Dogs Of War Vu

Sim/Strategy/War => Games Discussion => Topic started by: Asid on December 06, 2017, 05:40:41 PM

Title: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on December 06, 2017, 05:40:41 PM
(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/463530/header.jpg?t=1512154903)

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.


Official Site: Here (http://www.eotugame.com//)
Forum: Here (http://forum.eotugame.com/)
Steam: Here (https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/?url=http://www.eotugame.com/)
YouTube: Here (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtHilwcTxOVg5RxEWCDfcwA/search?query=empires)
Demoi: Here (http://www.indiedb.com/games/empires-of-the-undergrowth/downloads)


Single-player:

Lead your Ant Colony to Dominance!

Early Access Trailer
https://youtu.be/LPFrvBdo5T0



About

"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.

Missions are narrated from the perspective of a documentary film maker studying the ants, who offers intelligent insight into the goings-on of the colony and the undergrowth beyond. The primary game mode in early access is Formicarium, where you take ownership of a home colony of unique DNA-harvesting ants as they work to assimilate the desirable traits of their foes. You can upgrade them by playing one-off missions, sometimes with your home colony and sometimes with other ant species.


•   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




(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/463530/ss_63fcb6fee20d4782cd174ceb6c9d6c3a545c0f2b.1920x1080.jpg?t=1512154903)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/463530/ss_5d7af800d29074af93d6b00438fa68c028617bf4.1920x1080.jpg?t=1512154903)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/463530/ss_14cffac36578d4c49555e4c8e37b4d87c320e3aa.1920x1080.jpg?t=1512154903)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/463530/ss_8c4817733100e387b91d3f293c3f13424e8329e4.1920x1080.jpg?t=1512154903)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/463530/ss_4ab25ece98abd21d82e28d52ae856c17e6fbc2ff.1920x1080.jpg?t=1512154903)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/463530/ss_3624587825d2c4d86d6c002c2c10028d50eff8ba.1920x1080.jpg?t=1512154903)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/463530/ss_786be86073c95b07a33c508dbbddf36d7d63dfad.1920x1080.jpg?t=1512154903)

(http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/463530/ss_06234e3fce7a4d8328796308dc4e4b788c834ef5.1920x1080.jpg?t=1512154903)
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: General Sandman on December 06, 2017, 05:48:53 PM
Ha, funny thang that.

I once played "ants" in the mid ninetees on Amiga for a couple of weeks.

I found the structures of state building insects fascinating and it was a way to learn some more about them while gaming.
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on December 06, 2017, 06:32:41 PM
I played the ants games as well :)

I have this and will hopefully let you know what I think  :thumbsup
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on December 16, 2017, 06:26:32 PM
0.1142 Change Log
Empires of the Undergrowth - Slug Disco

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:
  o   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
  o   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
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on March 16, 2018, 05:01:18 PM
February 2018 Newsletter
12 MARCH   - MIKE

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.

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/932679591317911067/70C06C9629E70A05F1B71DF55EE883397C3E477E/)
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.

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/e864f89200b03bed9a965197a4bce1cddc616739.png)

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.

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/a23f780a6c0f6a18124b36f47fd39d3dd584b55c.jpg)
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.

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/29d9dbede86b72d2be2bd746287d25b070b82d88.jpg)
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.

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/ed728cfaf8ab310911b30a505ef19babc3e55c34.jpg)
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://youtu.be/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.

(http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/9f8607a74ee00eba47160dcc2b06b78ff9614a13.jpg)
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://youtu.be/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.

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/860614950105825018/D57A170AE70B14F9231FFA6CFF6425C1F43EDCE9/)
It's all about that butt - because that's where the eggs come from. Credit: Serafine

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/901148685421976449/D3C2DDCD83210CD2D7EDFBEF6E28C621A923E71E/)
Invaders! Credit: Charles the Bald

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/940560395107866675/2EE58AB53EAC56D62292EC641C07B35EF27976B4/)
Sorry, but our queen is hungry. Credit: vervedan
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on April 15, 2018, 09:22:13 PM
Beta Testing - Freeplay Mode
11 APRIL - MIKE

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!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/182f883d1dafe1e71778cc40acc29d7d068ad73a.jpg)
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on April 15, 2018, 09:23:49 PM
Freeplay Beta now available - How to Join!
14 APRIL   - MIKE

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.

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!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/9f1504ca9d14a484bfc2594b93167838c22a77a2.jpg)
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on July 03, 2018, 02:33:38 PM
March / April Newsletter 2018
Empires of the Undergrowth - Mike

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.

(http://steam://openurl/https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1365955079)
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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/7870b5d77fab49ac5824fd4915f141f40ff31956.jpg)
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.

(http://steam://openurl/https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1364162643)
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]\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.

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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/02488078b8036e18f8b249cf819a594ec293f4f1.jpg)
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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/8b4afe3e38feca6b1d1757088ea41a942ae83f9f.jpg)
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://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/d4f431d990f75f68febad2f3fa3230fb7cd4c2ce.jpg)

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

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2438012839586216938/6171AC7166361D802C8E569AABDECFACA60557EE/)
Caught in the act of hatching - by Steam user The PILOT

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2435761402479101389/85CF36DDD085196C5DBC283F9BC0DB521BB88A0A/)
A remarkably detailed yet hapless morsel - by Steam user MrDolly

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2438012839586216938/6171AC7166361D802C8E569AABDECFACA60557EE/)
An almost Brutalist nest layout in this Freeplay screenshot from Steam user Inixus             
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on July 03, 2018, 02:35:16 PM
Freeplay Beta Patch 0.121 Released
Empires of the Undergrowth - Mike

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)

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on July 03, 2018, 02:47:11 PM
May 2018 Newsletter
Empires of the Undergrowth - Mike

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.

(http://steam://openurl/https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1372654304)
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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/30e74c534401348bb4a415c2fc91af8d92e82d05.jpg)

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/5bdc74559c559466283f931669c015e594e6b622.jpg)

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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/98af9ce87ed6e2aa75b206d895eb46c1828c8d91.png)
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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/9f8607a74ee00eba47160dcc2b06b78ff9614a13.jpg)

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.

