking ants and abilities for your next attempt.

Extremis will be just one of what we hope will be many extra missions that are apart from the main campaign, beginning with the next large update to the game (which will focus on freeplay, as detailed in a previous newsletter).

Screenshot Central

The most fun part of writing these newsletters for me is looking through the recent uploads on our Steam community page to find the best screenshots. We're consistently blown away by just how amazing you guys are at making our game look gorgeous! If you'd like to submit something to Screenshot Central, simply upload it to Steam (F12 by default takes a screenshot, and you'll be given the option of uploading upon exiting the game) or manually sent it to me mike@slugdisco.com. F9 will take you into photo mode to get some great angles, and holding shift whilst you do that will break the camera free of any restrictions.

Jumping spiders are such cuties in this shot from Steam user germinal.ronse

The stuff of nightmares - a mess of whip spiders in the battle arena from Steam user DeltaX06

Where did all the trees go? Atta cephalotes colony from Steam user CaptainCarrot

[ 2019-10-25 18:37:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

August - September 2019 Newsletter

With the summer coming to a close we thought we'd publish another newsletter for you guys. This time we'll be talking about a few extra systems we've been working on (such as achievements) as well as talking about us as a company taking the intrepid steps into working with some other indie developers. So, we'll be introducing Tom and his game Ecosystem a bit further down!
A dramatic shot of leafcutters battling wood ants in freeplay from Steam user hugo27rex

Getting There - Updated Systems

Over the last few weeks progress continues to be made on the updated movement / collision system and a large round of profiling. Methods have been tightened to reduce computational overheads, new algorithms have been refined and the old has made way for the new. We're now nearing the end of our self-allotted time for this large task, and when that happens well need your help testing it. [previewyoutube=ptjMDWqm3QU;full][/previewyoutube] The ants calculating ways to avoid each other (me irl) The below video shows something we weren't able to do with the old system, which is to use a vector calculation when a creature hits an obstacle and feed it back into its direction. This means with a bit of tweaking we can give the appearance of quite natural avoidance of walls and other tricky bits of terrain such as ramp edges. [previewyoutube=el-lqBnjmow;full][/previewyoutube] Bonus marvellous spider As briefly mentioned above, once we have a release candidate for our movement code changes and freeplay update we will run a beta for all Steam owners of the game. This means that those who want to will be able to participate in a pre-release by entering a beta code into their Steam client. We will detail this when we announce a date, and as always, we wont do that until were certain we can honour it.

Achievements

Whilst Liam and Matt have been working on the aforementioned changes, it hasnt been practical to test new content such as maps and game modes. John has therefore been using this time to get up to speed on several systems that we haven't had the time for until now such as achievements. He is now deep into the groundwork for this system and through his livestreams and our official forum has reached out to the community for achievement ideas.

Achievements of the Undergrowth! We think we'll release the achievements incrementally through Steam (and eventually other platforms). There's still plenty of time to get your suggestions in for fun achievement ideas / names before we lock them in, so please do join us on our official forums and post in the thread made for this purpose!

Extra Levels: Holdout Extreme

Extra missions are going to become a hopefully regular feature (read the previous newsletter for extensive detailing) beginning shortly after the release of the freeplay and movement code overhaul. Here's a fun one that John's been working on on-stream, with a working title of Holdout Extreme! It takes the idea of waves of enemies in an underground space as in the existing demo level Holdout and runs with it. Takes it to the extreme, if you like.

It's like Holdout, but Extreme! Once defeated you will be given an amount of unlock points based on how well you have done. Next time you play you can spend these to unlock new species of ant giving you a better chance to get further next time. The level also features randomised underground caverns adding to replayability.

Publishing

This is a topic only indirectly related to Empires of the Undergrowth, which is of course our own self-published game. We've been working on EotU in some form since we had the idea back in 2014, and we've been through a lot with it. We'd like to think that the experience we've gained along the way, the pitfalls we've traversed and the mistakes we've learned from go towards some wisdom that might help other indie developers working on their own titles. If we were going to do this, we thought, it would make sense to stay within the sphere of nature-based projects for now. After all, that subject obviously fascinates us, and we know people who have been working on some wonderful projects. With that in mind, let's go into detail about the first of these:

Introducing: Ecosystem

It's time for us to talk about a partnership we've forged with our friend Tom Johnson. Tom has been working on a unique evolution-based sandbox game called Ecosystem for some time now - and it's a game that really deserves to see the light of day. We've been advising Tom in the context of the wisdom we've gained from EotU, and will be acting as Ecosystem's publisher to bring it to the world!

An infinite variety of creatures can evolve in Ecosystem In Ecosystem, you have control over an ocean environment where a huge variety of marine animals can evolve and thrive, or falter and perish. The pressures of natural selection, guided by your hand, will determine which lifeforms are fit for purpose and which will be confined to evolutionary history.

Reefs and plant beds, placed by the player, support the evolving Ecosystem Your creatures can take on an infinite variety of physical and behavioural forms, all driven by genetic and neural algorithms. It's a game with incredible depth and, we hope, a bright future. We invite you all to add Ecosystem to your wishlists and follow its social media accounts, where there will be regular updates, and the demo is available NOW! Go and give it a spin. Ecosystem on Steam (download the demo here!) Ecosystem Official Site Ecosystem on Facebook & Twitter Ecosystem Forums We'll talk about Ecosystem a lot more on the Slug Disco social media, and our official website. Normal service shall now resume!

YouTuber Highlight: TheGamingBeaver

TheGamingBeaver will be quite familiar to some of you but we just thought it was worth giving him a special mention this time around. Hes covered our game for a long time now (we first linked to him in a newsletter way back in April 2017!) and has recently come back to it to put his formicarium colony to the test against a whole lot of everything, which made for a fun episode. Thanks to TheGamingBeaver for playing EotU and bringing the game to his fans! [previewyoutube=ChtyJrGvaAc;full][/previewyoutube] TheGamingBeaver goes full mad scientist mode Whilst were on the subject, if you know of any smaller YouTubers covering our game who deserve a special mention by us please let us know about them. Send an email to mike@slugdisco.com with a description of them and a link to some of their videos.

Screenshot Central

Photo mode is activated by pressing F9 by default. It will allow you to get all sorts of fun angles to make for interesting screenshots! If you hold down shift whilst pressing F9, youll have a free camera, allowing you to take some potentially amazing shots (but you might see level stuff thats usually hidden, so prepare to have the illusion spoiled if you do this!). Upload them to Steam or mail them to mike@slugdisco.com and well include some of our favourites with our newsletters.

A pleasing trail of leafcutters from Steam user germinal.ronse

Battle formation against an Uber creature from Steam user AK_tion_47

RIP Hungry Spider from Steam user doge gamer

[ 2019-09-20 11:17:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Steam Cloud Saves Now Active

All Steam users of Empires of the Undergrowth now have access to cloud saving! From now on, your games are backed up automatically to the cloud when you exit the game. This means that for people who log in on another system or those who come back to the game after changing their setup, the saved games they've made should always be ready for after launching the game from Steam. Cloud saving is enabled by default. The only issue we foresee is people who have different saved games on multiple systems - if Steam detects a discrepancy between the local files and the cloud ones it will ask you if you wish to push your local saves to the cloud or download from the cloud, overwriting the local. In these cases you can choose which to save, or disable cloud saving for EotU on machines you do not wish to be overwritten.

[ 2019-09-06 16:20:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

July-August 2019 Newsletter

We are now deep into our open-engine surgery of the game which will streamline and reduce computational overheads allowing for bigger armies, faster frame rates and smarter enemies. We detailed this a fair bit last time. Whilst this is happening we've also been working on a new, hopefully regular feature that will be debuting along with the next large update - extra missions!
An ereptor colony takes on a wolf spider from appropriately-named Steam user wolf

Extra Missions

Whilst we have a fairly clear path towards the completion of the formicarium campaign mode (2 more major updates, the next of which will feature fire ants as its protagonist species, as discussed in the previous newsletter) we do want to add plenty of extra content to the game to give a more rounded experience. The current plan is to release these fairly regularly starting from the freeplay overhaul update.

A WIP shot of an as-yet unnamed extra level A very fair criticism of our way of doing things is that updates are slow. We want to release polished chunks of the finished product rather than things that are very glitchy and need a lot of refinement. This, combined with our small dev team, means that our user base has to be famously patient. We hope that with regular extra missions that are lesser in scope but very different from the main campaign branch we can go some way to addressing this. The turnaround on these extra missions can be significantly quicker than for the main campaign. This is because the things that take us the majority of the time to do (artwork assets, animation, writing, music, voice recording) won't be needed. We'll be re-using existing assets for these missions - this makes them a very efficient thing to enrich the game with. https://youtu.be/VkOMXg5sT-w John begins work on one of the extra missions Unlike the main campaign branch which tries to be somewhat realistic in its approach to ant behaviour and likely scenarios, there is infinite room for experimentation with these extra missions. Variety is the spice of life, and we have plenty of fun ideas to keep us going for a long time. For example, in the below video, John is working on a side mission where you have to look after an allied colony which isnt very clever, so youll have to babysit it to make sure it isnt overwhelmed! https://youtu.be/9TyS9ei6wWI Babysitting mission! Were getting a bit of a head start on these missions at the moment because with lots of resources currently tied up in the overhaul to movement and collisions, theres a bit of breathing space where we can set up levels and victory conditions before we can properly test them (when the deep-level work is done).

4th Tier

Right now there's not much we want to share about our work on the 4th tier formicarium levels featuring fire ants. The planning process is well underway by now, and work on them shall really accelerate when we're confident that our deep changes are stable. Those changes will be tested thoroughly when the freeplay rework update is released - hopefully by you guys as well as us!

Optimisations - Path Finding

A more technical thing to report on here, but as part of the efficiency and CPU overheads-saving round of changes that are currently deep in the works, heres one that might interest a few people. Liam has been working on a new path finding method called jump point search, and as you can see from the demonstration video below its a faster way to calculate paths than the more conventional A* algorithm in most circumstances. The video shows how the two systems go about finding a path between two points on a hexagonal grid (like EotU uses in-game). This will have a small impact on the time it takes to calculate creature movement routes but were including it here mainly as its an interesting curiosity, if you happen to like such behind-the-scenes gubbins. Also, name that theme tune! https://youtu.be/NckJFg3WRoQ I'll have a P please, Liam!

Recent Changes

When one of the devs makes a change to the game they make a note in the source control (the system that tracks changes). Looking through these recent changes can give a little insight into how things are currently progressing with the build. Heres a selective look with a short description for each entry, and given the recent work its no surprise theyre almost all to do with optimisations:

Profiling additions on tick
- This is Matt, our engine specialist, adding things into the code that help him find out exactly where excess calculations are being performed. In Unreal Engine 4 terms, a "tick" is a complete cycle of the program loop so things that tick perform calculations every frame the game runs. By eliminating as many of these as possible CPU processes are reduced, frame rates increase, and the world becomes a happier place. Ultimately, these rounds of profiling make the game better for everyone.
Optimisations to the chamber representation widget
- "Widgets" are a feature of UE4 we use for user interface and HUD elements. The process of profiling and optimising happens throughout the project, and this is another case of processes being refined and streamlined for faster performance.
Re-working of creature overlap detection
- A recent change has meant that creatures aren't constantly checking to see if they're overlapping other things (which is quite expensive for the CPU if it's happening every tick). Instead, John has recently gone through the code to see exactly where overlap calls are important, and by running the overlap detection functions only at these times a considerable number of calculations can be cut down.
Minimap optimisations
- More work by Matt. The minimap is a remarkably complex thing to do correctly and there are lots of avenues to making it more efficient, so these changes will contribute to the overall efficiency savings.

Screenshot Central

If youd like to see your screenshots in this section of the newsletter simply upload them to Steam in the normal way, or you can email them to mike@slugdisco.com if youd rather be a little more direct. Whenever we write a newsletter we trawl through recent additions and find our favourites.

A Formica fusca ant faces down a pack of beetle larvae from Steam user 1269053484

This ant is about to go on a very unpleasant journey from Steam user redmoth27

A neat overview of the jungle from Steam user Medin

[ 2019-08-22 06:42:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

A Quick Mid-Month Update Post!

Just a little interim news post in lieu of the full newsletter to let you guys know we're still working hard! We're currently in the midst of lots of deep, boring changes to the code that don't produce much in the way of visual excitement. Expect the newsletter in a few days!
A work-in-progress shot of a side mission John has been streaming what will become a feature starting from the next big update - regular side missions! The idea here is to give you guys more regular content that doesn't have the huge scope of the main missions, whilst also giving you a way of building up formicarium resources without too much replaying. More info to come with the full newsletter, but check out the streams on YouTube. https://youtu.be/VkOMXg5sT-w Liam has been working on new path finding algorithms (remember what I said about deep boring stuff!) to speed things up a bit, and Matt has been combing through the code to find all the nooks and crannies where unneeded calculations are being done. This is all in service of allowing things like larger army sizes (those fire ant colonies have a lot of ants!) and smoother framemrates for everyone. It's an important step before we go charging headlong into the 4th tier, and as always we appreciate the infinitely patient bunch of lovely people that is our community. https://youtu.be/NckJFg3WRoQ To finish, just a reminder that if you'd like more regular updates then follow out social media! We'll be posting screenshots on Saturday, letting you know when we go live for some development streaming, and getting up to all sorts of ant-related things. http://www.twitter.com/SlugDisco http://www.facebook.com/SlugDisco http://www.twitch.tv/SlugDisco

[ 2019-08-19 10:36:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

June 2019 Newsletter - Next Ants

To start with, a small distraction from the main event - Steam have recently held a summer promotion whereby leaving reviews gains you points. The recent reviews have been pushed into "overwhelmingly positive" territory - and we recognise that's directly down to you guys. Thank you so much! Now, on to the actual content of the newsletter!
Leafcutters doing their thing in this widescreen shot from Steam user Himmuguegeli We've recently had a meeting to discuss the direction for the rest of the game. We were almost entirely sure of what the next playable ants would be, and the meeting has cemented that decision. Many other things were also decided, and they will have an impact on both the long-term and short-term development of the game.

Fire Ants

The focal species for the 4th tier of the formicarium will be fire ants. The blanket term of 'fire ant' comprises many species, but they mostly share the same notorious traits - aggression and invasiveness, and a particularly unpleasant sting. We haven't entirely decided on the exact species that will feature but it will be of the Solenopsis genus.

Solenopsis invicta ants. Source: Wiki commons Fire ants have diverse and interesting behaviours - particularly relevant to us is the habit of using their own bodies to create structures. Holding onto each other to create a bridge is observed in some species, and this is directly relevant to us - it was one of the Kickstarter stretch goals back in 2016. We'll be talking about the details of how this will work as development continues.

Concept art for fire ant structures from the Kickstarter campaign

Optimisation

This is a very important issue for the longevity of the project - and one that will affect the timing of the next big update. At the moment, the creature movement and collision detection code is dependent on default Unreal Engine 4 actor functions. These are not at all optimised for use in an RTS game that has potentially hundreds of moving, reacting creatures at any one time. This is the primary reason that the game often starts to suffer when a lot of creatures are in play. Whilst it allows us to create beautiful graphics and we love working with it, UE4 was written with FPS-style games in mind - and many of its features are geared towards that. Those on lower-end systems particularly will feel the pinch when army sizes get large.

Too many ants! From Steam user Cas We've decided that now is the time to address this issue. We are rewriting lots of the code relevant to this to meet the specific needs of Empires of the Undergrowth. It will take some time but the benefits are multitude, including:

Significant increase in performance
Algorithm responsible for stuck creatures removed
Reduced overheads for future enemy colonies
Much more viable to have larger armies

The downside is that this is such a fundamental change to the way the game works that it is likely to break more or less everything, so it'll take time to work through the resultant issues. We know you're a patient bunch and are great with waiting for good things, and this is a good thing that will make the game better for everyone, forever. When we're getting close to having the optimisations done, we're very likely run a public beta on Steam for all owners to allow lots of feedback on them.

Freeplay Update

As detailed in the previous newsletter, the next large update for the game will come in the form of an update to freeplay. John has spent a lot of time recently working on the new menu system for this updated mode, which with the planned changes is a major consideration. The end result will be a much more friendly-looking menu with presets. The advanced options will be there for people who want to make a custom setup - and you'll have the ability to share them. Whilst he's making significant progress on this, its timing will be affected by the aforementioned optimisations. The update to freeplay will arrive at the same time as them. John has been streaming his work on this. See a recent one below - at around the 2 hours 12 minutes mark of this one he also shows a little preview of a creature that was cut from the leafcutter update for time purposes, the velvet worm! We intend to finish and add the velvet worm in a future update. https://youtu.be/uZJiTu3CHS4

Kickstarter Reward - Myrmecia ereptor

One of the Kickstarter rewards was an option to have a Myrmecia ereptor colony instead of Formica ereptor. Our artist Matt has been working on the necessary changes. Below are some screenshots of the Myrmecia ereptor workers. The addition will be purely cosmetic, and will likely be activated in the form of a Steam key sent out to backers of the appropriate tiers.

