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Empires of the Undergrowth
Asid:
V0.13 Early Access Released! NEW Challenge Mode + NEW Freeplay Map!
Empires of the Undergrowth - Mike
It’s time for an update! We’re 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 - we’ve still got a few bugs (ha, ha) to work through for these builds. We’ve made significant progress on that but just ran out of time tonight and didn’t want to delay for everyone. We’re confident we can get stable builds out for you lovely people in short order, so keep your eyes on the news page!
Headline Features
• Challenge modes added to Rising Tide and Queen of the Hill
o 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!
o 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
o 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
o 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
o 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
o 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 spider’s 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 creature’s 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
Asid:
V0.132 Released - Mac and Linux builds up!
Empires of the Undergrowth - Mike
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
o 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
Asid:
V0.133 Released
Empires of the Undergrowth - Mike
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 devil’s 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
Asid:
V0.135 Released - Fixes and Improvements
Empires of the Undergrowth - Mike
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 spider’s 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 Uber’s basic attack to 200 (down from 300)
• rders using the Scheduled Order screen.
• A Retreat button once you send units over the top. This also works when you use the "Charge Positions" order.
Asid:
November 2018 Newsletter
Empires of the Undergrowth - Mike
With the exception of a few necessary balance changes and fixes for the more recent playable builds, the team’s sole focus for the past month has been the leafcutter update. Over the past few weeks we’ve 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, let’s get to having a look at some of these fantastic beasties!
The rainforest at night
Full newsletter here
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