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/933812458498776648/F63E5EB11E053C3694FB2E6FFF52EDEBABFBD4A7/)
AK_tion_47 proves he's still the king of Freeplay screenshots with this stunner

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/913547991535790304/CEA5481C44593A6EAAB9EEF366E865CFDB733035/)
A simple but aesthetically pleasing shot of a Formica fusca queen by 3Rk4n

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/923679333708808648/50FD31186FC0F53D2ABA915971C9BBB2A2761E5D/)
Welp.... Slam was unlucky enough to be attacked by two uber creatures in Freeplay. RIP.
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on July 03, 2018, 02:49:11 PM
Freeplay Beta Patch 0.1213 Released
Empires of the Undergrowth - Mike

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
o   WARNING: Whilst we are testing this we STRONGLY recommend backing up your game before trying the new update
o   At present Freeplay games do not save backups themselves; we will be introducing this in the future
o   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
o   This hides all enemies on the surface unless you have an ant close to them
o   Due to the difficulty this adds, it dramatically increases your score
•   Some Freeplay setup options now add a multiplier to your score
o   Nest invasions increases score by 50%
o   Uber creatures increases score by 10%
o   Attack waves increases score by 10%
o   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

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/907100400e4e1c019b44246a80a9e8250b5da590.jpg)
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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on July 03, 2018, 02:51:02 PM
Freeplay Beta Patch 0.122 Released
Empires of the Undergrowth - Mike

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.
o   This is a soft population cap and will increase the cost of ants beyond a specific population
o   Workers have a seperate population
o   Cost increase is exponential (starts small and increases rapidly with each ant)
o   This can be disabled in setup, however doing so will reduce score by 60%
o   Added in notifications for a few things in freeplay
o   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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on July 03, 2018, 02:55:55 PM
Freeplay Mode Launched!
Empires of the Undergrowth - Mike

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%

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 25, 2018, 01:12:09 AM
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!

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/946203966956529595/677C08582F8FAD3D51B6132EB72A2D10E6F0A68A/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside%7C1024%3A576&composite-to=*,*%7C1024%3A576&background-color=black)

Read full post here (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/1678038921422357635)
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 25, 2018, 01:13:54 AM
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!

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/954089535715580695/A397F394A646A280CDE7CF008719533672B6F2ED/)

Read full post here (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/2681220278451875569)
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 25, 2018, 01:18:51 AM
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!

https://youtu.be/xHjECOl1TJU


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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 31, 2018, 01:14:11 PM
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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 31, 2018, 01:15:45 PM
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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on November 23, 2018, 03:43:36 PM
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.

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on December 18, 2018, 10:36:00 PM
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!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/b18203961d87f2ed372e167f730bb3a797ab4275.jpg)
The rainforest at night


Full newsletter here (https://store.steampowered.com/news/?appids=463530)
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on January 08, 2019, 04:52:43 PM
Bug Fix Patch 0.1352 Released
Empires of the Undergrowth - Mike

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.

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on April 07, 2019, 01:58:39 PM
December 2018 - January 2019 Newsletter
14 Jan @ 3:12pm - Mike


Our first newsletter of 2019! A bright, shiny, spanking new year – and it’ll be a big one for ants. After the holiday break the guys are back to working on the 3rd tier Formicairum levels. We’ve also released a couple of glitch-fixing patches in the meantime to deal with some widespread issues. Firstly, let’s get to what’s ready to show from 3.1 and 3.2.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/594b60547ad5741488e2850d18da551b423ea7f6.jpg)
A Formica ereptor queen from MorPacke


Read on (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/3342135027709566227)

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on April 07, 2019, 02:01:15 PM
January - February 2019 Newsletter
18 Feb @ 11:25pm - Mike


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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/57803c95035fcb6480a0a5489130b9d17ab625f4.jpg)
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!


Read on (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/3692292987275086197)
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on April 07, 2019, 02:03:42 PM
March 2019 Newsletter
26 Mar @ 3:51pm - Mike   


Although we have a policy of not announcing dates until we’re 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 Devil’s Coach Horse adult). Those will be added in throughout the beta as we continue development.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/4ed42fb2ac2e124e41017df143edb7d0260c9343.jpg)
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 it’ll feel really good to play right from the off. Of course, things like balance and glitch fixes don’t end when the beta does (the size of the beta group doesn’t come close to all users!) so we will still be very grateful for your feedback as things continue.


Read on (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/1816546805390644470)
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on April 07, 2019, 02:05:37 PM
The Leafcutter Update - Coming April 25th!
2 Apr @ 6:00pm - Mike

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/f0c2718ac5c9232be17f685b4a2b4d24ab7b0ae7.jpg)


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.
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on April 21, 2019, 11:15:58 PM
How To Play As Leafcutters
21 APR @ 7:21PM   - MIKE


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
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on April 25, 2019, 03:22:03 PM
Leafcutter update V0.2
25 Apr @ 12:37pm - Slug Disco

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
o   Featuring 4 sizes of ant (minims, minors, media and major) which can walk under / over one another
o   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
o   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
o   Two very different levels with unique challenges and threats with carefully designed difficulty settings to suit you level of play!
o   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?
o   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!
o   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
o   4 improvement upgrades to spend that extra jelly on!
•   More than double the enemy creatures!
o   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)


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on May 11, 2019, 12:26:12 AM
Update 0.2022 - Fixes / Balances for Leafcutter Update + New Demo Level
10 May @ 6:58pm - Mike


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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on May 24, 2019, 12:04:25 AM
Update 0.2023 - Fixes and Languages (couple of minor features)
23 MAY @ 9:35AM - SLUG DISCO


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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on May 30, 2019, 01:52:41 AM
April-May 2019 Newsletter
29 May @ 6:09pm - Mike


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!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/1b7c560845100975a621efbd18476ce7314f6316.jpg)
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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/c51db43fd7103563c33eeda07c802e746dc7c9a5.jpg)
Leafcutters collecting leaves from Steam user a white wyrm



Read on (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/1610513461622265584)
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on July 09, 2019, 11:35:53 PM
June 2019 Newsletter - Next Ants
9 JUL @ 3:50PM   - MIKE

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!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/3ef89a77dd641ab2798148b3de1bf626e4eadd94.jpg)
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.