It'll be our first foray into working with DLC systems so it'll be a learning experience for us as well as everyone else! Please note that for now this is an exclusive cosmetic for Kickstarter backers.

YouTuber Highlight - Snootz TV

For the past couple of months Snootz has been covering Empires of the Undergrowth at the highest difficulty settings with his trademark calm, soothing manner. We've thoroughly enjoyed his playthroughs. His more recent attempts at insane difficulties for the third tier levels may well precipitate some balancing on our behalf. https://youtu.be/6pG3TwMs_Hw

Screenshot Central

If you'd like to contribute to this section then simply upload your screenshots to Steam (F12 by default) or mail them to mike@slugdisco.com. You can enter the cinematic photo mode by pressing F8 - and if you do that whilst holding shift you'll have free movement of the camera, allowing you to get some really interesting angles.

Night falls from Steam user Raymond2500

Whip spider circle of death in freeplay from Steam user Lord Distruct

Ladybird beetle in flight from Steam user Fazan008

[ 2019-07-09 14:50:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

April-May 2019 Newsletter

It's been just over a month since we unleashed our first major update for Empires of the Undergrowth - the Leafcutter Update - upon the world. We've worked through most of the glitches and balance issues now, and it's been a joy to see you guys have fun with the new additions to the game. Feedback has been almost entirely positive and we're so happy that you guys seem to be enjoying it!
Leafcutter trail from Steam user Jynn This newsletter will cover some of the issues that have come back in the immediate fallout, go through what we've added since the update in a bit more detail, and discuss what's going to happen in the immediate future.

The Leafcutter Update

As I'm sure the vast majority of you are aware, we released the Leafcutter Update on 25th April. We're pleased with how it went, and we appreciate the feedback you guys have given us that helped us correct some major issues that we didn't catch during our testing period. Chief of these was a crash that occurred when selling certain tiles - that's now been resolved. There have also been some balance changes to certain creatures and spawning amounts. There may still be some ways to go on this and of course we'll continue to monitor feedback.

Leafcutters collecting leaves from Steam user a white wyrm

Colony-vs-Colony

Colony-vs-colony combat has been something a lot of you have been asking for for quite a while, and it's something we've been itching to do for quite some time. The leafcutter levels finally allow this in a near-true fashion. The enemy colonies in 3.1 The Harvest and the 3rd formicarium challenge are much nearer to a true AI-controlled ant colony than have existed in the previous levels - they have their own underground, pheromone groups, and behaviour trees.

Army ant major from Steam user Fazan008 These are stepping stones to truly autonomous colonies which will be useful in a future freeplay update, which will properly dig out their own nests from scratch and all the bells and whistles. Liam is enjoying working on this AI (he's calling it HiveBot), but it won't be ready for quite some time - having an AI be able to come close to a human-controlled player without cheating is really tough!

Direction of the Game

There has been concern from a small number of players about the direction the game is headed with colony-vs-colony combat and resource wars. The new levels are very different to the ones that have come before, but it is worth reassuring these players at this stage that not all future levels will involve these mechanics. There's still plenty of things to explore in the world of the Undergrowth that don't just involve dominating another colony, but it was something a lot of players (and us) wanted to see.

New Additions

Demo Level - The Crucible

The largest new addition we've made since the release of the leafcutter update is a new demo level called The Crucible. It features leafcutters (minus the majors) and is the only demo level in which you can access the surface. Owners of the game can access it from the alpha demo levels section of "Other Modes" from the main menu. https://youtu.be/SIoc-zSngU8 DGA plays The Crucible I imagine just about everyone reading this owns the game, but those who don't will notice that you have the option of downloading the updated demo from the Steam page. We've also put it up on IndieDB. Note that the level is limited and features only rove beetles and spiny devils as enemies.

UI Additions

We've added some new UI additions to augment the current selection of keyboard shortcuts - you'll notice these in the bottom right tab. These are easily-accessible toggle buttons for resource, tile and creature info.

Press shift whilst entering photo mode for a free camera! By Fazan008

Localisation

We've also started in earnest our effort for language localisation with the support of two new languages - German and Simplified Chinese, which were the most logical ones for us personally to start with. Steam users from these regions should have these enabled by default but a language selection dropdown box can be found in the game options. Since we now have a very robust system for localisation, we will be adding new languages over time. We've already started the process of getting some other translations done for the game - we'll let everyone know as they're added.

Performance Improvements

Since the pressures of completing the main content for the Leafcutter Update are now behind us we've been able to make some optimisation changes for some performance enhancements. A long-standing issue has been the upgrade overlay causing a significant drop in framerate, even on relatively high-end systems. Thanks to Matt's profiling pass there's been an up to 75% improvement on this now. Various other small things have been done as well (such as removal of near-invisible crystals from soldier tiles that had quite a heavy materials load).

What Comes Next

Changes to Freeplay

The next large update that will come to the game is a significant re-working and update of features to freeplay mode. Freeplay is in need of some good TLC - we are aware that in its current for it is rather unbalanced and is particularly unforgiving to startup colonies. John has begun work on his reworked freeplay mode - see the video below for his first livestream post-leafcutter update. https://youtu.be/IApQRvjZsJY There are many new features he intends to add - first and foremost, he will be adding leafcutters themselves as a species option to the mode. This didn't make it into the main leafcutter update for several reasons - they operate so differently in their food gathering and caste system to the other ants that adding them is far from a trivial task. It was relatively easy for John to add the new creatures to freeplay in time for release but the leafcutter colony itself needs a lot of work. The climbing system that the leafcutters use needs a way to be saved mid-climb (a first for freeplay - creature actions are not currently saved), and of course there needs to be special landmark and balance considerations for them since they harvest leaves as their only source of food, and want to avoid conflict with other creatures as much as they can since they get no resources from them. There will also be a re-work of the creature spawning system. Currently, increased difficulty level leads to the spawning of more creatures. Towards the end of a freeplay game this can mean the entire map is simply swamped with enemies, which affects performance as well as experience. John's plan is to add tiered enemies instead, which means tougher individual enemies rather than more of them. https://youtu.be/nKMESsSGZAk DGA play freeplay in its current state Also, something we've wanted to add to freeplay for some time is optional victory conditions. When we did our last recording session with our narrator we recorded some victory narration for freeplay, and this is the opportunity to implement that properly. Optional conditions might be collect X number of food, kill X uber creatures, or survive for a set period of time. There's lots of room for experimentation with this! Finally, John is planning on a brand new freeplay level set in the new rainforest environment. He's likely to livestream quite a lot of this, talking to the chat and taking suggestions. We'll post on our social media when we do this and on occasion will post an announcement on the Steam page for particularly important streams.

Formicarium Tier 4

Obviously, you all want to know what we're doing with the formicarium campaign next, and we're 90% sure we know the next species that will be focused on and the theme of levels 4.1 and 4.2. Until we've had our big design meeting in early June, though, we're not quite prepared to tell everyone what that is. As soon as we commit to it, we'll let you all know in the forums and we'll also have a section in the next newsletter.

YouTuber Highlight - Smash GaminG!! - Frazzz

Frazzz has covered Empires of the Undergrowth for a long time. With the leafcutter update he's taken up his coverage again with renewed vigour - and it's been a joy watching him discover the new mechanics. It was a little exasperating watching him wondering why his ants were getting sick and dying because he didn't read the tip about refuse chambers causing this - but he got there in the end! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1tIzAOPU_4

Screenshot Central

We've obviously been having a blast looking at the screenshots from the new content, and we've been spoiled for choice. Here's three of our favourites from the past month. If you'd like to submit some screenshots the easiest way is to use Steam (F12 by default to take a snap, and F9 by default to enter photo mode). A popup will allow you to upload once you exit the game. You can also email them directly to mike@slugdisco.com. Also, here's a little tip- we've recently added an unlocked photo mode which has no camera restrictions. You might see some funky stuff but it's a way to get some really interesting angles - to enter it hold down shift while you press the photo mode.

A menacing but beautiful view of army ants from Jynn

Mantids and spiders and crickets, oh my! From Steam user Raptorofwar

A Formica ereptor colony including leafcutter majors in Freeplay from Steam user Hilfspage

[ 2019-05-29 17:09:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update 0.2023 - Fixes and Languages (couple of minor features)

This is mostly a bug fix patch (should be the last before the freeplay update barring game breaking bugs) but also includes the final support for simplified Chinese and a couple of minor features. As always do let us know if you find any bugs and we will continue to squash them as they come in! Localisation

Added the final simplified Chinese interface translations
Removed the default English setting, allowing those with localised languages to default to their language (German or simplified Chinese)
Purchase confirm dialogue now fits better with localised languages
Repositioned some victory / defeat widgets to prevent overlap with subtitles
Added a couple of missing German translations strings

Fixes

Level setup dialogue no longer disappears off the bottom of the screen in certain languages with certain options
Fixed an impenetrable tile visual
Modified main menu textures so they do not stream (will appear full resolution when they appear)
Graphical overlay now correctly shows the positive upgrade points coming from speed tiles
Minor improvement of the positioning of numbers from tile upgrade overlay
Food will no longer fall through the formicarium on load, and food lost due to falling should be moved to the surface on load
Fixed an issue where the queen could get stuck doing the flinch animation
Fixed a crash that could happen when drawing the resource overlay
Fixed an issue where ants could get stuck inside formicarium plants and objects if fighting near them
Possible fix for floating de-buff issue (please let us know if this is still occurring)
Fixed an issue where rainforest creatures could only spawn in freeplay of woodlouse was set to spawn
AI effects (such as stun or confuse) now force creatures to drop any other creature they are carrying (fixed praying mantises walking around with creatures in front of them)
If carrying a creature but not using an ability, the creature is now dropped
Removed food gathering from ants spawned into the formicarium through the post gate level spawner
Possible fix for an issue where a tile was unbuild-able on after digging it out
Upon finishing challenge 3 the players queen is restored to full health. If somehow a queen has died and the game has saved that queen will be respawned on load in the formicarium
All sizes of whip spider capsule sizes reduced a lot (this prevents them spawning on top of objects when dropped into the formicarium but also meant more of them can get into a fight)
Fixed a bug with pressing a tab after an overlay button

Improvements / changes

Removed crystals from black ant tiles for minor performance boost
Added biohazard symbol to tiles affected by refuse tiles in the upgrade overlay along with minus numbers
Added in UI icons for tile upgrade, creatures and resources overlays to make it clearer they are available
Army ant major frenzy effect now looks like a red glow rather than a cloud
Added in an unlocked photo mode accessed through shift + photo mode key (F9 by default) - WARNING: Use of this will allow you to see off the edge of the map, under the floor, ect. We do not plan on changing these areas as they were never meant to be seen so bare this in mind.
Tile upgrades overlay has seen a significant performance boost (75% reduction in frame rate drop)
Creature info overlay has seen a moderate performance boost
Held resources are now loaded held
Fez hat now has physics
Removed markers from the minimap on the hungry spider level
Resources overlay will now not appear in the fog of war in freeplay, additionally some resources cannot be seen through the fog

[ 2019-05-23 08:35:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update 0.2022 - Fixes / Balances for Leafcutter Update + New Demo Level

Since we launched the update two weeks ago we have received plenty of bug reports and fixed most of them. Additionally we have made a couple of balance changes. We also now have full interface localisation for German, and almost full for Simplified Chinese. Localisation changes

Added in interface localisation for both German and Simplified Chinese (Chinese missing some small areas) languages
Most user interface widgets in the game altered to allow more space for text, or made to stretch to text size
Corrected a sentence in German translation

Features

Added the new demo level "The Crucible" into alpha demo levels (see - "Other Modes")

Changes / Improvements

Accept button is now visible but grey when on the reward selection dialogue
Tooltip added to the above button whilst disabled
The army ant progress bar is greyed out when they can no longer advance to another lane later in the day
Thorns have been disabled for projectile users
Hotkey for displaying resources has been separated from tile info hotkey (UI elements for these are coming soon) and it now directly affects the option in the options menu rather than being a per-level toggle
Scoreboard now mentions the difficulty played after the level name
Large praying mantis snatch ability cool-down increased to 8s (up from 6s)
Large praying mantis snatch ability healing reduced to 360 (down from 400)
Reduced creature spawn difficulty on 3.2 insane by 10%
Slightly raised the decal transparency to make them more visible
Leafcutter parent node in the tech tree now correctly greys out until the prerequisite is reached
Formicarium level select will now scroll to where you are once opened
Fixed an issue with the options dialogue and fullscreen / windowed / windowed fullscreen modes
Fixed an issue where surface transitions were less visible at night
Increased damage of level 3 rapid fire wood ants to 3.5 per hit (up from 3)
Increased damage returned by leafcutter "Sharp" upgrade thorns effect to 65% (up from 50%)
Added a warning about refuse de-buff to the tiles tooltip

Fixes

Fixed an issue that would cause an infinite loop when deleting major tiles in the formicarium
All leafcutter chambers (including speed tiles in leafcutter) now refund leaves when deleted rather than seeds
Creatures now drop what they are holding when picked up (fixes the floating leaf praying mantis issue)
Fixed an issue that affects the time at the start of missions
Army ants no longer gather food if they are heading to attack your queen in 3.2 (fixes the permanent harvesting issue)
Fixed an issue where refunding tiles before they are built in leafcutter levels could sometimes award no resources back (and still leave you with waste)
Fixed an issue where constantly reloading formicarium 2 would give you free woodworms
More of the vine in 3.1 should be harvestable
Vines not sitting above a tile grid will now show up as harvestable
Fixed an issue where demo levels would always show victory on defeat
Fixed a freeplay creature setup issue which could untick all rainforest creatures if all of another type of creature were unticked
Upgraded leafcutter tiles will now correctly increase in storage to 20 / 30 / 40 (up from 20 / 20 / 20)
Tile upgrades will now always happen once the tile has been marked for upgrade and will no longer not happen if the upgrade points drop during the upgrade
Moved an item of foliage in the formicarium so it is no longer overlapping another
Removed an invisible food item on 2.1 and replaced it with a dead beach tiger beetle
Switch underground keys will no longer work in freeplay
Food being processed should no longer show on the minimap or UI overlay
Speed tile effects will no longer apply before the tile is built

[ 2019-05-10 17:58:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Leafcutter Update V0.2 - Out Now!

We're very pleased to announce that our first major update for Empires of the Undergrowth, the Leafcutter Update, is now available for Windows, Mac & Linux! Featuring an all-new rain forest environment with new critters of all sizes, two new levels which will see you face off against fully-fledged colonies, and a new Formicarium Challenge where the dastardly scientists have something special planned for you. The jungle floor stirs. Ants of all sizes creep out of their holes to harvest the nearby foliage, travelling far and wide to find the choicest leaves. The odds are stacked against these fledgling colonies - you may be tempted to discount creatures that forage for leaves but with huge crushing mandibles on their side, they are not to be underestimated. https://youtu.be/HoRqZa7BH9Q

Headline Features

New Formicarium Tier Added

New playable species - The Leafcutters
- Featuring 4 sizes of ant (minims, minors, media and major) which can walk under / over one another
- Major leafcutters are tank units with very high health and come in two forms:
  - Stun majors stun targets for 4s and at level 3 will slow them to a crawl for a further 4s
  - Taunt majors force targets to attack them for 4s and at level 3 at 50% health will reduce all incoming damage by 80% for 4s
- Unique resource management
  - Leafcutters need leaves to cultivate a special fungus which is their only source of food!
  - Leaves can be gathered on the surface from various climbable plants
  - Once gathered leaves are taken to a leaf drop-off chamber
  - Each nursery built spawns a free minim ant (tiny leafcutter)
  - The minims take the leaves from the leaf drop-off to nurseries where it is cultivated into fungus that can be spent
  - Once fungus is spent, its remains will need to be taken to a refuse chamber where it can safely decompose
  - The distance between nurseries, leaf drop off chambers and refuse chambers affects the efficient processing of leaves leading to some careful colony design decisions.
Two new levels in the rainforests of Ecuador
- Two very different levels with unique challenges and threats with carefully designed difficulty settings to suit you level of play!
- The new environments offer a host of new fauna and flora and have a very different feel to them from previous levels
A new formicarium challenge - What has the evil scientist got planned this time?
- Do you think you could hate the evil scientist any more? We think you might after you see what he has in store!
Add the mighty leafcutter major to your formicarium!
- 4 unique upgrade options
  - Sharp - This aura causes attackers of the major and any nearby friendly creatures to reflect an amount of damage back to themselves
  - Resilient - This aura causes the major and any nearby friendly creatures to take less damage each hit
  - Durable - All incoming damage to the major is reduced by a set amount
  - Shockproof - Limits damage to the major in any single hit
- 4 improvement upgrades to spend that extra jelly on!
More than double the enemy creatures!
- Variety is the spice of life and the rainforest is the king of variety! Each of the new creatures comes with its own stats and abilities and will require their own approach to take down

Other changes and improvements

Creatures sizes mean you can get more to the front line
Minimap now displays food that can be collected
Quantity held by all food types is now displayed when showing tile info
New enemy creatures have made there way into the battle arena and freeplay
Freeplay setup dialogue changed to use more screen space for options
Pheromone marker assignment panel now displays the living ants from chambers

Balance changes

Queens have been given 50% resistance to slow their deaths
Queen Second Wind invulnerability duration increased to 30s (up from 20)

https://youtu.be/5j4xo7WiwC4

[ 2019-04-25 11:37:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

How To Play As Leafcutters

Only a few days to go now ... get ahead a little by looking at this brief explanation of the leafcutter food mechanics. https://youtu.be/5j4xo7WiwC4

[ 2019-04-21 18:21:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Leafcutter Update - Coming April 25th!

