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

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

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