Read on (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/1609390009100052118)
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on August 19, 2019, 02:03:21 PM
A Quick Mid-Month Update Post!
19 Aug @ 11:36am - Mike

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!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/ee69ba8213a1e021ee4ca682e0e0e02640cf7681.jpg)
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.

Livestream - Side Missions! #1

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.

Empires of the Undergrowth - Jump Point Search Pathfinding

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


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on August 22, 2019, 01:03:20 PM
July-August 2019 Newsletter
22 Aug @ 7:42am - Mike

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!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/e02a72fd914edd078f968c94fa9936930c45e6d2.jpg)
An ereptor colony takes on a wolf spider from appropriately-named Steam user wolf


Read on (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/1606017470839832537)

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on September 07, 2019, 12:29:26 AM
Steam Cloud Saves Now Active

Automatic cloud saving is now enabled

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.

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on September 20, 2019, 01:30:17 PM
August - September 2019 Newsletter
Fri, 20 September 2019

A Summary for the end of Summer, and Introducing Ecosystem
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!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/53900b0783c00d4525d0983fe31b742b56c61a67.jpg)
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 we’ll need your help testing it.

https://youtu.be/ptjMDWqm3QU


Read on (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/3610121305293774400)

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 25, 2019, 11:39:30 PM
October 2019 Newsletter
Fri, 25 October 2019

Read on for details of the climbing system that will allow ants to swarm their enemies!
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!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/56e7efc7c3f4857b94fa33f3a6f7694cb1aaa58b.jpg)
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.

(https://media.giphy.com/media/IazKeGJCPnnEHKPdUw/giphy.gif)
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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/1242c215ee766972e61874344e6b5ff3e84de5e7.jpg)

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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/951ac81f7a3881852f2e6fe0272b3690efbc1e57.jpg)

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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/f16cb8e80071b58e6c1f23c6c4b607adf913c1f1.jpg)
Jumping spiders are such cuties in this shot from Steam user germinal.ronse

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/0e31c9ab92582cc9cdca323cc781f03f55626cab.jpg
The stuff of nightmares - a mess of whip spiders in the battle arena from Steam user DeltaX06

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/4c31085b8e791259fa91cf128f5d542328517454.jpg
Where did all the trees go? Atta cephalotes colony from Steam user CaptainCarrot

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 30, 2019, 03:02:49 PM
The Hungry Spider Level Returns!
Tue, 29 October 2019

The Hungry Spider is back, and he wants his breakfast. Feed him!
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.

https://youtu.be/L3QtFadJryI


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.

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on December 02, 2019, 11:27:41 PM
ANovember 2019 Newsletter
Mon, 2 December 2019

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.

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/834765253933163849/0736450CF70FE82014AEEFEA1E591353D3561439/?imw=1024&imh=576&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=true)
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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/95125fce839758cd87628d393011668b7b47cadc.jpg)
Innocuous-looking and tiny, but deadly - the phorid fly

Read on (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/1708483156049847019)


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on December 24, 2019, 11:57:57 PM
Leafcutter Freeplay / Christmas Level Beta NOW!
Tue, 24 December 2019

Help us test out the leafcutters in freeplay, extra missions - and play a special Christmas level!
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!


(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/1b65bd366c6d197b591215e82cb71ae9f40c3054.jpg)
Guess who's back?

WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND BACKING UP YOUR SAVE GAME FILES before attempting to play freeplay.

Please see this thread https://steamcommunity.com/app/463530/discussions/0/1489992713700086489/ 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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/85648154e2eb688f04ca508589f14ff8ac46cdfa.jpg)
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.

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on January 11, 2020, 02:35:26 PM
Beta Testing - V0.211 Update - New Extra Level, New Freeplay Map, Bug Fixes
Fri, 10 January 2020


An extra level and a new freeplay map for those of you who've been helping us beta test the leafcutter freeplay update!
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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on January 19, 2020, 12:24:35 AM
Beta Testing - 0.2111 Beta Update - Bug Fixes
Sat, 18 January 2020

An update to the currently running optional beta, available to all Steam Windows owners of the game.

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. 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 shouldn’t
•   Fixed an issue with creature movement on thin ramps
•   Fixed movement issues with 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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on January 26, 2020, 01:06:56 AM
Beta Testing 0.2112 - Balance In All Things Freeplay
Sat, 25 January 2020

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/78bd8de8da7d56878ad38e1f233d4fe9987cd876.jpg)

Freeplay beta is more balanced than ever before. Not quite perfectly, as all things should be, but it's getting there.

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.


Empires of the Undergrowth EventTue, 24 December 2019
Leafcutter Freeplay / Christmas Level Beta NOW!
Help us test out the leafcutters in freeplay, extra missions - and play a special Christmas level!


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 minor’s 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!

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on February 01, 2020, 02:50:17 PM
Beta Testing - 0.2113 - Some Balance, Some Optimisation, Some Other Stuff
Sat, 1 February 2020


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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on February 17, 2020, 01:06:03 PM
January / February 2020 Newsletter


Detailing upcoming freeplay changes, challenge mode for 3.x, extra mission Aggrandise and movement code

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 (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/3744117349096392813) if you'd like to join in.

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/764984402035208433/B892CEAFB4DF1D627ADFD957C1810F811D6001F1/?imw=1024&imh=576&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=true)
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!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/314c56d4e32661b12589f4b998d0423bb8aa1fbd.jpg)
Leafcutters doing their thing in Towhead


Full newsletter here (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/3744117349098958773)

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on February 17, 2020, 01:09:35 PM
Beta Testing - 0.2114 - Phorid Fly Challenge, Uber Balances, Fixes & Changes
StartedSun, 16 February 2020

This optional beta release re-activates the campaign and introduces challenge mode for 3.x

We're not far from concluding the beta testing for this upcoming large update - with 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:

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 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!

o   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
o   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)

o   Implemented on level 3 wood ant mortar attacks
o   Implemented on all uber basic attacks
o   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

o   Hermit crab, beach tiger beetle and devil's coach horse ubers scaled down to be defeatable by a very large black ant army
o   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
o   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)
o   Spiny devil uber is now strong against black ants and other low health melee
o   Whip spider uber is now strong against wood ants (high venom resist, strong, midrange attacked tuned to do well against them)
o   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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on February 20, 2020, 02:50:43 PM
Beta Testing - 0.21141 - Fixes & Optimisations
Thu, 20 February 2020


Latest round of fixes to the optional beta addresses some issues that arose whilst bringing the story campaign back
A bug fixing update for the optional beta, dealing mainly with the fallout from reintroducing the story campaign back into it. We’re homing in on having this update ready for the main branch but if you’d like to join the beta whilst it’s 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.