Please enjoy our updated trailer, featuring the leafcutter ants and rainforest environment! We're very pleased to announce that our first major update for Empires of the Undergrowth, the Leafcutter Update, will be coming to the game on April 25th! Featuring an all-new rainforest environment with new critters of all sizes, two new levels which will see you face off against fully-fledged colonies, and a new Formicarium Challenge where the dastardly scientists have something special planned for you. https://youtu.be/HoRqZa7BH9Q The jungle floor stirs. Ants of all sizes creep out of their holes to harvest the nearby foliage, travelling far and wide to find the choicest leaves. The odds are stacked against these fledgling colonies - you may be tempted to discount creatures that forage for leaves but with huge crushing mandibles on their side they are not to be underestimated.

[ 2019-04-02 17:00:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

March 2019 Newsletter

Although we have a policy of not announcing dates until were 100% sure, it is safe to say we are now very, very close to getting the leafcutter beta out to Kickstarter closed beta tier backers. Those of you who are on this tier, please keep an eye on your emails over the next week or so. The coming build for you guys will be feature-complete from a gameplay perspective, but will be missing some things like sound effects (the new creatures currently all sound like the Devils Coach Horse adult). Those will be added in throughout the beta as we continue development.
Leafcutters gather leaves in level 3.2 Front Line As a quick explanation for everyone else the closed beta group consists of people who supported us at a certain tier during our Kickstarter campaign in 2016. The beta typically lasts a few weeks, where we take feedback on things like balance and glitches. It really helps us polish things to be great for everyone and gives a bigger sample size than just the four of us on the team, and it means when we get the update out to everyone itll feel really good to play right from the off. Of course, things like balance and glitch fixes dont end when the beta does (the size of the beta group doesnt come close to all users!) so we will still be very grateful for your feedback as things continue. A short time into the beta, we should have a fairly good idea of how long itll take us to deal with the resultant feedback and its at that point that well decide on a release date. Exciting times!
Leafcutter-shaped Formica ereptor ants in the new formicarium Since were so close to having things ready, there hasnt been much in the way of new stuff to show over the past month (not because theres nothing left, but weve reached a limit on things we want to share without spoiling the upcoming content too much).

Praying Mantis vs The Battle Arena

One of the more fearsome beasties youll encounter in your life as a leafcutter colony is the leaf mimic praying mantis. There are several sizes of mantis, but in its final instar its an outright terrifying opponent that even well-prepared players will find difficult. Heres a preview of her in the Battle Arena, against a fairly typical mix of leafcutters. She has some unique stealth abilities due to her natural camouflage note that she doesnt appear on the minimap until she decides shes going to attack, and the ants have to be very close in order to spot her. This makes more sense in the context of a rain forest floor covered with leaves. https://youtu.be/7BFaTYxfmGk Youll also notice that she has the ability to pick up an ant and consume it, instantly killing it and restoring health. This gives her remarkable durability, so she must be overwhelmed quickly and with large numbers. Majors are a little big for her to eat in this fashion, but minors and mediae go straight down the hatch!

Leafcutter AI Timelapse

Heres a sped-up look at the enemy leafcutter colony you will encounter in level 3.1, The Harvest. Its controlled by the AI (but it has a pre-built nest layout, which makes sense for the campaign levels). Fully autonomous AI colonies will eventually feature in Freeplay. https://youtu.be/j1WgzrUmMMA Some of the ants have a green cloud surrounding them. This is a status indicator showing the ant has recently been in a refuse chamber which causes sickness to ants that arent minims. Youll want to build your refuse chambers away from thoroughfares and brood chambers.

Natural Variety

Heres a couple of screenshots showing some of the cosmetic variations weve added to the appearance of some of the creatures in this case the leafhoppers and the harvestmen. Although not strictly necessary from a gameplay perspective, weve taken the time to do things like this in order to try and reflect some of the huge natural diversity that exists in rain forests. Of course we cant come close to how diverse they actually are, being the richest terrestrial environments on the planet but we can try to replicate it in a small way.

Behind The Scenes

Heres something a little different an in-editor look at 3.1 The Harvest. We use Unreal Engine 4 to build Empires of the Undergrowth. Its an incredibly comprehensive and featured development environment, and this video shows a little behind-the-scenes look at the workings of a level. https://youtu.be/9xnQ9D-iIKM The white lines on the plants are mathematical objects called splines. These act as a guide to the pathfinding AI and indicate that these are plants that can be climbed and harvested by leafcutters for their fungus farms. The bright green and red on the floor is called the navmesh it indicates the areas of the map that are navigable by creatures. Its a static object on the surface, but often has to be re-computed underground because the player changes it with their digging! The screen with the large, complex-looking flowchart is called a blueprint. These are a powerful feature of UE4 which we find particularly useful for AI behaviour. In this one, you can see that every few seconds it thinks indicated by the orange line as it follows the algorithm and reaches a decision. This is the AI for the enemy ant colony in level 3.1 it reacts actively to the player, making its own decisions instead of following a timed script, like the colonies in 2.2 do.

Its Nearly Trailer Time

Since were so close to having things ready, its time to start thinking about trailers. We love a good trailer theyre a great way to build up some awareness and, dare we say it, hype for a release. We have a background in short film-making, in fact its the shared hobby that brought all of us together many years ago! https://youtu.be/TUsKMPSYPOs The above is a look at an in-progress shot designed by Liam. We make custom builds with trigger-able camera moves to capture our trailer footage using OBS. Ignore the sound for now as mentioned above a lot of the new sounds arent in yet; that will all be sorted later!

Johns Changelog

Every so often, John has been posting recent changes to the source control of the game on our official forums. These can offer a little insight into whats currently being worked on. As before when weve done this segment, heres his full post but heres a few selected highlights with some extra commentary to give more context.

Minimap displays gather-able resources all food items that can be gathered, whether they be leaves for the leafcutters or dead creatures for other ants, will now show up as a dot on the minimap. This should help players direct their forces to resource-rich areas with more certainty.
New Freeplay setup screen added John has expanded and re-designed the Freeplay setup screen to be a bit clearer. This is the first step in his overhaul of Freeplay which will begin in earnest once the leafcutter update is out.
Prepared documents for localisation well be adding the first two translations to the game soon (German and Chinese) and theres been a lot of prep work involved in this process.
Lots of work on the trailer for leafcutters Liam has been designing shots for the upcoming trailers, as detailed above. Hes been making custom builds of the game that showcase designed camera moves.
Gather and aggression buttons updated for colour-blind it was pointed out to us that our colour scheme for the gather / attack toggle buttons is difficult to differentiate for people with colour blindness. They now have a visible line across them when switched off.
Added in chunks for every creature in the game (no longer will harvesting a fish produce a Devils Coach Horse leg) up until now, harvested creature chunks all shared the same models and textures. Matt has put in some work to make sure this is no longer the case.
Added canopy shadows to the new levels as is fitting for the rain forest, the third tier levels will have a dappled lighting effect on the surface to represent bright sunlight filtering through the treetops.

Screenshot Central

Weve been spoiled for choice on the beautiful screenshots this past month you lot have really been upping your game! Its been difficult to choose three really good ones from many very pretty examples, but here they are. As always, take your screenshots on Steam (F12 is the default key) then upload them when you exit the game from the window that pops up. You can get some great angles by using Photo Mode (F9 by default). Alternatively, you can manually email screenshots to mike@slugdisco.com.

Uber beetle bearing down from returning contributor AK_tion_47

Ladybird massacre from Hilfspage

Beautifully captured tiger beetle larva from returnee MorPacke

[ 2019-03-26 15:51:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

January - February 2018 Newsletter

We're now much closer to our first major update, featuring leafcutters. As well as continuing development of the update to completion, we've been dealing with quite a lot of meta-requirement systems in the meantime, such as subtitles (which will be a long-overdue feature beginning with this update). Once we're at a point where we can get meaningful feedback from our closed testing group, we will release it to them and that will soon give us a good idea of how long it will take to correct any detected issues. As always, our policy is to not give vague guesses on release timing, only solid dates once we're certain of them - but we're feeling good about the current pace of things and the rate at which the remaining task list is being ticked off.
A cloud of venom surrounds this Formica rufa queen from alexraptor554 There's been plenty of good visual things finalised and ready to show off over the past month - some of which show off some leafcutter mechanics. So let's have a look at some of the fun things that await when you introduce Atta cephalotes to your Formica ereptor colony!

Floral Diversity

Rainforests are hugely diverse - they're the most diverse land habitats on Earth; rich in speciation and sheer variety of solutions to evolutionary problems.

We've worked hard to make sure that's reflected in the fauna, but just as importantly the flora of our Ecuadorian setting. Here's a closer look showing some of the plant life in a recent art pass of level 3.1 - the first leafcutter level.

Fungus Production Pipeline

Leafcutters gain their nutrition from the fungus they grow in their gardens, sprouted from decomposing leaf cuttings harvested from the surface. The minors, mediae and majors collect cuttings and drop them off in designated chambers. The minims (the smallest leafcutters) then take the leaves to the brood chambers where the fungus grows (this includes the queen tiles). The fungus will grow as leaves are added, then diminish as it is used up by new hatchings and tile placement it then produces waste which must be managed. The short video below demonstrates this process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9Vzu-5qVVc

The Harvest

Placing a pheromone trail marker near a plant will draw leafcutters assigned to it theyll see the plant as a harvestable food source, just like seeds or dead creatures in previous levels. The major, mediae and minor workers climb the stem, taking time to cut a chunk of leaf before taking it to a drop-off point in the nest. As detailed above, the minims will then take it to the fungus gardens. The leaves will diminish visually as they are harvested by the leafcutters, giving a physical indication of when the resources are used up and new grazing pastures must be found. Below is a rather pleasing close-up of this process happening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfg9T-q_VKk

Interface & Waste Management

This pair of pictures shows the near-completed interface modifications needed to bring leafcutters to the game. Youll notice a new resource bar at the top of the screen. Green on the left represents fungus available to spend, grey is space available on the nursery tiles to grow fungus, and red on the right is used fungus that needs to be disposed of.

Over time, the fungus produces waste which must be removed and taken to special chambers (right of the first picture). The refuse chambers will have a detrimental effect on nearby brood chambers, so its wise to build them a good distance away from where your ants pupate and travel non-minim ants walking through them will take a speed and attack de-buff as well as suffer damage for a time. This represents the disease that the real-life counterparts of our leafcutters aim to avoid by having dedicated refuse areas. Waste decays and disappears over time faster for upgraded refuse tiles.

The New Formicarium

"Yes, yes, I know how to use a trowel!" - Scientists #2 The colonys current home is not suitable for the next set of tests. In order to continue the experiment, the scientists will need to relocate the queen to a new Formicarium. She and a few of her workers will be relocated into this new setting, which has a few extra features.

When this process happens, the colony will need to leave its food, construction and territory behind. However, it will be rewarded an amount of royal jelly for each territory point and item of food (spent or unspent). This can be spent on the new leafcutter majors or any upgrades and improvement the colony needs this will help it get quickly back up to speed. All upgrade paths and minor improvements will also carry over.

The change will happen just before you move on to tier 3 in the level selection dialogue there will be a button which will unlock the 3rd tier levels.

What Were We Up To In January?

Last month, John posted some select notes from the source control (update log) of Empires of the Undergrowth, to give a little insight into what each of our developers has been doing. Hes made another post along these lines in the meantime, and as before we think itd be fun to go through some of these notes and give a little extra commentary to them. We encourage you to read Johns original thread, and indeed sign up for our official forums whilst youre at it!

Changed the way ramps work when the tide rises (ants no longer fall through) this was the cause of a hardware-specific crash that had plagued us for quite some time. As it turned out, some ants when caught on ramps were falling through them to infinity and in certain situations this caused a game crash on some systems. A tricky one to fix, but perseverance got us there! This has already been implemented in the current playable build of the game.
Tweaked uber resistances in certain situations and with certain colony setups, some uber creatures had become practically invulnerable. This was an oversight and not intentional although uber creatures are still extremely tough and deliberately so, there should be fewer situations where they are unbeatable. Theres plenty more tweaking work to be done on freeplay, and indeed once the leafcutter update is done John will be focussing on another freeplay pass.
Set tabbed minimaps to always have home nest on the left the coming updates will enable multiple true colonies in a limited sense. To access their minimaps, there has been a new system made to keep them accessible as tabs behind the players own.
Ants that enter an enemy colony are now tracked similar to above, youll be invading some other nests if you dare.
Subtitles for all levels added a long-overdue feature and one important for accessibility (and localisation) but one which needs a lot of grunt work. Were at a point now where we want this functionality to be there going forward its important to the future of the game and our community as a whole.
Tweaked the dissolve in various ways this refers to the visual effect when a foreground object needs to be partially obscured by dithering so you can see through it. Its particularly important for the Ecuador levels, which have a lot of low-growing foliage.
Preparing in-game text for translation localisation is important for the success of a game. Were getting there.

Screenshot Central

Looking through the things you guys do with the simple tool of Photo Mode (F9 by default) or otherwise is always an excellent palate cleanser after writing one of these newsletters. It refreshes the soul. By default, F12 will take a screenshot in Steam. You can get it to us by simply uploading to Steam Community (a dialogue box allowing you to do this will pop up when you exit the game) or by manually emailing the screenshot to mike@slugdisco.com.

MorPacke back again with this fantastic wood ant colony shot

Sinister spider from Daethalion

A valiant effort to ward off an uber beetle in this colourful shot from MasterAntlion

[ 2019-02-18 23:25:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

December 2018 - January 2019 Newsletter

Our first newsletter of 2019! A bright, shiny, spanking new year and itll be a big one for ants. After the holiday break the guys are back to working on the 3rd tier Formicairum levels. Weve also released a couple of glitch-fixing patches in the meantime to deal with some widespread issues. Firstly, lets get to whats ready to show from 3.1 and 3.2.
A Formica ereptor queen from MorPacke

Jumping Spider

Salticidae is a widespread family of spiders that can be found all over the world. They travel widely in search of food and do not spin webs to catch prey instead they actively hunt, using powerful back legs to pounce on unsuspecting prey before it had the chance to react. For this reason, they are known as the jumping spiders. The species that will appear in Empires of the Undergrowth is Psecas viridipurpureus, a South American resident. Its brightly-coloured, and even a little cute if you can see past its arachnid form! It sits patiently, turning its body from left to right to allow its highly specialised eyes to scan the environment. When it spots a likely prey item, it perfectly calculates the distance it needs to travel, then pounces.

https://youtu.be/KJk41xfb0B4

Harvestman

The harvestmen are a diverse group of arachnids (order Opiliones). They may colloquially be called daddy longlegs. Although superficially spider-like in appearance, they differ greatly from true spiders in several ways. They have no distinct separation in thorax and abdomen, and only a single pair of eyes. They are further distinguished from spiders by often being generalist, opportunistic feeders rather than predators a rare trait in arachnids. They might hunt, scavenge or graze. The South American species in our game is sometimes called the Jasons mask harvestman because of the distinctive hockey mask-like pattern on its back. In-game, the harvestman keeps its body at a safe distance from attackers with its long legs although the legs themselves can be quite brittle. It may have a cursory nibble at a trail of leafcutter ants, but it will make a quick retreat if it suffers an injury such as the loss of a leg.

https://youtu.be/PBKmqWsBKkA

Leafhoppers

Leafhoppers are small insects that subsist by consuming sap from plants. Theyre related to cicadas and spittlebugs. True to their name, when startled or in need of new feeding grounds, they leap many times their height into the air and find another leaf to feed upon. As members of the order Hemiptera, leafhoppers are true bugs insects with specialised mouthparts that feed by sucking. Sometimes when you design a game, you want to include things purely to set the tone and enrich the world. Thats the case for leafhoppers in Empires of the Undergrowth theyll appear in the leafcutter levels to bring a sense of biodiversity to our recreation of the incredibly varied rainforests of Ecuador. The leafcutters obviously do not eat other insects, but their leaf-cutting activities will disturb the leafhoppers!

What Did We Do In December?

One of our developers John took a few minutes to make this post on our official forums during the last week. He details some commits (changes) made to the game source control by himself, Liam and Matt over the course of the Christmas break. Please follow that link and have a look through it yourself, but I thought Id just highlight a couple of points he included for the sake of intrigue:

Balance changes to the refuse chambers in this commit John is referring to a mechanic that will be introduced with the leafcutter levels, the refuse chambers. Leafcutters grow fungus from their foliage cuttings, and the spent fungus produces waste. It will be the job of minim workers to remove waste from the fungus gardens to the refuse chambers. Failure to have sufficient refuse chambers far enough away from the gardens will have a detrimental effect on the workforce.
Focus on large creature patrols weve shown you some fairly big new beasts for the leafcutter levels, but weve not shown you everything! There are some things we dont want to spoil just yet, if at all.

