Empires of the Undergrowth

[Asid]

Optional Beta Update - 0.22031 Release
Fri, 28 August 2020



A small update to address some common issues

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

[Asid]

July-August 2020 Newsletter
Sat, 12 September 2020



The latest on fire ants, AI colonies for freeplay, and what we've been up to over the summer!

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.




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 screenshot 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
 

[Asid]

Optional Beta 0.22033 Release - Freeplay Menu Overhaul, Features & Fixes
Sat, 26 September 2020



A new way of setting up your freeplay games and randomised caverns headline this optional beta release.
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 you’re not participating in the beta and would like to, please see the details in this link https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/463530/view/4639224265623430978 . Note that the beta is only available to Windows Steam owners.


Headline Features

•   Freeplay setup menu overhaul
   o   This new menu allows faster setups of freeplay games with more focus given to other colonies and victory conditions
   o   All options are still available and have been grouped into tabs
   o   Games can be set up quickly through the game type dropdown which applies presets to options

•   Randomised underground caverns in freeplay
   o   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)
   o   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)

[Asid]

Optional Beta v0.22035 - New Freeplay Map, Marker Changes
Sat, 10 October 2020



A new freeplay map, Basin, is included in this update to the optional beta.

We’ve 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 the above post.

New Features
•   New freeplay map - Basin (This map is designed around a 2v2 match)
  o   If you have a single ally, you will start in the same area and have quick access to each other's nests
  o   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
  o   Ants will now all immediately leave the nest
  o   In order to create trails some ant will turn around on their way to the destination and start coming home early
  o   This video explains the changes:




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)

[Asid]

Hotfix v0.220351 - Crash fix and AI fix
Sun, 11 October 2020



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)
 

[Asid]

Official Discord - Open Now!
Thu, 22 October 2020



You've been asking for it, we've been working on it, the official Slug Disco Discord is 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! https://discord.com/invite/dyHnugt

[Asid]

Optional Beta Update 0.221 - New Extra Level, Balance & Fixes
Fri, 23 October 2020



A new extra level included in this one, where the mole crickets have learned a new trick!

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! We’re fairly sure that’s the first time anyone has ever called crickets spooky, but y’know, ‘tis the season.

This will currently only affect you if you're participating in the optional beta. If you’re not participating in the beta and would like to, please see the details in this link https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/463530/view/4639224265623430978 . 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)

[Asid]

He Has Returned
Sun, 25 October 2020


The Hungry Spider is back for the Halloween season - and he wants his breakfast. Which is everything that isn't him.



"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.




Thanks to Rensy for the screenshot used in the Steam artwork for this post!

[Asid]

0.22101 Release - Freeplay AI Colonies, New Freeplay Map, New Extra Levels
Wed, 28 October 2020



A large update bringing AI colonies to freeplay, some extra levels for now and the future, and lots of changes and fixes
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)
  o   They have Easy and Normal difficulty and can cheat (if you set them to) to create a greater challenge
  o   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
  o   Designed for 2v2 but can be played in any configuration
  o   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
  o   Victory conditions, creatures and other options are automatically setup when selecting the game type
  o   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??




•   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
 



Full Patch Notes

Fixes

•   Fixed an issue where a loaded harvestman’s 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
  o   Attack damage increased to 4.5 / 6 / 7 (up from 3 / 4.5 / 6)
  o   Health increased to 100 / 115 / 130 (up from 90 / 105 / 120)
  o   Speed increased to 310 / 320 / 330 (up from 300 / 300 / 300)
  o   Piercing increased to 0.2 / 0.3 / 0.4 (up from 0.2 / 0.2 / 0.2)

•   Wood ant melee buffed
  o   Threat generation increased to 0.2 / 0.25 / 0.3 (up from 0.1 / 0.1 / 0.15)
  o   Damage increased to 0.6 / 1.2 / 1.8 (up from 0.5 / 1 / 1.5)
  o   Armour increased 0.2 / 0.4 / 0.6 (up from 0 / 0 / 0)
  o   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
  o   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)
  o   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)

[Asid]

Optional Beta 0.22102 - Short Beta To Test Changes
Thu, 12 November 2020



This latest patch needs a little extra testing; we're running a short optional beta for those who would like to help.
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 devil’s 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 you’re unfamiliar with how to activate a Steam beta, here’s how to do it:

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 summertimeants
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.

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 level’s 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

[Asid]

Update to Optional Beta 0.22103 - Fixes & Changes
Mon, 16 November 2020



An update to the short optional beta to fix some issues

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

[Asid]

0.22103 Release - Fixes, Changes & Improvements
Wed, 18 November



After a short optional beta we're releasing this one for everyone. Some important fixes & a few changes

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 devil’s 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 level’s 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

[Asid]

Tug Of War - New Extra Level - Out Now!
Tue, 24 November 2020



An auto-battler game mode against an AI, Tug Of War is available now in Extra Levels.
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.




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!

[Asid]

November 2020 Newsletter
Thu, 26 November 2020



A round-up of recent goings-on: a new team member joining Slug Disco, news on tier 4 levels, recent changes & more!
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 we’ve brought Dan on board as our Marketing Content Creator. We’ll 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

I’m sure you’ll all be keen to see what we’ve been doing with regards to the fire ant update. Whilst we don’t 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 ant’s swampy environment, the possibility of them getting stranded is now a real threat.




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, you’ll need to rescue them! Thankfully, fire ants are adept at using their own bodies to form bridges (as we’ve 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

I’ve 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 nature’s 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 we’ll 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! He’ll 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. I’ll let Dan introduce himself:


    “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"



Pheromone Marker Changes - Ant Trails

We’ve 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.

We’ve made some changes to the way pheromone trails work, and Liam put together a helpful video explaining what’s 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.




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 we’ve 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 wasn’t significantly on our radar until recently is that it is still possible for some creatures to get stuck in nest entrances. The reason we hadn’t 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.




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 can’t sweep itself anywhere. In this case the creature will teleport, but there’s 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 that’s 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 you’re a small team without a mega-budget for advertising!




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 that’s 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 you’ll 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 Raptor’s leafcutters take on a devil’s 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

[Asid]

The Festive Spider
Wed, 2 December 2020



The Hungry Spider has returned with more wholesome intentions - help him save his Christmas gifts for his little ones!
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.




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
"Ode to a Hungry Spider", anon, 2020