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on March 07, 2020, 12:01:08 AM
Beta Testing - 0.21142 - Freeplay Changes & Fixes
STARTEDFri, 6 March 2020

Making things a little easier for leafcutters in freeplay and making changes to food scaling

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/c94d6da6e8c4afc38335a4d46e13266dd7591cee.jpg)


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 you’d like to join the beta whilst it’s 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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on March 24, 2020, 01:29:43 PM
Beta 0.21152 - Last Bits of Balance and Fixes, Mac & Linux Builds
Mon, 23 March 2020

Last bits of balance and fixes! Just a very short test to make sure nothing we’ve 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 you’ve 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 Isn’t 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


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on March 25, 2020, 12:39:35 PM
0.21 Early Access Out Now - Freeplay, Phorids, Extra Levels and Achievements
Tue, 24 March 2020

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/04b915bda8549c42d8334bfd3cf032bc7e723b8a.jpg)


Thanks to everyone in the optional beta who has helped us test the past few months! Read on for the 0.21 changes.
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; we’re very glad to be able to release it for everyone!
 
https://youtu.be/ErWhxEVW3ss


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 player’s 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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on April 24, 2020, 12:55:08 PM
Baby Sitting - New Extra Level - Available Now!
Fri, 24 April 2020

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/8e924b2f2621d8ea5f1813d30ff725d8b0672b7d.jpg)


In the 2nd extra level, you're responsible for a foolhardy AI sister colony. Both colonies must survive for victory!
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!

https://youtu.be/1b9Xx4onP5A


Note: your game client will not need to update for this level to be unlocked.

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on May 02, 2020, 03:00:41 PM
V0.213 Update - Changes & Fixes
Fri, 1 May 2020

Update to the most recent freeplay changes and some miscellaneous changes and fixes

For patch 0.213 we’ve 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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/e2c0faa4398709b646e895c87dd684a29a5b1199.jpg)
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)


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on May 02, 2020, 03:04:22 PM
March / April 2020 Newsletter - Extra Level News, Fire Ant Progress, Publishing
Fri, 1 May 2020

Update on the extra levels, what you can expect from the future, and introducing Beetle Uprising by Iocane Games

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!

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1007058799841036323/766EBF89684A44DCADFD50600D2191058B4657BB/?imw=1024&imh=576&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=true)
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://youtu.be/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!).

https://youtu.be/1b9Xx4onP5A



Read on (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/2197137123001473898)


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on May 24, 2020, 12:34:00 PM
V0.2131 Update - Changes & Balance, Languages
Sat, 23 May 2020

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/1578d325e38e57239a3f6d5de4fa03c238b9ebbf.jpg)

Updates to the localisation as well as a relatively large list of balance changes and fixes, plus a new feature or two!
Some fairly significant balance changes for the game in today’s 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 creature’s 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 player’s 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 player’s 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)


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on May 24, 2020, 12:58:03 PM
Extremis - New Extra Level - Out Now!
Sun, 24 May 2020

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/2cd5f9cd57783aeb586c27358065ffd4323147b1.jpg)

Unlock new ants with points earned from your previous run - can you complete this wave survival map with a twist?

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!

https://youtu.be/bty83tsLaQ0


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.

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on June 14, 2020, 03:12:03 AM
May / June 2020 Newsletter - All About Fire Ants
Sat, 13 June 2020

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/072de6abdf079501c533ad5e8b3674ad324cbbf5.jpg)

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.

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1053226467637958947/4719DC296DE4DB54746F76C83557240761F1C3E1/?imw=1024&imh=576&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=true)
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!

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!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/ad1fa6534bac74871c980e7973e3e0bc1d68b18a.jpg)
The Solenopsis invicta queen


Read on.... (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/2378411445027196329)


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on June 25, 2020, 12:43:59 AM
New Extra Level - The Other Foot - Available Now!
Wed, 24 June 2020

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/50fa6b2d4fba125d49f316091d9a5bd1edba26b6.jpg)

The most complex extra level yet, you take command of the counterpart colony from challenge 3.

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?

https://youtu.be/8g4_siq7UwA


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!


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on August 10, 2020, 11:18:54 PM
Yogscast Tiny Teams Festival - Featuring Empires of the Undergrowth!
Sun, 9 August 2020

We're entirely delighted to be part of this week-long festival celebrating very small dev teams!
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.

https://youtu.be/-3-R2l0Q_vk


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on August 14, 2020, 01:48:37 AM
Optional Beta Available Now - 0.22 Tug of War, AI in Freeplay
Thu, 13 August 2020

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/7055904625e3d3a4607ad6c326b49ad046068cd0.jpg)

You can opt in to the 0.22 beta now on Windows 64 bit - read the full article for instructions and patch notes.

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 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.


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]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.
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 you’ll need to be smarter and faster!
•   Instead of gathering resources you are given food periodically based on how well you’re 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 don’t 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 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)
•   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)


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on August 23, 2020, 12:15:44 AM
Optional Beta Update - 0.2202 Release
Sat, 22 August 2020

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/463530/ss_5845bd9a58c4dc92406b2f1de941f012568129e7.1920x1080.jpg?t=1589041337)

Some additions and fixes for the currently-running optional beta

We’ve updated the currently-running optional beta - this will only affect you if you're participating in said currently-running optional beta, detailed in the above 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 doesn’t 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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on August 27, 2020, 11:23:51 PM
Optional Beta Update - 0.2203 Release
Thu, 27 August 2020

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/463530/ss_5845bd9a58c4dc92406b2f1de941f012568129e7.1920x1080.jpg?t=1598198306)

Some additions and changes to freeplay AI as well as some wide-reaching balance changes that affect the campaign

We’ve 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. We’re particularly looking forward to feedback on these.