The Spiny Devil - one of the creatures getting several size variations

Medium-sized Spiny Devil like the beach tiger beetles, hermit crabs and wolf spiders in the 2nd tier, several of the rainforest critters will come in several sizes. This includes the spiny devil, praying mantis and harvestman. See the previous newsletter for details on some of those beasties.
Leafcutter resource system resource complexity has a step up with the leafcutters, as a natural increase in complexity makes sense from a gameplay perspective. These things need careful implementation and balancing and thats an ongoing process.
Leafhoppers and a system to manage them as well as doing the artwork for our decorative leafhoppers (detailed above) Matt has created a system to handle their behaviour. The other denizens of the rainforest wont interact directly with the leafhoppers (they jump away much too quick) but theyll still realistically ping themselves away when approached.

Leafhoppers doing leafhopper stuff John hopes to continue these sort of posts on an informal basis every so often just to give a little insight into the day-to-day work that goes into the making of Empires of the Undergrowth. Hell only be posting them on our own forums, so this is a good time to get yourselves signed up to them and introduce yourselves to our small but friendly community.

The State of Play

Were getting lots of people (quite rightly) asking how far away the leafcutter update is. Wed like to think that we can recognise things were not very good at, and its fair to say that estimating our release dates is one of those things. In our experience a missed deadline, even a vague and non-specific one like winter, is likely to cause disappointment in our fans and thats the last thing we want. The leafcutter levels (3.1, 3.2 and Formicarium Challenge 3) are each an order of magnitude more complex than anything and everything we did in the 1st and 2nd tiers, and it shows in our current testing. Rest assured, although we are taking our time, we are taking our time to do it right and the results will be worth the extra patience you lovely bunch have shown yourselves to have in abundance. Its been policy for a while, but to make things explicit going forward we wont be giving vague guesstimates only solid dates when were sure of our ability to meet them.

Screenshot Central

As ever, we love trawling through the screenshots on Steam to find the best of the uploads. Take your screenshots on Steam (F12 by default) and upload them once you quit the game. Photo Mode (F9) will help you get some pleasing angles on your snaps! If youd prefer not to deal with Steam, you can also email your pictures to mike@slugdisco.com.

A festive snap from Smoky

Battle lines from WiseOldWeaboo

An easy-on-the-eye Formica fusca colony from MorPacke

[ 2019-01-14 15:12:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bug Fix Patch 0.1352 Released

In this patch we have hunted down a bug that is crashing the game on Queen of the Hill. We thought we had it solved in the last patch but people were still reporting it. Thanks to our great community we have finally found it and interestingly it was to do with the ramp and ants falling through them when the tide rises. We have now changed how these work.

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue crashing Queen of the Hill on certain hardware setups under certain circumstances. This issue was caused by ramps being made pass through-able when the tide rose on 2.1 and 2.2. This would occasionally cause ants that were pathing on them to fall and potentially re-path in a near infinite loop. This bug has been hard to replicate and hence hard to fix but special thanks to our community for helping us locate this one. Due to this we have made changes to how this works.
Fixed issues with creatures picking up other creatures (Interpolation should work vertically, creatures should correctly stick to the mouth and animation should play correctly during pickup)
Fixed an issue in Freeplay telling the player waves would spawn consecutively after 8 minutes when it should have been 12
Fixed a message telling the player waves would come every 5 minutes when in reality it is 6 (if you include the timer countdown)
Clicking the door in the lab no longer closes the game
Fixed an issue in Freeplay where the warning timer was not using the same calculation as the wave timer
All values in ant improvements are now rounded to 2 decimal places
Freeplay wave timer info now accurately represents the time between wave spawns and not the time from one wave spawning to the start of the next timer starting (13m setup 6m between)
Fixed some issues with the size of woodworm food items
Key presses that are meant to switch from above to below ground have been disabled in photo mode to prevent strange lighting changes
Fixed an issue where food could get stuck on the surface in your ant tunnel
Notification about the Gate mission 1 will no longer appear after you have completed it
Fixed an issue shrinking the areas ant could appear on the surface from the nest area
In-game UI elements are no longer shown in photo mode (Markers, chamber info ect)
Force player out of photo mode and prevent them entering it when victory of defeat is happening

Changes / Improvements

Creatures will no longer pass though ramps as the tide rises falling into the water. Instead any ants assigned to markers touched by the water will be immediately sent home when the marker is dismissed.
Beach tiger beetle larvae have been given high slow resist
On Queen of the Hill Challenge Mode in Easy, Normal and Hard beach tiger beetle larvae will spawn more often and increase the rate of spawns each day
Dead creature harvest locations and pickup locations have been more centralised, meaning ants should no longer carry woodworms within their bodies (at least less often) and harvesting should be from a more logical point of the dead creature.

[ 2019-01-08 14:24:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

**HOTFIX** - V0.1351 Released, 2 Major Issues Fixed

We've pushed a hotfix update to Empires of the Undergrowth to fix 2 major glitches.

Fixed an oversight with the music switch over from day to night that was crashing 2.2 Queen Of The Hill for some players This issue was missed by internal testing since it only seems to happen on certain hardware configurations and only for a small minority of players.
Fixed an issue that was giving players 20 territory each time they returned to the formicarium An oversight in territory given to players on the upcoming 3rd tier Formicarium missions made its way into the previous build, creating an infinite territory glitch.

[ 2018-12-18 18:02:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

November 2018 Newsletter

With the exception of a few necessary balance changes and fixes for the more recent playable builds, the teams sole focus for the past month has been the leafcutter update. Over the past few weeks weve been showing off some of the progress on the creatures of Ecuadorian jungle where these levels are based. Our artist Matt has been producing amazing work to bring this sublimely rich ecosystem to life within Empires of the Undergrowth. John and Liam have been working on bringing the creatures into the game and figuring out how they interact with our leafcutters. This newsletter will therefore focus mainly on the amazing biodiversity of the rainforest setting. Without further ado, lets get to having a look at some of these fantastic beasties!
The rainforest at night

Rove Beetles

Rove beetles are a diverse group of insects that can be found the world over - in fact, the European devils coach horse thats already in the game is a kind of rove beetle. The main distinguishing feature for these beetles is the short elytra (wing coverings) that leave most of their backs exposed. Many, many species of rove beetle exist, and some of them are rainforest dwellers. Theyll come into conflict with our leafcutter ants.

Rove beetle larvae Although leafcutters do not eat other creatures, they are fully aware that other creatures will happily eat them - and so theyll defend themselves with the same deadly zeal that any self-respecting ant with giant slicing jaws would.

Two varieties of rove beetle adult

Spiny Devil Bush Cricket

The fearsome spiny devil bush cricket (Panacanthus varius) faces off against a leafcutter colony. Covered in defensive spines, this monster may well be guarding some of the choicest leaves for the harvest - which means it must be confronted. Bush crickets are also sometimes known as katydids. https://youtu.be/H6ODtEzI4gs In-game, the spiny devil's spines will mean that any creature that does damage to it will suffer some damage in return, whether or not it is actually being attacked by the cricket. It also has an area of effect bleed attack which will continue damaging the target for a time after.

The spiny devil is not idly named!

Praying Mantis

The mantids are an iconic group of insects - known for their "praying" folded forelegs and upright posture, as well as their covert hunting techniques. This particular species is a leaf-mimic praying mantis (Pseudoxyops perpulchra), specifically adapted to hide in the foliage with near-perfect leaf camouflage. In its final instar it's a voracious hunter of insects, using its natural stealth to get close to its quarry. [url=https://i.imgur.com/fMCYXns.jpg]

The leaf-mimic mantis will have a unique stealth ability reflecting its natural prowess at ambush attacks. It will not appear on the minimap - nor will its health bar be visible - until it decides to engage the player. The range at which ants can notice and attack it is also much lower than it is for more conspicuous creatures.

Army Ants

The relentless march of the army ants is legendary. These ants form large colonies, living a nomadic lifestyle. They scour the rainforest, sending out waves of workers to demolish anything in their path to feed their expanding empire. Like many species of ant, they have a distinct caste system. In these pictures we see two separate castes of Eciton burchellii - small and medium-sized workers.

Featured below is the soldier caste - analogous to the large majors that the leafcutter colonies produce. These brutes protect the flanks of the armys trails from attack. Their large mandibles are more than capable of delivering a killing blow to any number of arthropods and a painful nip to things larger. Unless prepared for battle, it would be advisable for the denizens of the rainforest undergrowth to avoid the trails of the army ants lest they incur the wrath of their imposing protectors.

In Empires of the Undergrowth, the leafcutter colony will encounter army ants overlapping its territory. They represent a strong existential threat - unlike our leafcutters army ants readily eat meat, and the brood of a fledgling leafcutter colony would be a nutritious prize.

One Year On

As of 1st December 2018, its been one year since we released the early access version of Empires of the Undergrowth to you all. Weve had incredible support, love and kindness from all of you and that makes each day we work on the project a joy. Such an ambitious project is not without its difficulties and pitfalls, particularly for such a small team, but with you guys behind us we feel we can achieve everything weve set out to do. The last year has seen some big changes to not just the game, but the lives of those of us on the team. All three of the developers have been able to give up their day jobs to work exclusively on the game. Our entire lives have been restructured around it and thats a very exciting thing. As far as the game itself goes, were not too far from a huge update in the form of the leafcutter levels. We know youre all desperate to sink your jaws into them, and we cant wait to get them out to you. There are still some more surprises in store for this update, and well be teasing a few more of them as we complete the work. Keep an eye on our social media - particularly Facebook and Twitter - for those. So, heres to the future! And heres to you all, you lovely bunch. Continue being awesome.

YouTuber Highlight - Flexible Games

Flexible Games has been playing Empires of the Undergrowth diligently for several weeks now. Whats made his playthrough fun to watch for us as developers is that hes gone into the game blind, with very little knowledge of whats in store. Genuine reactions like this are often hard to come by, and its been an experience watching him get to grips with the systems. Heres part 1 of the extensive series - hes now completed the current campaign levels and moved on to Freeplay. https://youtu.be/gFZMfsYr9oA

Screenshot Central

Once again its time to have a look through the Steam screenshot gallery for our favourite submissions of the past few weeks. As always, thats the easiest way to get them to us (F12 by default from Steam) - but if you want you can email them directly to mike@slugdisco.com.

Testing the limits in Battle Arena in this snap from xw_elite06_wx

A funnel web spider claims a victim from z0mbiesrock

A simple, pleasing shot of a wood ant queen from M O T H

[ 2018-12-12 19:18:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

V0.135 Released - Fixes and Improvements

We've corrected some issues and resolved a final few things on our to-do list for Early Access V0.135. With any luck, this is likely to be our final patch before the upcoming major update (bar anything game-breaking). If you spot errors, please continue to report them in the forums, but as mentioned we're now cracking on full-steam ahead with the leafcutters!

Fixes

Creatures should no longer get stuck on grass
Ladybirds will no longer leave after 10s unless they are stuck (they will now leave after 15s if stuck) and should be back to their usual aphid eating antics
Fixed an issue that could cause creatures to get stuck trying to use an ability
Fixed an issue where some high priority narrations could play after victory and defeat
Fixed an issue on Battle Arena and Hungry Spider where the UI would be the standard one for a split second before switching to the correct one
Fixed an issue where if you tried to upgrade a tile without purchasing the upgrade, then purchased the upgrade and tried again it would tell you you had not purchased the upgrade
Fixed a typo on Queen of the Hill notification
Fixed the spiders slow in Hungry Spider
Fixed an issue where if an ant was saved with a status effect active on it (such as poison) all future ants born from its tile would have that effect

Changes / Improvements

Attack tolerance reduced for all medium and large creatures, meaning they can no longer remain attacking once you have travelled away from them
Small changes to movement behaviour on ramps
Minor performance improvements with slows
Movement speed changes have been unified into one system
Navmesh changes should lead to more sensible creature movement around objects
Freeplay ambience sounds now working
Freeplay music now switches between day and night
Freeplay map Towhead now uses the music tracks from Queen of the Hill
Hungry Spider level full moon availability extended to 4 days from midnight the day the full moon will happen (up from 2)
Added in narration that was missing from 2.2 (final morning announcement)
Armour can now only reduce damage to 0.5 and no lower
Reduced the armour on the Uber Beach Tiger Beetle to 2 (down from 3)
Reduced the range of Ubers basic attack to 200 (down from 300)

[ 2018-11-23 15:23:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

September / October Newsletter 2018

Winter is... approaching. Since the last newsletter weve released what weve called the interim update, version 0.13 - interim meaning between Freeplay and the upcoming major update. That update introduced the planned challenge modes to the 2nd tier Formicarium levels, added a new level to Freeplay, addressed several issues, and included a spooky spider-based extra that you guys seemed to have a lot of fun with. In the meantime, the guys have also been working solidly on the next set of levels for the game, which of course will feature leafcutter ants. Lets dive in and see how weve been doing!

V0.13- Interim Update

https://youtu.be/xHjECOl1TJU Our intent when releasing the Interim Update was to fill in some clearly missing gaps in the game as it stands, consolidate the game systems for future updates (and deal with issues arising from those system changes sooner rather than later), as well as giving you guys some fun extra stuff to do in the meantime. We also re-designed the main menu for clarity, going back to a more traditional system.

Tiger Beetle Larvae

The 2nd tier Formicarium levels (2.1 Rising Tide, and 2.2 Queen of the Hill) have gained their own challenge mode. In the 1st tier levels, activating challenge mode introduced a new creature to the fray (the mole cricket). In keeping with that spirit, the 2nd tier introduces the beach tiger beetle larvae - the juvenile form of the tiger beetles that are found in these levels. They live in small burrows in the sand, hiding away for safety but listening for the vibrations of a suitable meal. They will snatch ants away one at a time, then quickly kill them - and it is in that brief moment alone that they are vulnerable.

All about the beach tiger beetle larvae Weve particularly enjoyed seeing some of our more seasoned players reacting to the difference the presence these critters makes to the level experience - on higher difficulties, the number of larvae that spawn can be huge! As always, theres a way to overcome these difficult odds with skill and experience.

Towhead

Towhead is a brand new Freeplay level. Its set on a small island or sandbank near the mouth of a river, and has some features that make it an entirely different experience to The Dunes (our first Freeplay map). Firstly, its a lot smaller which makes the experience of jostling for resources significantly more intense. It also has a unique element - a periodic flood, which will purge the lower level of the map of all creatures. This is an optional addition to the map, but if activated it adds an extra thought and planning element to your food collection.

Towhead in all its glory The release of Towhead also saw some necessary balance changes to Freeplay in general. After listening to some feedback by players, weve changed it so that at lower difficulty early game time, only lower-level creatures will spawn. This change happened in patch 0.133 - click here to read the full notes from that patch.

Minor Improvements System

The Minor Improvements System has been added as a way to spend spare Royal Jelly. Some players have been sitting on a cache of jelly with no way to spend it, and some players find themselves with some left over after theyve purchased their desired upgrades. The MIS allows players to spend initially small amounts of jelly to make improvements to their ants stats. The amount of jelly this costs will increase exponentially after multiple purchases, so there is a practical limit to how much a colonys ants can be upgraded.

The Minor Improvements System in action To access this new system, open up the Royal Jelly Tech Tree Menu from the top-left of the Formicarium hub. Select the icon of the kind of ant that youd like to improve, and choose the jelly icon that pops up. Please dont feel that you need to grind for Royal Jelly to use this feature; it really isnt intended to be used that way (hence the increasing cost for additional improvements)! Its more a way of spending left over jelly efficiently before you progress to the next Formicarium tier.

Extra / Improved Dialogue & Audio

Weve recently done our recording sessions for the third Formicarium tier levels with our three voice actors. It all went swimmingly, but while we were at it we asked them to record some extra bits and pieces that we felt were missing from the existing game content. This is most apparent in Freeplay, where the narrator now introduces your fledgling colony to its world when the game starts. Scientist #2 will also give some vocal indication when he drops food on the Formicarium surface during the gateway missions, and weve re-recorded Scientist #1s voice lines entirely with better recording equipment. Whilst doing that, just about all the games audio has gone through improved filtering for consistency and clarity.

Ant Movement / Swarming

In preparation for the aforementioned major update, the code that governs the movement of ants about the nest and above ground has undergone an extensive re-write. Leafcutter ants, which will feature in the major update to come have a complex, multi-caste society and getting them moving efficiently around their environment has necessitated the creation of several new systems for movement and swarming. These are now also driving ant movement in the current build of the game - but you shouldnt notice a huge difference right now. Were laying the groundwork for the future with these changes.

Swarming ants

Hungry Spider Level

It was a pleasure to be able to have a little surprise ready for you all in time for Halloween! Were delighted with how well the Hungry Spider level was received. For those who didnt catch, it, a cobweb appeared on the main menu, which when clicked would take you to a special level where you play as a ravenous wolf spider, with your aim to consume everything in your path. Its a devilishly difficult level, with not many managing to complete it. https://youtu.be/L3QtFadJryI Some members of our community have written fantastic guides on how to tackle this fiendish level, which was unexpected and awesome. If you didnt get a chance to play, dont worry - the cobweb will return whenever theres a full moon!

It was great for me (community manager - Mike) to get a cameo in the game as the voice of the hungry spider!)

Leafcutter Progress

Whilst all this has been going on with the interim update, of course the guys have been hard at work with the third tier Formicarium levels. In the last newsletter we showed you all about the different castes that leafcutter ant society has, but this time we'd like to focus on their environment. As previously mentioned they will feature leafcutter ants, and are set in the subtropical rainforests of Ecuador. Our artist Matt has been hard at work producing some beautiful landscapes for our leafcutters to inhabit.

One of the beautiful Ecuador maps in all its glory The above screenshot is from level 3.2 - were keeping the level names to ourselves for now, but you can see the detail that Matt has included to make these levels entirely unique to the beach environment that is featured in 2.1 and 2.2

Isn't it kind of cheating to use this? As for the question of when we expect the leafcutter update to be ready, we have to be careful - history has repeatedly told us that were not very good at judging release dates, but were in pretty good company in that regard - even the really big studios have trouble pinning it down. Rest assured, Major Update 1 (as its described in our internal plan) is in good hands, and we appreciate the kind patience of you lovely bunch.

Leafcutter Enemies - Trap Jaw Ants

Leafcutters share their rainforest home with many other impressive animals. Trap jaw ants are one of their many foes, boasting the fastest-moving predatory appendage in the animal kingdom. Their jaws are so fast that they can close within microseconds, maiming their targets, or even using them to catapult foes or themselves away.

The leafcutters will encounter these ants in their various trials, and they're fearsome opponents.

YouTuber of the Month - Dads Gaming Addiction

DGA is a long-time follower of Empires of the Undergrowth and we always enjoy watching his relaxed, considered gameplay. He was one of the first to put up a play of the Hungry Spider level on YouTube, and although he may have been a little surprised at how hard the enemy wolf spiders bite, he came back for more anyway! https://youtu.be/F_GkckRsumw

Freeplay High Score

Lets introduce a little competitive element to Freeplay. The current highest-documented Freeplay score belongs to JaXm at 6,360,777, and he posted the screenshot on 31st July 2018 to prove it. Can you do better? Upload your screenshot to Steam or post it on our forums to let us know if youve unseated the current champion!

Screenshot Central

In making these newsletters, its always a cleansing experience to have a gander at the screenshots you lovely people have been uploading - because when captured at the right time, Empires of the Undergrowth can be a very pretty game. If youd like to participate, submit your screenshots to Steam (F12 by default) or email them to mike@slugdisco.com !

A boquet of beetles by Martino

How could we pass up Limey21 with a total mastery of golden hour screenshots?

We couldn't ignore the beautiful layout of Enablin's base - look at the minimap to see what we mean!

[ 2018-11-07 01:02:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

V0.133 Released

Happy Halloween! That and a few more changes to 0.13 make it the perfect time to try out the Hungry Spider level (click the cobweb on the main menu - before it disappears!). We've also made a few other changes. Notes below!

General Updates and Fixes

Added warning text above the play button in level setup telling the player what they must click on to allow them to press the play button
Fixed an issue where root aphids would be spawned at 0,0,0 (causing ladybirds to fly to a very strange location in top left of Towhead)

Freeplay Balance and Fixes

Some balance changes have been added to Freeplay. This should allow players struggling to start a colony to get off the ground before harder creatures are about. For example setting the starting difficulty to zero will give player 15 minutes where only devil's coach horse larvae, wood worms and woodlice will spawn making the surface a lot more manageable.
Medium creatures will no longer spawn below 20% difficulty in Freeplay until 15 minutes have passed
Large creatures will no longer spawn below 40% difficulty in Freeplay until 30 minutes have passed
Removed the word none from freeplay scoreboard
The underground spider in Towhead has been replaced by a devils coach horse adult
Fixed and issue in Freeplay not displaying the green outline of tunnels to surface before dug out
Renamed map option in Towhead to Flood
Fixed an issue that would flood Towhead immediately at the beginning of every play (removing all food including fish from the lower level)
Fixed death sequences on Towhead (and the ghostly queen)

Hungry Spider Balance and Fixes

Slightly increased the spider's attack and Venom Strike speed
Fixed an issue that would cause the keyboard controls to stop working when trying to use an ability that is on cooldown
Fixed an issue with the spider's projectile causing some particles to fly off to the bottom right
Fixed a spelling mistake on the hungry spiders bite ability

[ 2018-10-31 11:23:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

V0.132 Released - Mac and Linux builds up!

We've made some changes to the recent 0.13 build and released the patch for our Mac and Linux-running friends. Hurrah! If you experience any issues with the build, please pop by our Steam forum and we'll have a look.

V0.131

Fixed a tooltip on the improvements panel
Fixed an issue on Towhead where the tiles were over the top of the southern tunnel exit
Fixed an issue where pressing [ on the keyboard at any point would kill the player's queen (accidentally left in from a test)
Fixed an issue where the starting workers on the demo levels were showing up grey rather than the colony colour

V0.132

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug where the player could stay underground in 2.1 and 2.2 and just wait to achieve victory. Now on first nest attack the player's tunnel will open automatically
Fixed an issue where selecting to restart 2.1 or 2.2 would switch ant type to mortar regardless of what the player chose
Fixed a lighting issue on some undergrounds that changed lighting in certain camera positions
Fixed an issue on towhead causing creatures to try and shoot down cliffs but constantly failing
Fixed an issue that could sometimes spawn aphids and ladybirds in walls on Freeplay
- Additionally any that were hiding in walls will now fly off (if you had horrible speeds in a freeplay save this could be you!)

Improvements / Changes

Made the underground spider a smaller one on Towhead

Hungry Spider level

UI now hides in photo mode
Spider can now be controlled with the pan camera controls (WSAD or Up Down Left Right by default)
Increased the range of Bite and Venom Strike to 150 (up from 100)
Sped up the time it takes for abilities to deal damage. Animation is still same length but damage happens sooner in it
Spider thoughts have been vocalised

[ 2018-10-29 10:34:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

V0.13 Early Access Released! NEW Challenge Mode + NEW Freeplay Map!

Its time for an update! Were calling V0.13 the Interim Update - it adds a several things that were missing from the game and prepares the path for the major update to come. Without further ado, here are the patch notes! The game should update automatically through Steam. Please note, right now this is Windows only. Mac and Linux users - weve still got a few bugs (ha, ha) to work through for these builds. Weve made significant progress on that but just ran out of time tonight and didnt want to delay for everyone. Were confident we can get stable builds out for you lovely people in short order, so keep your eyes on the news page! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHjECOl1TJU

Headline Features

Challenge modes added to Rising Tide and Queen of the Hill
- The new challenge mode introduces a new creature the beach tiger beetle larva. This critter lies buried waiting for unsuspecting victims to walk near its trap, then snatches them away in the blink of an eye!
- They will only attack if your ants are alone, and can only be damaged for a short time after attacking. Will your colony accept the losses to get the food they need, or will they rip these ambush hunters from their burrows?
New Freeplay map Towhead
- Set on a small island near the mouth of a river, Towhead offers a much more intimate experience on the surface, with higher densities of creatures
- A map option allows a periodic flooding of the lower level. This will raise your score but at the cost of possibly losing ants and resources when the waters rise
Minor Improvements System for Formicarium colonies
- Got spare Royal Jelly laying around the nest? Fear not, we have you covered! Minor improvements can be accessed by selecting any already purchased species from the tech tree and selecting the icon
- The improvements start cheap and get more expensive the more you buy for a species. Each ant species has their own different improvements which complement various play styles
What is that pesky spiders web at the back of the lab? Could someone have a look at that for us, please?

Other Features

Main menu is now a list to make it clearer to new users what content is available
Creatures now have various sizes and some sizes can pass through others (this has been done on a visually logical level for example beach tiger beetles can walk over most none massive things, where as a hermit crab cannot)
Tunneling to the surface now takes multiple ants and take 5 times as much digging
Threat system added. Some creatures attacks cause them to be a more desirable target for other nearby creatures (mostly in preparation for leafcutter update)
Battle Arena creatures have been put into tabs based on which tier of the game they first appear

Improvements / Changes

Creature movement has been reworked - should now have less issues, creatures should walk more centrally in corridors and should be more efficient
Ants now reserve space on tiles they are taking food to. If all tiles are reserved they instead take the food towards the queen (until all tiles fill- they then drop food as they do now)
Increased main menu loading speed
Multiple minor optimisations made throughout
Optimisation added to creatures searching for other creatures
Multiple game assets have been optimised
Beach texture improvements (normal and roughness masks)
Improvements to pathfinding underground (many distance checks are now tile based rather than path based)
All audio passed through new filters and re-recorded, female scientist audio re-recorded
New audio lines added in some Formicarium challenges
New audio lines added to Freeplay (start and uber spawning)
Ubers are no longer affected by food scaling and will drop full food no matter the Freeplay difficulty
Food size now changes slower at higher food quantities
Queen chamber workers now have a crown icon
Ants hatch first from queen tiles
Food spend is now taken from random rooms rather than the order they were built
Ants no longer drop food when attacked if combat is turned off for the group

Bug Fixes

Tiles can no longer be tagged for dig when the game is paused
Fixed a bug with food pickup that could cause food to be stored not on top of a tile
Fixed an issue that would sometime cause wood ants to misfire on surface tunnels
Stun, confuse and other status debuffs are now hidden in fog of war
Fixed an issue where AOE attacks could be blocked if something obscured vision
Fixed an issue where loaded part-built tiles would appear full built but with a job to build them
Various minor bug fixes

[ 2018-10-24 23:05:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

August 2018 Newsletter

Greetings all! We hope you've enjoyed your summer. Time moves on relentlessly, and as we chug the first pumpkin spice latte of autumn we've made significant strides in the progress of the leafcutter levels as well as plenty of other exciting things. We've recorded with our voice artists Mary Jo, Eric and Callum (Scientist 1, Scientist 2 and Narrator respectively) for the next levels and we're delighted with their work. Before we conclude our work on 3.1, 3.2 and Formicarium Challenge 3, there are some missing bits and pieces in the existing game that need finalising in preparation. Our current plan is to do an interim update between now and the leafcutter update, and that's going to be fairly soon. Let's get on to what that'll include!
A lovely green Formica ereptor colony from jasong

The Interim Update

2nd Tier Challenge Mode

The interim update will include the challenge mode for levels 2.1 Rising Tide and 2.2 Queen of the Hill. It was always our intent for each tier to have its own special mode with an extra challenge - and we're now at the point that we want to get this all up to date before any new levels arrive.

Beach Tiger Beetle Larvae

A screenshot of the beach tiger beetle larva in progress Activating challenge mode on the 2nd tier levels will introduce lightning-fast beach tiger beetle larvae to the fray. Even in their larval forms, the beach tiger beetles are extremely deadly. They live in small burrows, lying in wait for a hapless victim to pass by - which they then grab with frightening speed. Matt has done some beautiful work bringing these living nightmares to our game - have a look at the screenshot below.

Small Improvements System

We have introduced a new way of spending royal jelly to improve certain aspects of your formicarium colony. The type of tweaks that can be made depend on the creatures themselves, but there are 2 types for workers and queens and 4 for the black ant soldiers and wood ant ranged units (there will also be 4 for the leafcutter majors when they arrive). Spending jelly will give a stat improvement. This can be done multiple times but will cost much more each time you do it. It'll also be a way for those of you who are sitting on a cache of royal jelly to spend some of it before the next update (but please don't feel like you have to grind for it - you don't!). The exact ins-and-outs of this new system will be detailed when the patch comes.

Narration

The recent recording sessions with our lovely voice actors have given us the opportunity to add some dialogue we felt was missing from certain points of the current game - particularly in freeplay. There will be some extra narration for this game mode, as well as some small bits and pieces for the campaign levels.

New Freeplay Map - Towhead

Whilst you’ve been getting heartily stuck into Freeplay and the response has been great, we realise that there’s not much in the way of variety at the moment. To that end, the interim update will include a brand new Freeplay map! Towhead is set on a small sandbank in a body of water, which has some interesting implications for resource gathering. It hasn’t been decorated yet but you can see how things are shaping up from the in-editor screenshot below.

The work-in-progress Towhead. Note the unusually-shaped underground spaces! And now, back to the leafcutter update...

Leafcutter Ants - Artwork Progress

Whilst previous levels were set on a beach in a temperate environment, the next set of levels take place in the humid subtropical rainforests of Ecuador with its clay-rich soil. This gives a distinct red hue to the underground.

The leafcutter queen beneath the rainforest soil

Various castes of Atta cephalotes patrol their nest We also have luminous fungal growths illuminating our Leafcutter colony instead of the crystals from the beach levels - a little extra flavour given that the leafcutters themselves are fungus farmers!

Illuminated by fungal growths!

Leafcutter Animations

Here's the current animations for the leafcutter major. Pay particular attention to that leaf-cutting action - after all, that's what leafcutters are born to do. https://youtu.be/DKB7cy8AWeI

Work-in-Progress Leafcutter Montage

Liam put together this little montage of test material showing the various ways that the leafcutters are being worked on. You can see an example of the upcoming size hierarchy system that will allow some ants to literally run under the legs of bigger ones, as well as seeing some of the vertical ant movement that Matt has been working on to allow leafcutters to collect cuttings from leaves above floor level. There's also a small audio snippet of what Scientist #2 is up to in the next update. Frankly, he scares us. https://youtu.be/mEhlDIJny8s

Streamlining Level Design

Anyone who has watched the live streams will have seen how putting levels together is a time consuming process (even ones that do not have a story), so to help with this we have developed plugins for Unreal Engine. These allow us to change tiles with a variable size spherical tool in many ways (raise, lower, dig out, make indestructible and even paint) not only speeding up level design but making it more intuitive. See a short demonstration of John using the new in-house tools on Giphy Please note that although this time-saving measure is a good thing for the project, we are not currently planning to release a level editor for the game. For now these are UE4 plugins that benefit us - if everything is going well when the game graduates from early access, we might revisit the level editor idea. But not yet!

Twitch Streams

There has been little in the way of live streaming recently - and for good reason. John likes to keep his streams relatively spoiler-free, and pretty much all of his current work has been leafcutter-related. We don't want to spoil all that good stuff for you prematurely.

YouTuber Highlight - ManOfTheAntz

It's rare that we see an EotU-playing YouTuber who's also an antkeeper IRL, so of course we're going to watch their videos when we do. ManOftheAntz plays the game from a remarkably unbiased perspective, given the subject matter, and manages to be damned entertaining whilst he does it. We've thoroughly enjoyed watching his trials and tribulations with EotU, and we look forward to seeing how he does with the upcoming content! https://youtu.be/iLZ9TH3mMAc

Screenshot Central

As has fast become a tradition for the newsletter, we like to trawl through Steam screenshot uploads and manually-emailed submissions (send them to mike@slugdisco.com) for fun screenshots. F12 does it by default on Steam, if you'd like to participate.

The ants go marching 4 by 4, hurrah! Thanks to Johathon for emailing this in

The destruction of an uber devil's coach horse by joshua.schneider

A never-ending battle? Crabs vs crabs in the Battle Arena from Bilbo Baggins

[ 2018-09-07 00:27:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

June / July Newsletter 2018 - Leaf Cutter Progress!

Greetings everyone! This has been another one of those months where the general timings and various circumstances have meant we've not managed to get the newsletters done to the regular schedule - so enjoy this newsletter for both June and July! The biggest news since the last newsletter is obviously the release of Freeplay mode on the main branch. It's been available for everyone for several weeks beforehand in beta form, so those of you who were most keen are likely to have been fairly familiar with it when it finally landed for everyone on 2nd July. We've also got some great progress to show you with our next Formicarium update - Leaf Cutters ants!

Freeplay Released!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm4WJl1Dq5w The reaction to Freeplay has been very positive - you've been enjoying these longer-form games and the ability to save your progress in it has been welcomed warmly (even if getting the save system working has accelerated John's aging process!). There's still plenty we are planning to do with Freeplay mode - balance changes, more maps, more environments, more creatures, fully autonomous enemy ant colonies - all that good stuff is still in its future. For now, John has joined Liam and Matt to crank up development on the next set of levels, but Freeplay will be revisited soon. After new content is created for the next set of levels, it will be integrated into Freeplay like the content from the first two Formicarium tiers is currently.

Some crazy late-game Freeplay action here from Steam user Jumbo6565 It's been great fun seeing your Freeplay setups, from those who just want a nice chilled out, slow base-building experience to the fearless guys who crank up the difficulty all the way from the start! The current documented high score for a finished game that starts at max difficulty is very nearly 4 million on our official forums by Balanite - can you do any better?

Leaf Cutter Progress

Those of you who have been following us on our social media accounts likely know that we're deep into the creation of the next set of levels now, and we have plenty of art assets that the talented Matt has been working on. Leaf cutters are our next species of ant - Atta cephalotes to be precise, a South American species with some impressive traits. They're fungus farmers - they gather leaves from the surrounding environment and place them in chambers in their nest, where a fungus that has a mutualistic relationship with the ants will grow. The ants ensure the propagation of the fungus, and the fungus provides the ants with food. Boasting four different worker castes, introducing this species to the game promises to bring some much-needed natural increase in complexity as the player progresses through the Formicarium campaign. Below are all of the completed ant models and a description of the caste they represent. Please note that in these pictures we've put the ants in the beach environment, for the sake of having them not floating in space - in their final levels they'll inhabit an entirely new biome - the rain forest.