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.

Freeplay and AI changes

•   Easy AI Player added
o   Will not attack another colony for at least the first 20 minutes
o   Far less likely to attack another colony
o   Attacks on enemy colonies are shorter
o   Will wait longer between attacks
o   Makes decisions less often

•   Medium AI Player added
o   Can regroup during an attack if it is going poorly (briefly pause an attack)
o   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
o   Players may now remain inside enemy colonies once they are defeated
o   Defeated players colony is dismantled at a rate of 1 tile per half second, dropping resources to the ground
o   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
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

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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on August 29, 2020, 03:29:26 AM
Optional Beta Update - 0.22031 Release
Fri, 28 August 2020

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/463530/ss_5845bd9a58c4dc92406b2f1de941f012568129e7.1920x1080.jpg?t=1598198306)

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


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on September 13, 2020, 01:39:39 PM
July-August 2020 Newsletter
Sat, 12 September 2020

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/b10326b650a897499f15e5468fb8c7cb99530548.jpg)

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!

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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.

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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.

https://youtu.be/C5KYySOD14o


You can see in this short video we posted a few weeks back how things are improving with this system;

https://youtu.be/-3-R2l0Q_vk


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.

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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.

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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.

https://youtu.be/8Dku6HM2tbM



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! https://www.twitch.tv/videos/728098789

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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.

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A Counterpart Colony on the march from Steam user The Dreaded Kazoo

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Nice shot of a Formica fusca queen from Steam user Liam

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A stunning leafcutter major from Steam user Din0ll
 

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on September 27, 2020, 01:50:23 PM
Optional Beta 0.22033 Release - Freeplay Menu Overhaul, Features & Fixes
Sat, 26 September 2020

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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)


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 11, 2020, 01:32:47 AM
Optional Beta v0.22035 - New Freeplay Map, Marker Changes
Sat, 10 October 2020

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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:

https://youtu.be/9BQ2vdb4zGI


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)




Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 12, 2020, 02:47:19 PM
Hotfix v0.220351 - Crash fix and AI fix
Sun, 11 October 2020

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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)
 

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 23, 2020, 03:45:20 AM
Official Discord - Open Now!
Thu, 22 October 2020

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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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 24, 2020, 02:26:06 AM
Optional Beta Update 0.221 - New Extra Level, Balance & Fixes
Fri, 23 October 2020

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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)

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 25, 2020, 02:22:38 PM
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.

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"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.

https://youtu.be/L3QtFadJryI


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


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 29, 2020, 02:43:49 AM
0.22101 Release - Freeplay AI Colonies, New Freeplay Map, New Extra Levels
Wed, 28 October 2020

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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

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/06e284820bd0719119b9f324292f9b87136bc68e.jpg)
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

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/d89b6e57b2eb8588273af5b461cde80070720d06.jpg)
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??

https://youtu.be/-rhmL4VfQhs


•   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
 
https://youtu.be/9BQ2vdb4zGI


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)

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on November 13, 2020, 01:16:47 AM
Optional Beta 0.22102 - Short Beta To Test Changes
Thu, 12 November 2020

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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


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on November 17, 2020, 11:59:25 PM
Update to Optional Beta 0.22103 - Fixes & Changes
Mon, 16 November 2020

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/463530/ss_5845bd9a58c4dc92406b2f1de941f012568129e7.1920x1080.jpg?t=1604322315)

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


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on November 19, 2020, 12:37:09 AM
0.22103 Release - Fixes, Changes & Improvements
Wed, 18 November

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/0e98d16e134571af778aa63213ccd9722f928b11.jpg)

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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on November 25, 2020, 04:18:42 AM
Tug Of War - New Extra Level - Out Now!
Tue, 24 November 2020

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/e425286a5a2003152249b5d8548568234fbb4b4d.jpg)

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.

https://youtu.be/AjpGA9iLgHE


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!

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on November 27, 2020, 03:20:26 AM
November 2020 Newsletter
Thu, 26 November 2020

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/b0314ddf21eacdcd2e06268b72fcca17b5521abb.jpg)

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.

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/49b026b88e1223df92c53c7ab1286f77f85dbe99.jpg)
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.

https://youtu.be/yAJqFGlJbk8


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!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/4e3724728f1221b2a74cee6b553fb99e0d78e772.jpg)
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.

https://youtu.be/9BQ2vdb4zGI


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.

https://youtu.be/xy2FZl0r16E


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!

https://youtu.be/fLwrxRcdAyU


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!

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/b4da25d7aabf7b5cfd356e263e660d07df25638a.jpg)
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

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/d09b45e301b56031362172919a6a4a94dd84114c.jpg)
A beautiful overview of the jungle at night from Steam user BrickyGraph631

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/3e5f276dcef095d7db409173c7c640a763f9e243.jpg)
A pleasing shot of leafcutters doing their thing from Steam user Professor Puffer


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on December 03, 2020, 01:07:30 AM
The Festive Spider
Wed, 2 December 2020

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/ed7379ab995a36e8461a9677dde33d52770ad25d.jpg)

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.

https://youtu.be/_IPkapEX60c


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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on December 20, 2020, 12:48:04 AM
Optional Beta 0.22111 Available Now - Freeplay AI Saving, Fixes
Sat, 19 December 2020

(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/73e88b0939c404d21a7c2171ac269143b4b6359b.jpg)

We're ready for some feedback on the system to save AI colonies in freeplay - this opt-in beta should do the trick!
We’ve made big strides towards getting the freeplay AI save-able, and we’re 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 you’re unfamiliar with how to activate a Steam beta and would like to, 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 christmasants
4.   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
5.   Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch.

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 - there’s 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
    o   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 colony’s 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 colony’s 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)


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on December 24, 2020, 03:08:38 AM
V0.22112 Update Out Now - Freeplay AI Saving, Fixes & Optimisation
Wed, 23 December

(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/b629d0ac5d980988179b811a8580c10e0630d775.jpg)

An important feature for the longevity of freeplay games with AI colonies, you can now save games that include them!
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
  o   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 colony’s 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 colony’s 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!