Queen

No leaf is safe .... bow down to your Queen.

The mighty Leaf Cutter queen Despite forming some of the most complex societies on Earth, Atta cephalotes is not a multi-queen species as many ants are. There is one queen who can live for up to fifteen years and she's rather large. Below you can see her compared to our fictional Formica ereptor queen (the species that inhabits your Formicarium).

The Leaf Cutter queen compared to the Formica ereptor one

Minims

The smallest members of Leaf Cutter society - the minims - are positively dwarfed by their mother. These tiny ants rarely, if ever, leave the nest - instead they work tirelessly to tend to the fungus gardens the Leaf Cutters rely upon to survive.

Minims are tiny compared to all other castes - here's one with the queen In our current design the minims are not directly controllable by the player - in fact they're so tiny that enemies will practically ignore them too; but they can get damaged by crossfire. Rather than having their own brood chambers, a number of them will spawn for each brood tile placed for another caste. They're not just there for decoration, though - they have an important role in mulching the leaves gathered by other castes into the final form that can grow fungus.

Minors

After the minims, the next members of Leaf Cutter society are the minors. Being substantially bigger than the minims, these ants join the foraging trails, tend to larvae, cut and collect leaves, and help defend the nest from predators and other threats.

Minors will take on the EotU worker-like role Leaf Cutter minors will take on a very similar role to the worker ants from the current species. Versatile units which form the backbone of the work force.

Mediae

Next are the medium-sized media ants. These bad girls are much bigger than the minors, and they pack a serious bite with their slicing jaws. Formidable fighters in their own right, they're perfectly adapted for a life of cutting and collecting foliage for their colony's fungus gardens. A solid combat unit with strong resource gathering potential.

Now we're getting to the big girls!

Majors

In awe of the size of these ladies. Meet the Leaf Cutter majors - the deadly tanks of Atta cephalotes, and the largest of their species with the exception of the queen. These absolute units are huge soldiers - whilst they will collect leaves for the fungus gardens their main role is to fight and protect the colony. Huge muscles are housed in their heads which power mighty crushing jaws - they can easily cut through leaf, chitin and skin alike.

A Leaf Cutter major slicing effortlessly through foliage Leaf Cutter majors will have either a "taunt" or a "stun" ability (player's choice, in the same way as rapid fire or mortar for the wood ants), representing their imposing presence on the battlefield. Taunt will make enemies want to attack them preferentially, whereas stun will temporarily disable nearby foes. Combined with their high health pool, this means they can efficiently distract whilst other units such as mediae get in extra damage to the affected creatures. They will also have an extremely powerful attack - although it is slower than that of their smaller brood mates.

A comparison of all of the Leaf Cutter castes As you can see, Atta cephalotes is our first truly polymorphic species, with clear caste divisions throughout the colony. Although we do have "workers" and "soldiers" in the existing species, we've taken a little artistic license there since most Formica species are relatively homogeneous. Leaf Cutters show true diversity, and we're excited to get that into the game properly. We're always a bit hesitant when it comes to estimating release dates for things - in no small part because we've proven ourselves to be pretty terrible at it. The plan on our road map says late summer - and that's still our aim. As always, this is not a promise - software development is such a complex subject that you can easily spend much longer on a problem than you thought you'd need to (and vice versa). That said, Liam will be recording with our voice actors soon and is making daily strides with his systems for fully-fledged enemy colonies, John is feeling energised after being able to work on something other than Freeplay and getting stuck into some Atta cephalotes AI action, and Matt is pumping out artwork and novel solutions to difficult stuff like vertical ant movement like it's his job. Which it is.

Screenshot Central

We sometimes like to show off some of the more aesthetically pleasing screenshots uploaded by our community - do it through Steam (F12 by default; it'll give you upload options when you end the game session), or you can email them to mike@slugdisco.com.

Good capture of Devil's Coach Horse beetle using its spray attack by KLOGO-hoPPeR

A rather pleasing nest layout from Roflcopterkklol - almost looks like a beetle!

The low light of dusk, a splash of colour from the marker, a pleasing snap by Sammiday

[ 2018-07-23 21:49:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Freeplay Mode Launched!

Freeplay Mode Added

https://youtu.be/mm4WJl1Dq5w

Customisable - play your way!

Freeplay is a highly customisable game mode giving the player full control over what creatures and landmarks can spawn, how hard they want the game, how the difficulty of the game will change as time goes on and much more.

The Dunes Freeplay map – a monster of a map!

The Dunes is the largest map in the game to date, made possible through optimisation of the surface tiles allowing us to get more for the processing power. It boasts:

4 possible start locations for the player’s colony
120 by 120 surface tile grid (the previous biggest being 96 by 126)
80 locations for landmarks to spawn and 25 locations for creatures to spawn

Save-able

Freeplay colonies can be saved and returned to later, allowing you to take your time and even try that horrible attack wave again. For now saving is manual and there is no backup; we are planning on introducing backups in a future update.

Landmarks – let’s make this interesting!

Landmarks are various interesting points on the surface. They are randomised in look, functionality and location, will appear and disappear as your game progresses and scale with the difficulty setting.

Aphid Farm

Has between 2 and 4 patches of 10 aphids
Has randomly generated plant decoration
Ladybird attacks increase with difficulty

Poppy Plant

Will intermittently drop poppy seeds; the dropped seeds have a limited lifetime

Funnel Web Nest

Generates dead creature chunks
Contains funnel web spiders that will kill nearby enemy creatures (from the player’s colony… or anything else it is big enough to take on!)
Number of spiders increases with difficulty
Has randomly generated stones nearby

Dead Fish

A large source of food
Will attract enemy ants

Infestation

Attracts large group of enemies of a specific type
This large group stays around the central point
The size of the group increases with difficulty

Creatures fight each other

In Freeplay mode creatures on the surface will duke it out with one another. However, they will not just attack anyone! Some of them will not attack larger creatures, or will ignore the smaller ones. In Freeplay every creature has a list of other creatures they do not want to fight.

Random start location

The player will start in a random pre-prepared start location. These undergrounds are similar in the resources that are available but the locations of resources are different, including where they start on the surface.

Day / night cycle and spawning

If turned on, the game will slowly tick from day to night and back again. When day turns to night nocturnal creatures will come out, and diurnal creatures will hide. Some creatures are about in both time periods. A full 24 hour cycle lasts 30 minutes in game-time.

Food spoiling

Creatures killed in Freeplay mode have a limited time to be harvested before they “spoil” and disappear (3m). Additionally, food generated by funnel web and poppy plant landmarks do the same so as to not cause too great a buildup of food.

Uber creatures – oh boy, it’s a big one!

Ubers are souped-up versions of some of the larger creatures. They can be identified by a red glow, increased size and will be announced in a message when they spawn. There are 4 types that are as difficult as each other and all provide 1000 food when killed. They take much longer to spoil than other creatures because of this (10m). The 4 types are uber hermit crab, uber beach tiger beetle, uber devil’s coach horse adult and uber beach wolf spider. Enabling Uber Creatures increases your score.

Attack waves

Up for a real challenge? With this enabled waves of enemies will spawn every 5 minutes after an initial setup period of 12 minutes. These wave will get stronger over time and do not drop food. How many can you survive? Enabling attack waves increases your score significantly.

Difficulty settings

Difficulty is handled differently in Freeplay mode. The difficulty changes as the game goes on and affects things such as the spawn rate of enemy creatures, how aggressive they are, how much food dead creatures drop and the difficulty of landmarks. You can set the start point of the game difficulty and how you would like it to change as the game progresses. There are several options.

Constant – the difficulty remains at the value initially set and gets no harder.
Ramp – the difficulty gradually increases at a steady rate.
Spikes – the difficulty remains constant however it will spike up in difficulty every now and then. It spikes for a
random amount and for a random length.
Ramp with spikes – the difficulty steadily increases as the game progresses but will every now and then spike up in difficulty. It spikes for a random amount and for a random length.
Scale With Colony – as your colony size increases so does the difficulty, meaning you should always feel a bit pressured no matter how well you are doing.
Random – every so often the difficulty is randomised and stays there for a random amount of time. Note you may end up starting at some very hard difficulty.

Nest entrance can be dug out, and are hidden until done so (visible on minimap)

In Freeplay, your route to the nest entrance is not dug out to begin with - giving you the freedom to plan your nest your way. You will know where the entrance is from the minimap, however you will need to tunnel to it to reach the surface.

Select your species

Choose from one of the species from the campaign (currently black ants or wood ants) or chose one of your Formicarium colonies to play Freeplay with! If you choose one of your formicarium colonies all the upgrades you have chosen for that colony will be available for your Freeplay colony (note the ants themselves do not transfer, just the upgrades).

Fog of war

Enemies and food will be hidden from you unless you are nearby, what will be lurking for you in the shadows? Fog of war greatly increases your score!

Soft population cap (Upkeep)

After a certain number of tiles have been built, further tiles will begin to increase in cost. This makes the end game more challenging whilst also keeping performance high. Workers have a seperate population. This can be disabled in setup.

So, what’s the point?

You are free to build up a colony and try and survive as long as you can! You can also try to score as high as possible as you will be given a score on defeat. This score is affected by several options:
Nest invasions increases score by 50% Uber creatures increases score by 10%
Attack waves increases score by 10%
Fog of war increases score by 150%
Disabling population upkeep reduces your score by 60%

[ 2018-07-02 16:16:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Freeplay Beta Patch 0.122 Released

There have been many changes since the last beta update. This will hopefully be the final version before general Freeplay release. Many of the changes have focused around having a better game experience, making the end game more difficult and improving performance. Along with this many bug fixes have been added.

Features

Population upkeep cost added to Freeplay. This feature has been added in order to make the end game more challenging whilst also keeping performance high. The end game is now more difficult with fewer creatures.
- This is a soft population cap and will increase the cost of ants beyond a specific population
- Workers have a seperate population
- Cost increase is exponential (starts small and increases rapidly with each ant)
- This can be disabled in setup, however doing so will reduce score by 60%
- Added in notifications for a few things in freeplay
- Fog added to minimap when Fog of war is on

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where moving the marker between the surface and underground could cause ants to walk to the edge of the map
Fixed an issue where ants could get stuck facing walls underground, especially when there were a lot of ants about
Fixed an issue where resource score was lost when a game was loaded in Freeplay
Fixed an issue where hovering chamber info could be seen in the death animation
Fixed an issue where dead creatures would disappear if brought underground with Fog Of War on in Freeplay
Fixed an issue where stored corpses despawned on game load in Freeplay
Time now restores correctly for scoreboard on loaded Freeplay games
You can no longer save Freeplay if your queen is dead
Fixed the levels displaying incorrectly on chamber hover information
Slightly altered queen start position on The Dunes Freeplay map
Fixed an issue preventing ladybirds spawning at the the correct rate for the difficulty in Freeplay
Fixed an issue where ants when loaded from a save would immediately go home from a trail end
Fixed an issue where ants would spin on the spot when walking or picking up food at the bottom of ramps
Fixed an issue where wood ant projectiles could hit a lip on the tunnel exit
Fixed an issue where ants were moved towards the queen on load if they were nearby (still exists but not as bad)
Fixed an issue where saved fish would have their food restored on load and could duplicate
Right clicking a notification now unpauses the game
Word cost removed from build tooltips
Fixed right clicking on harvestable resource placing marker correctly
Prevented photo mode when in a cutscene
Fixed an issue where ants would be very slow to register to a marker with no ants assigned
Funnel Web spiders will no longer attack wave creatures in freeplay
Minimap damage notification will no work no matter where your starting location

Changes / Improvements

Loading throbber returned to the loading screen
Tunnel exit tagged for excavation restores when loaded
Changed the information on chamber hover to be more relevant to each chamber
Reduced ant reaction time (wood ants should no longer reach targets before starting to fire)

Freeplay

Ant fog of war vision radius has been increased (nearly double)
At higher difficulties creatures will now drop less food (starting from 50% difficulty) and be much more likely to attack the player in Freeplay
Later waves will now produce higher level ants
Wave power significantly increased
Wave timer has been reduced to 5 minutes and a 12 minute setup time has been added.
Every 5th level wave creatures changed
Added a warning to the player if they do not tunnel to the surface when waves are queing up to spawn
Ubers can now spawn in all waves after wave 15
Wave number is constantly displayed once they start spawning
Added wave number to Freeplay score screen
Chance of Ubers spawning increases with difficulty
14 landmarks will always spawn at the beginning
Landmarks types are now evenly distributed
A new landmark spawns every 150s down from 180s
Uber creatures stats reworked, should attack slower but be more deadly and deal AOE damage
Prevented smaller creatures spawning in waves later on (tiny spiders and devils coach horse larvae)
More creatures spawn at lower difficulties
Added a reload button on defeat in Freeplay

Performance Improvements

Refined collisions for substantial performance improvements
Performance improvements with certain animations
Performance improvements with skeletal mesh updates
Small optimisations added in for Freeplay
Blueprint Nativisation in use for substantial performance gains
Major optimisations in nurseries
Creature decision making moved into C++ for major performance boost
Job management speed improved
Minor array access improvements
Minor creature AI speed improvements
Multiple minor optimisations

[ 2018-07-01 22:32:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Freeplay Beta Patch 0.1213 Released

With this update to the Freeplay beta comes saving! Due to the complexity of this there are likely to be bugs here and there and we would very much appreciate reports of them. As this will affect saves we strongly recommend you backup your saves before trying this update. We’re close to the end of the beta period for Freeplay and it will soon be made available for all players, but if you aren’t yet participating and would like to please follow the instructions here:

Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your games library
Right-click and select “Properties”
Find the "Betas" tab
Enter the code "betatestants" (without quote marks) and press "Check code"
Make sure you've chosen the beta from the drop-down menu
The game will now update to the beta branch version

As always, thanks for your help with this. We will soon be ready to test on Mac and Linux then finally release Freeplay officially.

New Features

Freeplay games can be saved
- WARNING: Whilst we are testing this we STRONGLY recommend backing up your game before trying the new update
- At present Freeplay games do not save backups themselves; we will be introducing this in the future
- You will notice the Freeplay colonies you have already made available to load when you open Freeplay – these saves will be incompatible, please delete them as loading them may cause a crash (they do not have level data saved with them)
Fog of War added to Freeplay
- This hides all enemies on the surface unless you have an ant close to them
- Due to the difficulty this adds, it dramatically increases your score
Some Freeplay setup options now add a multiplier to your score
- Nest invasions increases score by 50%
- Uber creatures increases score by 10%
- Attack waves increases score by 10%
- Fog of war increases score by 150%
Placing a marker will temporarily draw the trail the ants are likely to take to reach it
All ants have an icon on them which roughly describes their role (worker, melee, ranged, tank)
Hovering over a chamber will now give information about the room (ants, eggs, tile levels, storage)
The nest group can now be selected and can have aggression and gathering turned on and off
Realistic mode added in general options (hides tile surfer outlines, food outlines, path arrows on markers and marker icon overlays)
Request to dig to surface can now be cancelled
Minimap darkens as the day darkens
Game will now pause when notifications are open (can be toggled on and off via notification button or option)
Some tech tree icons have been updated
Some furniture added to main menu screen

A screenshot showing two new features - classic RTS Fog of War (Freeplay only) and the ant trails being temporarily drawn when you place a pheromone marker

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue that could cause all creatures other that colony ID 0's health to be halved in Freeplay
Fixed Royal Decree (thanks to Rayalot72 for reporting this)
Potentially fixed issue with some hardware causing large black shadows to appear in 1_1 and 1_2
Fixed a crash that could happen in levels with no surface
Fixed a bug with the last chance worker in Freeplay
Fixed an issue with the spawn point of waves in Freeplay
Fixed some text capitalisation inconsistencies
Changed title of Other Modes
Fixed the "Reload last save" button in Freeplay

Balance changes / improvements

Uber creature corpses can now be harvested by 8 ants at a time
Stunned swirl updated
Performance improvement added for rendering the upgrade overlay
Several minor optimisations added

[ 2018-06-12 22:36:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

May 2018 Newsletter

Good afternoon, morning and variations thereupon ladies and gentlemen. We're back to the monthly newsletters after the dual one last time - we're about to pick up pace on the news front! It's very near the end of the transitory phase now - all three developers are full-time on the project from now on, and we're finalising the plans for everything going forward. However, we do have to give a special mention to one of our team - John, our lead Freeplay developer, has been celebrating the arrival of his baby daughter. Congrats to him on the expansion of his colony!

Freeplaying All Day

The Freeplay beta is continuing and we're still digesting all of your feedback. Remember, even if you don't get a direct response from Mike or another team member for your suggestion or bug report, we are reading all of it. There's just so much to read that it's not feasible to always reply, but we do our best! John is currently finishing off the saving system. Once he's done with that and a few other pressing changes have been made, it’ll be time to put it on the main branch so that all owners of the game can play it. You can still join in the optional beta testing (without saving) right now if you haven’t yet - see the top of our previous newsletter for instructions. The beta is for Windows only, but when we put Freeplay on the main branch Linux and Mac users will also be able to access it.

A very ordered nest layout and lovely poppy display in this Freeplay playthrough by Switch

Full-Time Boys - Liam

Last time, we reported that John was able to quit his job and go full-time on the project. We're delighted to report that now, Liam has done so too - completing our trio of developers now working full-time. Up until a couple of months back, only Matt was dedicating his whole professional time to the project. We feel a bit like a record on repeat in saying it, but it's entirely true - only the support of our fans has allowed this to happen. Making the leap of leaving a long-held job for the unknown future of a home-grown project is a terrifying step - and one that we've only been able to take because of you guys. We owe you a really good game in return, and we're going to make that happen. Enjoy these picture of Liam finishing his last day at his old academic job in Germany - getting in some last-minute ant revision, then enjoying his final currywurst before returning the the UK to work full-time on Empires of the Undergrowth.

Artifical Antelligence (why didn't I use this title last time?)

Liam is now working full-pelt on the AI for a computer controlled colony. Whilst we have some basic AI options for colony control in the project, these currently boil down to scripted enemies with pre-built bases, sending waves out on regular timers. The current task of having a fully independent AI player, able to make informed decisions is a much taller order! This week the computer controlled colony (known in the project as “Hive Bot”) is being taught how to detect and avoid dangerous caverns whilst digging underground, or how to incorporate them into their base. For a human player, it is easy to spot the red exclamation marks hovering below the surface, but Hive Bot needs a little more help. In the picture you can see our new cavern data object; this is what the bot will see and will give it an idea of how much food and danger might be present if it digs through.

The Hive Bot's helping hand The implication here is that AI colonies will, for all intents and purposes, operate in the same way that a human player does. They'll start off with a queen and a few workers, evaluate their surroundings, then decide on an appropriate form of expansion. The solution they decide upon will be different each time the game is played. Properly functional AI colonies are essential for our plans for the next tier of the Formicarium campaign mode, and will also be integrated into Freeplay.

Choosing Ant Species

A lot of thought goes into the selection of ant species we include in the game. Not least because once we commit, we have to put serious time into them! Both Formica fusca and Formica rufa were chosen primarily for being iconic temperate ant species - and the rufas obviously for their real-life acid spraying abilities, which fitted our RTS-style game rather well! For leaf cutters, we chose a fairly ubiquitous species with Atta cephalotes (picture below) which has lots of polymorphism (in-species different body shapes, allowing us to have fun with different castes of ant). In the very old versions of the game, there were many more ant species but they were much less fleshed out. Our philosophy now is definitely “less is more” - fewer species, but more love given to each one.

We’ll be showing some of the artwork for leaf cutters as we complete it. As an interesting note, we do stretch reality somewhat in the game but where we can we want to be realistic - so we recently asked one of our favourite entomology groups how they’d feel about the realism of Atta cephalotes coming into conflict with an as-yet unannounced species. They gave it the thumbs up! It’s nice to have those checks in place.

Zealous Emerge

We were invited along to the Zealous Emerge awards a couple of weeks back. It was a fun event - and Empires of the Undergrowth won in the game section! Seeing that only his name is engraved on the trophy, Liam is currently taking quotes from contractors for a custom-built shelf to house it. We would like to thank the judges and the organizers for all of their help, particularly Guy Armitage who has spent the last week beating the game (but certainly not during work). We were joined in our booth by AsobiTech and their magical flying cat game Mao Mao, it's loud and colourful and should be coming to several different platforms this year. We wish them the best of luck with their launch! http://aso.bi/maomao/ https://twitter.com/asobitech/status/994667121132167169

Screenshot Central

Time to showcase some of our favourite screenshots of the past few weeks! Keep uploading your shots to Steam, or submit them via email to mike@slugdisco.net. Remember you can enter photo mode by pressing F8 (by default) to get some really cool angles for your shots.

AK_tion_47 proves he's still the king of Freeplay screenshots with this stunner

A simple but aesthetically pleasing shot of a Formica fusca queen by 3Rk4n

Welp.... Slam was unlucky enough to be attacked by two uber creatures in Freeplay. RIP.

[ 2018-05-30 18:19:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Freeplay Beta Patch 0.121 Released

We’ve just released our first feature-adding, bug-fixing and balance-altering update to the Freeplay beta build! We’re currently in the testing phase for Freeplay (sandbox) mode and it’s open to all owners of the game on Steam - if anyone would like to participate who currently isn’t doing so please see our most recent newsletter for details on how to join in (please note - the beta is Windows-only). Now, let’s get to the fun stuff.

New Features

Freeplay mode now has the option for Attack Waves. These are sent at the player periodically (every eight minutes) and comprise of random creatures of increasing power. They will give you no food when killed and will not be attacked by other creatures. They offer a real challenge for those looking for something truly hard in Freeplay. Every 5 levels there are special creatures added to the pool to make the fight extra hard. Be prepared if you make it to wave 15!
Battle Arena now provides some basic stats for score and survivors that can be reset. Additionally, the battle arena panels can now be hidden (and are hidden in photo mode).

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where attack and gather buttons were resetting or setting erroneously
Funnel Web detection area and slow is now correctly removed when the landmark disappears in Freeplay
Landmark spawn locations have been moved slightly further from the map edge on The Dunes
Fixed an issue meaning creatures that spawned at map edges could get stuck (mostly an issue with ladybirds)
Fixed an issue where “scale with colony” Freeplay difficulty only worked if you were in a specific underground starting location
Fixed an issue that centred markers on closed tunnel exits when trying to place one on them
Fixed multiple issues with victory and defeat animations on various campaign levels including issues with fading in and out. Please let us know if there are any more of these.
Slow resistance is considered when slowing creatures on a funnel web; larger creatures should slow down less
Fixed an issue where rapid-fire wood ant purchases were activating the wrong abilities
Fixed an issue where green glow effect (and others) could be applied after death
When looking for food or enemies, line of sight is now only blocked by tiles. This should solve issues of food being stuck on ramps.
Removed Freeplay restart button
Fixed an issue causing colonies on 2_2 to no longer be allied
2_2 nest entrances now have the correct colours
Fixed a graphical issue with the surface painting on 2_1 and 2_2
Nest group will no longer count food and speed tiles
Fixed the camera focus on Freeplay defeats
Fixed an issue preventing queen abilities announcing they have been activated
Fixed an issue where ants did not always die on tile deletion
Fixed an issue where creatures that did not contain food could spawn a corpse
Fixed an issue that would sometimes cause spiders to not walk to the end in Battle Arena
Fixed an issue where after queen abilities activate the queen would stop animating
Fixed an issue where hats were causing collision and nav mesh changes

Balance changes / improvements

Freeplay ramp rate doubled (should get harder twice as fast in ramp game difficulties)
"Scale with colony" difficulty in Freeplay now takes upgrades into account as well as colony size
Enemy pack sizes in Freeplay are now affected by difficulty (should be smaller below 100% and larger above it)
Food harvested in Freeplay will now spoil after 3 minutes and disappear. Should stop the map being covered in small amounts of food.
On transition to night or day if nocturnal / diurnal is selected several creatures will spawn based on the current difficulty (this is to make up for the ones leaving due to nocturnal / diurnal)
Main menu music will play over loading screen and will fade out as the level begins
Slight optimisation added to minimap rendering
Surface minimap will now fade in when tunnelling to the surface
Minor performance improvements

Known Issues / Request for help

We need help replicating these issues. If you manage to figure out how to achieve these issues we would really appreciate a step-by-step of what caused them. Additionally, any information about what was happening at the time the issue occurred will help.

Ants getting stuck underground / appearing to want to walk into walls
Creatures disappearing when attacking the queen (specifically the large Beach Tiger Beetle)

[ 2018-04-26 10:53:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

March / April Newsletter 2018

Well met, one and all, for the March / April newsletter! As many of you know, a lot has happened since our last newsletter - the most important of which is the public release of the Freeplay beta. If you weren't aware of that and would like to participate, there are details on how to do so in the rather extensive section below this arbitrary introduction. In fact, let's end this arbitrary introduction and get straight to the best bit.
There are some pretty amazing Freeplay setups - like this one from Steam user Enablin

Freeplay Beta

We've been working on Freeplay - a mode without a definite endgame and intended to take a long time - since shortly after early access release. The idea is to give players the opportunity to run a colony at their own pace, and deal with threats to it as they come along. A selection of choices in how the difficulty changes means that (hopefully) it will be a different experience each time.

Want to fill your entire underground with ants? Beta tester Pontus Meths did - and it took an afternoon Freeplay works in such a way that initial starting conditions affect the long-term outcome of the game. These are very difficult to judge, and we've been asking for feedback on it by making a public beta for all owners of the game on Steam. If you haven't heard about this yet and would like to participate, and you are on a Windows system, please follow the steps below: 1) Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties" 2) Choose the "Betas" tab 3) In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter the following code: betatestants 4) After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen the beta from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu 5) Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch. By doing so, you are acknowledging that this is a beta and things are not in their finished state. The biggest issue currently is that THERE IS NO SAVE FEATURE IN THE BETA. If you would like to play for a while, clear some hours in your schedule! The main Freeplay release will feature saving but that feature is not ready yet.

It's all going on in this busy Freeplay screenshot from Steam user AK_tion_47 There is a small inherent risk that save files might become corrupted when testing beta, due to the fundamental changes the game has undergone in the time since the last patch. We don't expect this to happen, but just in case we strongly recommend you back up your formicarium saves before you play: You will find your saves on Windows in: C:Users[YOUR USER NAME]AppDataLocalEotUSavedSaveGames Note that AppData is usually hidden; you can either un-hide the folder in the files settings or just type it into the bar. If you make a copy of this folder and save it somewhere else, you can restore your saves by replacing this folder with the backed up one. The beta will be getting some changes - and we're working on the save system. Right now you can't save, but since it's a mode designed to last several hours we will want the save system working before we release it on the main branch. Your feedback is much appreciated - please visit our forums (either on Steam or our own official ones). At this point we're interested in bug reports and balance issues rather than ideas for new content. The finished update will of course be available for Mac and Linux but right now for testing purposes it's Windows-only.

Freeplay's Uber creatures in all their glory - showing their characteristic glow

GamesMaster - Full Circle

In their very young days, developer John and community manager Mike (who is typing this in third person and feeling a bit weird about it) went to the GamesMaster exhibition. Back then, GamesMaster was a TV show hosted by Dominic Diamond and the late, great Sir Patrick Moore - it still exists in the form of a very popular monthly magazine. We were utterly delighted to see a review of the early access build in their most recent publication, and even more delighted when we saw how kind it was. The article only exists in print form so here we're linking a tweet by its author, Leon Hurley. https://twitter.com/LeonHurley/status/974698523840086016

Artificial Hivetelligence

Essential to the next set of single-player levels is a fully autonomous AI to control enemy colonies - Liam, who is leading the development of this feature, has called it "HiveBot". It will work intelligently to play the game in a similar way that a human player would - digging out a nest underground, placing pheromone markers, evaluating its options, identifying sources of food and tactically deciding what and when to attack. As well as being needed for the next set of levels (which as revealed previously will feature leaf cutter ants, Atta cephalotes), HiveBot will be integrated into Freeplay mode! The current freeplay map, The Dunes, has four underground spaces and the player is randomly assigned one of them on game setup. AI-controlled colonies will be an optional addition, cropping up in one of the unused underground spaces that the player doesn't occupy. Future Freeplay maps will follow a similar format. In the below video, you can see the HiveBot deciding how it's going to dig out its underground nest space, both in the presence and absence of obstacles in its way. It tries to be efficient - in EotU it's usually best to build your nest chambers in a hexagonal pattern where you can, for tile efficiency - and to have corridors that ants can use to efficiently move through the nest space. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0n9uBd1iUo

Battle Arena

The Battle Arena is a feature that is intended to help the player work out how army and creature compositions play off against each other, and due to some speedy work by John we've been able to include it in the currently active beta build along with Freeplay. If you've ever found yourself asking the question "who would win - 150 ants or 25 tiger beetles?" then you need look no further. This feature is included in the beta build detailed above but will otherwise be accessible for all players soon. https://youtu.be/m3v1Fvh_eSI

Full-time Boys - John

Matt has been full-time on the project for a good long while now. John took this unassuming yet poignant selfie a few weeks back - it's him packing up the remainder of his belongings at his previous day job. John is now a full-time Slug Disco developer, and his day job is Empires of the Undergrowth! This has only been possible due to the amazing love and support you guys - our community - have given to the project. Liam will soon be joining him, and then all of our developers will be full-time on the project.

John on his last day at his old day job - he was devastated!

Entomology Society 2018

John and Mike took a day out to visit Harper Adams University - we set up a booth for the game at the Entomology Society outreach event. The idea is to get secondary-school aged people interested in entomology (insect studies) - and for some crazy reason the organizers thought having video games involved may help attract that clientele. This was the second time we've been to this event, and it's been a cracker both times. It's great fun meeting young people considering a career in science. https://twitter.com/SlugDisco/status/986174575523311616

https://twitter.com/RoyEntSoc/status/986228261654007808

Screenshot Central

As always, we love seeing the interesting screenies you guys capture - so here are three of our favourites from the last few weeks! If you'd like a more interesting camera angle for your screenshot, hit F9 (by default) and follow the instructions. Please keep uploading your favorite shots to Steam - that's the easiest way for us to see them. Otherwise, email them to mike@slugdisco.com

Caught in the act of hatching - by Steam user The PILOT

A remarkably detailed yet hapless morsel - by Steam user MrDolly

An almost Brutalist nest layout in this Freeplay screenshot from Steam user Inixus

[ 2018-04-23 15:29:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Freeplay Beta now available - How to Join!

We have activated the beta for Freeplay and are opening it up to all owners on Steam! If you'd like to participate and are familiar with joining beta branches on Steam, here is your access code: betatestants If you're not, please follow the instructions in this post on our forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/463530/discussions/0/3211505894108961652/ That post also has a detailed changelog; there have been many fundamental changes to the game that this update introduces. Note that the beta is Windows only. We're likely to release it for Mac and Linux a short while before the end of the beta period to ensure things are working properly. As an added bonus, we're also adding in the Battle Arena at the same time! This mode allows you to test creature army compositions against each other to see how they work. Find it in the "Other Modes" main menu option along with Freeplay. We're interested in hearing your feedback with regards to balance, glitches and crashes. Note that the beta version does not have saving, but the final release of this update will - so for now if you'd like to have a good long session, free up your afternoon!

[ 2018-04-14 13:38:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Beta Testing - Freeplay Mode

Hi guys! We're approaching a point where we can get Freeplay mode out, without the saving functionality. After some internal discussion we feel our closed beta testing group isn't going to be big enough for feedback for this one, since it's a complete unknown and such a hugely randomised game mode that balancing it is going to be really tricky. So, we're going to open up a beta branch on Steam to owners who don't mind testing. There are some important caveats, please read:

THERE IS NO SAVING YET. This is the most important one - Freeplay mode will eventually be save-able since we intend games to last several hours, but for the purposes of the beta, this functionality is not yet available. If you'd like to play a long game, please clear some time for it!
There will be crashes and glitches. Our usual approach has been to really polish things before making them publicly available but in a beta things are different.
Some deep fundamental changes to the way the game works means that other things may be broken - including the current campaign levels and formicarium mode. We would appreciate testing on these too.
Whilst you are welcome to post ideas and suggestions, we are mainly interested in balance and bug fixing at this point. So please do not think your ideas are being ignored (we always read everything, even if we can't reply to everything) but for the sake of beta we are looking to fix the build, not expand upon it.
This is not technically an "open" beta, but a beta that is available to all current Steam owners of the game. You will need to own a copy of the game activated on Steam to participate.

This will happen in the next few days. A code will be given out on our Steam forums that people can activate to access the beta branch - instructions for those unsure how to do that will be included in the post. Keep your eyes on here for announcements!

[ 2018-04-11 10:59:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

February 2018 Newsletter

Hi all - gosh, March already! Time flies when you're having fun - and for that reason it certainly flies when you're developing a game about ants. We've recently been assessing the way we tell you all about the future of the project, and we realize there's a deep need for us to communicate better - as we posted in a mini-update a couple of weeks ago. Although we have been developing Empires of the Undergrowth for several years, we only launched on Steam in December and therefore we're new to having a big community that we have responsibilities to. We want you guys to feel justifiably assured that things are progressing well (as they are) - and for this reason we're going to be doing our best to communicate here. We've been doing these newsletters for some time - but this is the first time we've worked out that we can actually post them properly formatted to Steam, rather than just a link to elsewhere. Always learning.
Screenshot credit: Garenator on Steam We're certain that we don't want to rush - and that's always been the case. Our modus operandi has been quality first - ultimately, we're making our dream game here and we want it to be great just as much as you do. Given our limited resources (our team size is 3) we've made decisions - like not releasing small, incremental updates and instead focusing on the bigger picture with larger updates. That's because the whole process of an update is a drain of resources and time. In a larger team or for a game of lesser scope, this might be doable. We feel we're in the right place here. With that clarified, due to many understandable requests, we've made what is often referred to by makers of early access products as a "road map".