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on January 27, 2021, 02:29:44 PM
Optional Beta Available Now 0.2222 - Extra Levels for Testing
Wed, January 27, 2021

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/3cbfbf13df7bd7a9eb8f636d49a791a5a9c8c227.jpg)

If you'd like to help us test some upcoming extra levels, you can join this optional beta!

It’s 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 you’d like to help out, we’d be very happy for you to give them a spin now! You’ll 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 don’t know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions 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 givemeextraextra
4.   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
5.   Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch.

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



Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on January 30, 2021, 01:36:08 AM
January 2021 Newsletter
Fri, 29 January 2021

Covering EotU-related news from December 2020 to January 2021

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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) we’ve 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!

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/5239ad674f01166fb0b7bbd8f4e8655eace278eb.jpg)
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. It’s 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 we’re talking about the 4th tier levels, it’s worth reiterating our policy on release dates. We do not do estimates for big content releases – we’ve done that in the past and since game development is very unpredictable in how long certain tasks will take, we’ve 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 it’s 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.

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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!

https://youtu.be/UrC6s8TMt8I


Read on (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/3023573021309179995)

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on March 06, 2021, 02:16:09 AM
Optional Beta 0.2223 - Engine Upgrade & Fixes, Fix for Laptop Users
Fri, 5 March 2021

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Also a new menu for the extra levels giving a description and time estimate

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.

We’ve done plenty of testing ourselves but a change like this is systemic, so any part of the game could have issues that we’ve 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 don’t know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions 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 givemeextraextra
4.   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
5.   Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch.


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. https://steamcommunity.com/app/463530/discussions/0/1489992713700086489/?snr=2_groupannouncements_detail_

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 enemy’s 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!

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on May 10, 2021, 11:50:32 PM
May 2021 Newsletter
Mon, 10 May 2021

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Covering news and progress from April to May 2021
Good lord, it’s May already. This newsletter will spotlight some more enemies coming for the fire ant update, with a particular focus on nature’s favoured form – the beetle. We also have some talk about new AI systems that we’ve been working on over the past few weeks, which will be used in the last of the campaign levels and eventually in freeplay too!

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A classically red Formica ereptor queen from GlitchyGamer


We’ve still got quite a few critters to show off as we complete work on them, as well as a few we don’t 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.

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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 beetle’s enemy.

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Near-boiling liquid is explosively fired at the beetle’s enemies


If you’re a large vertebrate predator, this irritant is likely to be enough to put you off having a bombardier beetle for dinner. If you’re 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, it’d 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.

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An impostor among us – a false bombardier beetle looking sus


This helps it avoid predation, but the false bombardier beetle is not without defences – it’s 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.

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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. It’s the same acid used by the ranged wood ants of the 2nd tier, and it’ll 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 it’s a common sight in North America. They’re active hunters, and their preferred habitats are moist and sunny – qualities which will bring them into conflict with your fire ants.

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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. They’re more vulnerable in this state, before they develop the chitinous armour they have as adults – but they’re still a force to be reckoned with.

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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 doesn’t 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.

https://youtu.be/yVcObGD57rc


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 too – after fire ants, we are likely to do another big round of freeplay changes to bring that game mode closer to its release form.

https://youtu.be/RAbjCkBHAjc


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

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the fan wikis that crop up; fandom.com is one of the more prominent ones. We’ve 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 you’ll 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 creature’s strengths and weaknesses are until we implement a way to see these in the game.

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The EotU Fandom Wiki


There’s even a dedicated spoiler page for the upcoming 4th tier update, which details all of the new stuff we’ve revealed in Screenshot Saturdays and these newsletters. This wiki is open to further contributors, so if you’d 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 couldn’t be more thankful for that.

For final release, there will be plenty of information accessible in-game with our own encyclopedia system. Even after that’s implemented, there will always be a place for community-driven wikis like these – they’re definitely an appropriate place to post guides, creative strategies and suchlike that won’t 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 it’s been a joy to see how it’s 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 we’ve been posting these as articles on the game’s Steam page. He’s now at a point where he can share the path he’s chosen for Ecosystem’s 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.

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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 you’d 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.

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A pleasing formicarium from BrickyGraph631


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Trapjaws under attack from a hidden jumping spider from Rarity


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A close call in extra level Excavators from Crazlex9

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on July 18, 2021, 11:51:10 PM
Cramped - New Extra Level - Out Now!
Mon, 17 May 2021

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Can you guide your leafcutter ants to domination with limited resources and VERY limited nest space?

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.
 
https://youtu.be/klayhKhH5nk

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:
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.


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on July 30, 2021, 11:56:14 PM
A Deep Dive into the AI of Empires of the Undergrowth | Devs of the Undergrowth
Jun 22, 2021

https://youtu.be/K_FNnDNe1Dw


In the first episode of Devs of the Undergrowth, we chat with Liam who talks us through all things AI in the game, including how it was historically, and what we will be changing going forward to the Fire Ant update.

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on August 23, 2021, 11:58:01 PM
Gamescom 2021 Fire Ant Demo Level Available Now! - 0.2313 Release
Mon, 23 August 2021

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We're at the Indie Arena Booth this week, and to celebrate there's a limited-time demo level, featuring fire ants!

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)
•   Creature’s 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 creature’s 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!



Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 25, 2021, 11:55:19 PM
The Hungry Spider Returns
Mon, 25 October 2021


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He's back for his annual spooky session.... and he's so very hungry.
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.

https://youtu.be/L3QtFadJryI

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.

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on November 26, 2021, 11:57:31 PM
November 2021 Newsletter
Fri, 26 November 2021

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Covering updates and news from October to November 2021


Welcome to 2021’s last newsletter! We’ll get straight to the point about where we’re at with the fire ant release plans after this introduction. We’ve also got a very special extra level set to come out shortly before the holidays next month – so plenty of details on that. There’s 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.

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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 we’ve realised that we won’t 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 we’ll 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 we’ve been working with the voice cast again recently, and it’s 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 wouldn’t 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.

https://youtu.be/R6cSQhYIed8


It will be arriving shortly before Christmas, and it’ll be the first extra level to have completely new narration and music. Liam has snuck plenty of Yuletide-themed tunes in the new music! Here’s a little preview of that.