Road Map

A road map refers to a rough outline of how a developer intends their project to progress. It's usually an abridged version of the internal plan the developer has, as it is in our case. This is ours for the remainder of 2018.

You'll notice that it's rather vague - this is deliberate; as we'll talk about later in the newsletter - software development is so unpredictable that even the most seasoned veterans have real difficulty in pinning down exact release dates. However, you can see that we plan on releasing the third tier of the Formicarium in the summer (Major Update 1), and the Freeplay mode before that. All of this, by necessity, comes with the caveat that it's subject to change.

Freeplay

John, after moving house, has been continuing his work on Freeplay mode. He's recently been working on the vast amount of options that the mode will allow - the difficulty slider will feed in to many different things that affect how the game will play. In this stream recorded in February, you can see him tweaking things such as creature temperament, and connecting all the disparate systems that need to work in harmony in order for this game mode to become a reality.

A poppy head "landmark" - this will drop seeds for your colony in Freeplay It's clear from the complexity of Freeplay that a lot of its enjoyment factor will come down to the setting of parameters - and for this reason it's definitely going to be a mode that will be balanced and tweaked extensively. We're going to need your feedback on that one - and that brings us to the matter of when we release it. As mentioned earlier (and is discussed more extensively below) deciding on an exact release date in this line of work is folly until you're sure - and even giving vague guesstimates is usually pointless. The best we can give on this is "a few weeks". We hope you guys understand why.

A tiger beetle guards a dead fish in Freeplay John is continuing his streaming after a short break for the aforementioned house move - it's usually on a Thursday afternoon, Greenwich mean time. For now, John is working the notice on his day job and that will continue until the Easter break. After that, he's a bona fide full-time Empires of the Undergrowth developer and the streams are likely to become more scheduled and regular.

A landmark occupied by aphids - landmarks can take a wide variety of forms.

A Little About Leaf Cutters

As previously announced, the next species of ant added to the game will be Atta cephalotes - a South American leaf cutter ant. These ants don’t eat meat - although they can give you a particularly nasty defensive nip with those huge mandibles, they're in it purely for the leaves. The colony forms distinct trails as it searches for suitable leaves, before cutting them down in a variety of ways and transporting them back to the nest. Here, the leaves decompose due to a mutual relationship the ants have with a special kind of fungus - and it is the fungal growth itself that the ants feed upon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysiP1ZRL808 Although we've had a bit of variation of sizes between ants before (between workers, soldiers and upgraded ants) that's just peanuts to leaf cutters. Atta cephalotes is a very distinctly polymorphic species - meaning it has within it several "castes" of ant that exhibit obviously different traits. The "minors" are undeniably tiny compared to the "majors" - which can be several times as long and more than 100 times the mass of the minors. They have unusually-shaped heads that house the huge muscles needed to power their slicing jaws. There is also an intermediate "medium" caste.

An Atta cephalotes major, giant mandibles and head muscles visible. Photo by Alex Wild. In our game, the majors will certainly be formidable in combat - huge, imposing and a target for enemies (we will be introducing a "taunt" mechanic that makes enemies want to attack them preferentially). However, all 3 of the castes will be intrinsically involved in what leaf cutters do best - cutting leaves. Each one will have a distinct role that, when used efficiently, will speed up production of your colony-sustaining fungus. We don't want to spoil it too much, so we'll leave it there for now!

Dealing With Delays aka "when it's done"

So, a bit of self-reflection and commentary on development as a whole for this section of the newsletter. "When it's done" has become a meme relating to game development for good reason. We suddenly have a large audience - and with that comes expectations. That’s been a bit daunting but we'd like to think we're learning quickly from the experience. Delays are frustrating for both developers and consumers. It’s a considerable risk to even give an estimate of when a feature or product will be ready without total certainty. A recent example of that unexpectedness for us is the way that we've been decorating our levels - the Unreal Engine that powers our game has changed in such a way that the method we were using is no longer viable. So, Matt has been working on a custom plugin to help him do the artwork - as a necessity, but it's a drain on time we couldn't have predicted before it happened. On the plus side, in this case - the new method comes with a performance boost. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wf8c8wO3CU In 2015 we failed our first Kickstarter - and took a philosophical approach to our failings. We're always learning. Communication is key - from the point of view of our small team of 3 developers and 1 social media guy, 3 months is not a long time between updates - however, in the eyes of the consumer who is used to quick patches for their games, it sets off alarm bells that the game is abandoned (we've heard that word used more than once in concerned forum posts). This isn't the case - we're just a smaller team and things are going to take time to be done properly. We don't have the resources of the team behind the excellent Factorio, for example. In a small way the early access model doesn't help these concerns - people know they are paying for an incomplete product and therefore have to have some faith that the investment they're making now will be returned by a great complete product. We'd just like to assure you all that things are progressing well, and the deep transitional phase that Slug Disco is currently undergoing will soon be finished. Once is it, we'll have 3 full-time developers working on Empires of the Undergrowth.

Screenshot Central

We like to trawl through the Steam screenshots of EotU every so often. Here's a few of our favorites from the past few weeks! To get some great screenshots yourself press F9 (by default) in-game to enter Photo Mode.

It's all about that butt - because that's where the eggs come from. Credit: Serafine

Invaders! Credit: Charles the Bald

Sorry, but our queen is hungry. Credit: vervedan

[ 2018-03-12 15:40:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

What We're Up To Right Now - How EotU Is Coming Along

Hi ant fans! We're increasingly hearing complaints that we're not being communicative enough. We do our best - but we're new to this, so we're always learning. This isn't going to be a full newsletter (that will likely come next week) but just a bit of a round-up of what we're up to currently.
We've heard a lot of people fearing that the project is abandoned or in trouble due to a lack of updates - far from it! In fact the game has been successful enough on Steam that all 3 of our developers have been able to quit their day jobs and will soon (but not yet) be working full time on the game! Given the small size of the team we prefer to release larger, more complete updates rather than lots of smaller ones. Every time we update development is slowed for the testing and compiling processes - so you can see why this is our preferred model. All 3 of our developers will, from April, be working full-time on the project. Naturally the pace of work will speed up then, but please be aware that 2 of the 3 are still working their day jobs up until then. So please welcome John and Liam, the newest full-time Slug Disco employees!
Thanks to Exquisite Bolagnese for this screenshot! We'd hoped to get Freeplay mode out to you in February, but that is unlikely now and it's looking more like March. These things happen all the time in game development (as I'm sure you're aware - even the really big developers have trouble pinning down release dates for features) and although it's frustrating we're not going to give you something we feel isn't fun and worth playing. We are doing some new stuff for Freeplay - check out this poppy head model! This is one of several "landmarks" that can appear in a Freeplay map - the landmarks will take random forms on loading. The poppy heads will drop seeds for your ants, giving you a regular food supply - but free food won't go unnoticed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TB4sEA6j10 We've recently finalized our plans for the third formicarium tier - which will feature leaf cutter ants (Atta cephalotes). The mechanics they'll use to harvest leaves for food will be integrated closely with the different castes that exist in their society - which includes really huge Major ants, as well as Medium and Minor castes. We're excited to be adding some more complexity to the game mechanics in the levels going forward. And finally, we're working on the challenge mode for 2.1 and 2.2. "Ant" and "lion" should rarely be uttered in the same sentence, let alone the same word!

[ 2018-02-25 12:58:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

January 2018 Newsletter now up!

Good morning, evening and variations thereupon everyone - we've compiled and posted our January newsletter for 2018! The newsletter focuses mainly on the upcoming Freeplay mode (which we hope to have out to you in its basic form in a few weeks). You can see the full thing on our website. We go into quite fine detail of what is currently being worked on for Freeplay - a potentially endless game mode where you can build your colony at your own pace, save it, and come back to it as and when you want. Some other games call this sort of feature "sandbox" or similar. http://slugdisco.com/january-2018-newsletter/

[ 2018-02-08 17:58:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

0.11421 Change Log – Hotfixes

Note these are minor fixes added for a couple of issues that have come to light recently. Mac and Linux users do not yet have these hot fixes and so we recommend turning Arachnophobia mode off for these users. We will get fixes for those platforms up as soon as we can! Bug Fixes

Fixed and issue with Arachnophobia Mode festive hats causing wood ants to not be able to attack the spiders
Fixed an issue where the cavern tunnelled into south of your queen in the formicarium did not refund territory spent to mark it
Main menu link to the forum now takes you to the correct forum landing page

[ 2017-12-21 13:06:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

0.1142 Change Log

For now this is available in windows. We will try and get the mac and linux builds up in the next couple of days! At the moment these are still mostly bug fixes, however there are a couple of balance changes and additions in there as well! We very much appreciate your feedback and do keep letting us know if any issues occur. Additions and Improvements

Added photo mode:
- Please note - this is an early feature. It is fully possible to see off the edge of the map or inside the terrain with this feature. Additionally, there are some issues with shadows that will be looked into in forthcoming builds
- By default F9 will enter photo mode. This Pauses the game, hides the UI and gives you control of a unique camera allowing you to get closer screenshots and interesting angles. Additionally, you can unpause and re-pause the game whilst in this mode. Note the photo mode camera is tethered to a limited distance from the initial point the camera was activated
Digging out the tunnel to the surface is now done in the same way as tagging any other tile to dig
Formicarium ability purchases can now be swapped for the other (but for the full cost)
Subtle increase of light levels underground
Formicarium challenge mission button graphic updated to make it more obvious it is a mission
Alert message added about seeds dropping on the surface each time you receive seed rewards
Changes to Mac build to allow lower OS requirements
Updates to Formica ereptor queen animations
OpenGL has been added to windows (considered alpha)

Balance Changes

Beach wolf spider nest behaviour has been changed - It will now path to random nursery tiles for 40 - 60s. During this time it will not attack the queen. This should give players time to respond to the attacks even if they have nurseries right next to the queen.
Pop cap changed to 100 / 125 / 150 (from 50 / 100 / 150) allowing more ants to be used for formicarium challenge 1
2.1 Night creatures will now attack the player if they are attacked at night
2.1 When a night creature takes damage on the surface it may attract other night creatures (1 every 5 seconds) to its location

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where dead spiders (and possibly other creatures) could not be harvestable if they die on top of the surface tunnel (let us know if this still happens)
Fix added for mass of eggs appearing at the queens rear. This was caused by a tile being deleted before it received an egg. The job is now removed as well as any eggs currently in transit to the tile
Collision shape fixes for surface tunnel - ants should no longer get stuck in the walls
Creature instant kills (water, spiders, tile removals) now always kill the creature
Fixed an issue where upgrading an ant would not update its maximum health stat
Fix added where pheromone markers placed on tunnel exit could sometime hit an invisible sphere and end up in the sky - the ants could not reach it and froze
Removed code that stopped multiple version of the game being open at the same time (It was happening if you had any Unreal Engine game open which has undesired effects)
Large Beach Wolf Spider devour ability now removes the ant it eats, rather than the ant floating in the air, along with other fixes for the ability
Possible fix added for Oculus Home opening when the game was started. Let us know if this is still happening!
Fix added for surface torch being on in the ending cutscene
Fixed some pebbles in 2.1
Disabled access to the wiki from the tech tree (currently wiki only has placeholder text)
Time bonus has been removed for levels 2.1 and 2.2, as these levels cannot be completed any faster
Fix added to reduce (and hopefully prevent) creatures getting stuck when moving from above to below ground
Fixed some issues that could cause eggs to be dropped on floor where there is no nursery
Fixed some issues where text would appear un-wrapped then suddenly wrap in tooltips
Royal Jelly tooltip in tech tree corrected
Fixed a typo on the rapid fire wood ant tooltip
Fixed a typo in challenge mode

[ 2017-12-16 16:37:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Change Log 0.1141 - Crash Fixes

Please note we are still making the build for Mac and Linux. We will update this message once it is available. This is a very small patch that fixes a couple of the most major issues (and a typo). Bug Fixes

Fixed a major bug that caused loading to sometimes create duplicate ants. These ants did not die when their tiles were deleted.
Fixed a crash caused by the above duplicated ants attempting to assign themselves to deleted tiles (this is what has been causing the formicarium load crash)
Fixed a crash on game startup caused by loading time taking longer than 30s. We have now allowed 60s for the game to start up before it crashes. Please let us know if you are still having issues with this after the patch
Fixed an issue where Prevent Gather tooltip would display the hot key for Remove Marker

[ 2017-12-03 18:28:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are back on for the Early Access Release!

The Steam wizards have let us know we can release today after-all! Keep an eye out for us going live! And watch our social media channels for updates: https://www.facebook.com/slugdisco/ https://twitter.com/SlugDisco

[ 2017-12-01 17:21:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

We cannot launch on Steam today; Launching on itch right NOW!

TLDR: We cannot launch on Steam today however we are launching on itch.io RIGHT NOW and you can buy and download the early access version of the game from here RIGHT NOW: https://slugdisco.itch.io/empires-of-the-undergrowth This includes a Steam key that when it does release on Steam next week will allow you to download it from there! We've messed up a bit. As you'll no doubt have gathered by the multitude of YouTubers playing the game, Empires of the Undergrowth is ready to go into early access on Steam. Outside of some small intermittent issues, this has been the case for a few days now. We were hoping for a smooth release to Steam and were looking forward to sitting back a little and watching you all play, like proud parents watching their toddlers seeing the snow for the first time. Sadly it didn't work out quite as idyllically as that (what does?) this time around. And we're somewhat to blame. Steam has very rigorous standards for the curated set of games that live there. In our haste to prepare EotU for release to the platform, we've forgot to set up a few things in our Windows and Mac builds (with some noted irony given the headaches it's been causing us lately, the Linux build is the only one that passed!) and have therefore run afoul of some rules owing to the UE4 engine we use. Being entirely new to it, we hold our hands up and take the blame - it's our fault. Unfortunately the way that the review process works, we are unlikely to be able to launch on Steam until next week. So, the question is, what do we do now? The game is ready for early access as far as we're concerned and we'd love you all to play it as soon as you can. So - we're going to make the game available through itch.io! This will include a Steam key so when it does finally come out on Steam next week you will also be able to download it from there! We are really sorry about this, this is our first game on Steam and we will learn from this. In the meantime the game is now available on itch.io! https://slugdisco.itch.io/empires-of-the-undergrowth

[ 2017-12-01 11:49:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Early Access Starts 1st December

Finally. You've all been amazingly patient, understanding and supportive as we've worked through our list of tasks and solved our problems, but we are entirely delighted to announce that Empires of the Undergrowth will be entering early access on December 1st, 2017! Early Access Trailer
Early access brings an entire overhaul of the game - the biggest of which is Formicarium Mode, where you build an ant colony in a lab and upgrade it by playing missions out in the wild as different species of ant! There are four entirely new missions, two special challenges for your Formicarium, and you can explore the bountiful yet dangerous outworld above your nest. This means the game will be for sale on Steam, and those of you who already have a copy (by backing the game or through itch.io) will be able to download it through Steam on this date! It's been a tough few weeks for our dev team. We've taken feedback from beta testers, worked through a huge number of game-breaking glitches, balanced, tweaked and tinkered. Obviously that won't stop - when early access is underway we'll still be listening to suggestions and responding to balance issues, whilst we begin work on the first new content for early access. So you'll all be building your formicariums and battling the critters of the undergrowth in two weeks. In the meantime, enjoy the epic announcement trailer!

[ 2017-11-17 17:56:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Empires of the Undergrowth

Slug Disco Studios Developer

Slug Disco Studios Publisher

2017-12-01 Release

Strategy Simulation Singleplayer EA Tags

GameBillet: 15.00 €

Game News Posts: 212

🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse

Very Positive (13017 reviews)

http://www.eotugame.com

Steam Store

The Game includes VR Support

Public Linux Depots:

Empires of the Undergrowth Depot Linux [2.13 G]

"Your queen has set up home beneath a rotting log. She is fat, and vulnerable. Her first brood will need to move quickly if the colony is to survive. Their priority now is to find food, and there is plenty around; but there are other hungry creatures in the undergrowth. The workers will need to be vigilant."

Empires of the Undergrowth is an ant colony management game, in a fast-paced real-time strategy style. The player excavates their nest underground, constructing tunnels and chambers to store food and raise brood. On the surface, the ants claim territory, gather resources, overwhelm fearsome arachnids and clash with other colonies. Nest design, army size, composition and attack timing are key to securing victory.

Carve out and construct your underground nest to suit your strategy
Engage in fast-paced colony versus colony combat above ground
Play as different ant species and explore their unique traits and weaknesses
Encounter and overpower dangerous beetles, arachnids and other awesome arthropods
Grow your pet formicarium over time by completing missions

MINIMAL SETUPOS: Any reasonable new Linux distro (Ubuntu 16.04)
Processor: Intel Core i3-4340 / AMD FX-6300Memory: 4 GB RAM
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: nVidia GeForce GTX 660 2GB / AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB
Storage: 2 GB available space

💰 Games on Sale 💰

GAMEBILLET

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