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.

It’s 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. It’s 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.

https://youtu.be/c1vGv0glXW8


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 we’re 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.

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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.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/5f642692cefec8ae3865d6a9d1d8cf19b30030ac.jpg)
A wide area with a nest in the background on level 4.1, titled “Cold Blood” (WIP)


We’re 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 they’re 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.

(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/ae811f9c6d0c9482a939fe69a57e017fff8f589a.jpg)
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.

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A closer view of the leaf traps themselves


Despite their name, flying insects make up a very small proportion of the plant’s 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.

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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.

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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 it’d 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.

https://youtu.be/w_RON8mRELc


She also has an extremely tough exoskeleton, allowing her to take a lot of damage whilst in this frenzied state. You’ll 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!

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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 they’ve played the campaign!) and it was wonderful to see people discovering it for the first time. We’re hoping to do more live events again going forward if the world allows it.

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We exhibited alongside Paul Hervé, developer of Adapt


Screenshot Central

Every time I write a newsletter I look forward to this part. If you’d 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.

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


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The truth revealed by Atta cephalotes Boi

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An uber falls from HamAndCheeseSandwich


Year’s End

With our bimonthly newsletter cycle, that concludes the newsletters for 2021.

It’s 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 you’ve 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 we’re thankful for. We here at Slug Disco are eternally grateful and thankful for the patience, support and kindness you’ve shown to us, as we continue to shape our vision for EotU and Slug Disco as a whole. We know things take time – but they’re worth the wait, and the wait is no longer so long. Look out for more news before the year’s end, and we’ll see you in 2022 to continue our journey into the Undergrowth.

Mike & the Slug Disco Team
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on March 02, 2022, 12:26:24 AM
0.2331 Released - Controller Support, New Language Localisations
Tue, 1 March 2022

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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.

There’s 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 won’t recognise the encrypted files.


Headline Features

•   Gamepad support added
o   All standard gamepad buttons now have functions which can be viewed from the options menu
o   When using a gamepad, key bindings show gamepad glyphs
o   Several notifications have been added or replaced to explain gamepad support when using them
o   The Hungry Spider can now be properly controlled with a gamepad
o   XBox One, PlayStation 4 and Steam Deck gamepads can be selected from the options menu to display the correct glyphs
o   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


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on March 31, 2022, 11:12:52 PM
March 2022 Newsletter
Thu, 31 March 2022

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A shorter-than-usual newsletter because we've run out of things we want to spoil

This will be a shorter-than-usual newsletter, just catching up with the last of the things we’ve posted on our social media before the fire ant update. We’re rounding the corner to the home stretch on that front now, and whilst we’re 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 don’t want to spoil anything else, as we still want there to be plenty of surprises for when the update drops.

We’ll 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.

https://youtu.be/2sA5i-qur_A


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.
 
https://youtu.be/7UUlc1KyT68


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.
 
https://youtu.be/ANBua0V29xA


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.

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A fire ant tending to aphids on a milkweed


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A milkweed stripped of aphids

Screenshot Central

Let’s 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.

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A whip spider glows in the moonlight from realpumadog

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

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A ladybird beetle flies off from SamThePro

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on July 27, 2022, 02:11:06 PM
Fire Ant Update Coming 6 PM UK Time Today: 'How To Play', Launch Livestream
Tue, 26 July 2022

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The fire ant update is dropping at 6pm UK time tomorrow! Also, some details about how to play as fire ants in a new vid.
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.

https://youtu.be/jqd791hvD-M

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:

YouTube™ Video: FIRE ANT LAUNCH STREAM!
Views: 0
We're launching the fire ants very shortly! Join us for a light-hearted breather before we push the button. =================================== Empires of the Undergrowth is a real-time strategy game...


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on July 28, 2022, 08:20:05 PM
Fire Ant Update OUT NOW!!
Wed, 27 July 2022

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It's finally here, and we can't be more grateful for your patience. We hope you enjoy it!

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:
o   4.1 Cold Blood: a newly-settled fire ant queen must deal with the threat of the amphibians & other denizens of the green swamp
o   4.2 A Bridge Too Far: use the fire ant’s 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:
o   Pervasive fire ants will respawn for free after a while
o   Vigorous fire ants will have a buff to their stats for a time after spawning
o   The tiles of both variants can support 2 ants at a time at level 3

•   Fire ants introduce several new ant skills:
o   Bridge building: fire ants can build floating pontoons over water to reach resources previously unplundered, but beware of changing water levels!
o   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!
o   Titan climbing: very large new enemies can be climbed for extra damage!

•   New auxiliary ant species:
o   Big-headed ants (Pheidole morrisii) have an ancient genetic variant waiting to be awoken
o   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 you’ve 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 you’ve completed your upgrades and stocked up your resources, the scientist has an idea - and he’ll take the opportunity to put it into action. As always, Formicarium Challenge 4 will be a climactic test of your colony’s 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 weren’t 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:
o   Czech/ Čeština
o   Spanish/ Espańol
o   French/ Français
o   Korean/ 한국어
o   Japanese/ 日本語
o   Dutch/ Nederlands
o   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)

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on August 13, 2022, 01:11:19 AM
August 2022 Newsletter - Roadmap To 1.0
Fri, 12 August 2022

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All about how the fire ant update went, and a roadmap to getting us to version 1.0 & the end of Early Access!

It’s been a while since the situation has warranted one of these newsletters – we said that after the last one in March, we didn’t 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.

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The Green Swamp


We’ll be dividing this newsletter into a few sections - firstly, we’ll talk about how the fire ant release went. After that, it’s time to talk about the future - we’ll 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 don’t quite feel like we want to talk about the tier 5 species and setting just yet - just know that it’s 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 didn’t 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 SteamDB’s front page - which is an absolutely mind-boggling occurence for our tiny little development studio.

https://youtu.be/LEQAm0yV3TQ

Dad's Gaming Addiction plays 4.2

It’s 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 scientist’s antics or Blitz clearly just living his best fire ant life. As the community manager, seeing the reaction of everyone who’s 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 didn’t have to compromise on the update.

https://youtu.be/LsHKsAv5a3U

A fine addition to the soundtrack


Read on... https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/3369275026630866919
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on September 06, 2022, 12:10:54 AM
Update V0.3011 - Fixes & Changes
Mon, 5 September 2022

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An extensive list of fixes and minor changes in this update - read on for the full patch notes

A whole bunch of fixes have been made, mainly regarding the fire ant update and freeplay (there’s 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 who’s 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

    Player’s 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!


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on October 05, 2022, 01:16:27 AM
Vlog - What's Next For Empires of the Undergrowth?
Tue, 4 October 2022

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Our new vlog format is here, keeping you up-to-date in between newsletters.

Time to talk about the immediate future of Empires of the Undergrowth, in video form.

https://youtu.be/jhAKuBIspI8

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.

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on November 02, 2022, 11:39:49 PM
November 2022 Newsletter - Adventure, Velvet Worms, Rotting Logs!
Wed, 2 November 2022

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Time for the last newsletter of the year! All about some extensive changes coming in the near future.

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.

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A river crossing from Discord user Ice Age 2


We’re 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, we’ve also made the first edition of a new video series that will work alongside and in tandem with these newsletters. We’ll discuss the plans for those at the end of the newsletter, after all the game news. Let’s get to it!

Read on: https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/3404185547127526322
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on November 04, 2022, 12:21:00 AM
The Adventure + Update is OUT NOW!
Thu, 3 November 2022

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V0.302 introduces the velvet worm, extra level Adventure, tutorial mode, and a new tile set for the rotting log!

Surprise, we’re doing it now! As it turns out, everything we talked about in yesterday’s 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, we’ve also put the even longer-awaited velvet worm into its rightful place in the 3.x levels - including previously unheard narrator lines!

https://youtu.be/WZKoG6ORS2A


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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on November 23, 2022, 11:37:21 PM
Demo Updated - Tutorial, Battle Arena
Wed, 23 November

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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

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on December 05, 2022, 10:31:05 PM
VLOG 2 - Upcoming Freeplay Changes, New Seasonal Level
Mon, 5 December 2022

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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.

https://youtu.be/QJbMb1pL1yg

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on February 12, 2023, 03:03:29 AM
VLOG 3 - New Black Ant Queen, Extra Levels, Freeplay
Sat, 11 February 2023

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The new Slug Disco vlog is out, and the EotU section details a few new things coming in the not-too-distant future

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.

https://youtu.be/b9Sf5x7CIbM


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.

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on March 09, 2023, 12:26:21 AM
March 2023 Newsletter
Wed, 8 March 2023

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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.

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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.

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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.


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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.

Read on...... https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/3664279826648490344


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on May 02, 2023, 01:51:05 AM
The Culling 2 OUT NOW!
Mon, 1 May 2023

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Fear the night.

The Culling 2 - the final level in the 'sequel season' series - is out now in Extra Levels!

https://youtu.be/NQMPgGBDUTA


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.

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on May 06, 2023, 11:20:32 PM
May 2023 Newsletter - Roadmap Updated
Sat, 6 May 2023

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It's time to decompress some of the earlier versions of the roadmap in our latest newsletter.

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.

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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.

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Read on........: https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/3683425195465686622

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on July 08, 2023, 10:39:26 PM
Optional Beta Invite - ON NOW! - Freeplay AI Overhaul, Beach Art & Story Balance
Fri, 7 July 2023

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All EotU owners on Steam are invited to this optional beta with many changes to all aspects of the game

A large update is imminent - large enough that we’re running an optional beta to test it out before we make it permanent. There’s 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 don’t know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions below:

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


Patch Notes

Headline Features
Smarter AI - much cleverer freeplay AI! It’ll 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
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: 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 Year’s 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 player’s 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
Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on July 15, 2023, 12:25:33 AM
V0.31 OUT NOW - Freeplay, New AI, Beach Art, Story Balance & more
Fri, 14 July 2023

(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/28521019/5ad79e7d4f228a853ee464c034e12a5af15de13b.png)

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!

https://youtu.be/4xT3aETtJow

Read on: https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/3672172719494618890

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on November 10, 2023, 12:14:07 AM
November 2023 Newsletter
Thu, 9 November 2023

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Updating our roadmap to version 1.0 with the latest info


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.

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Fire ants in the swamp from Solstitium on our Discord


The end is, finally, in sight – but there’s 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 (we’ll have to see how things go!). We’ll 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 don’t 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:

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Now I am become roadmap, destroyer of deadlines

Read on: https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/3802787712101173739

Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on December 09, 2023, 12:52:39 AM
Vlog 8 - Releasing EotU in 2024
Fri, 8 December 2023

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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.

https://youtu.be/e8joCmJMFKY


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):

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Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on January 06, 2024, 12:48:04 AM
New Year's Feast & Fixes
Thu, 4 January 2024

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Some fixes for a few issues that cropped up over the winter break

Welcome to 2024! This patch fixes some issues with achievements and extra levels that have cropped up over the Christmas break - and I thought I’d throw in a reminder about the New Year’s Feast level as well, which is now active and playable through until the end of February. It’s a little early for Chinese New Year, but we figured we should be early with something for once.

https://youtu.be/5Kz-w3A_4k0


"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 they’re ready. This might take a day or two.


Version 0.320032 Patch Notes

Achievements

    Cramped extra level will no longer trigger 3.2’s 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 Year’s Feast achievements should now register
    'Full House' counting issue fixed


Other

    Fix for velvet worm attacking itself
    Closed the New Year’s 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


Title: Re: Empires of the Undergrowth
Post by: Asid on March 19, 2024, 10:10:48 PM
March 2024 Newsletter - Matabele Ants & Friends
Tue, 19 March 2024

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/28521019/47d0c09a44ea1cacb0f2dc20cec9fc930d3945d4.png)

Just in case the change in the winds isn't perceptible to all yet, I’ll 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.

(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//28521019/bf3b933337a8bb03652ced811682e95a2eb20ef3.jpg)
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.

https://youtu.be/HxC-m0B-E_I


Read on:  Here (https://steamcommunity.com/games/463530/announcements/detail/6425020366872255311)