Empires of the Undergrowth News

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

[h2]The Fire Ants Invade![/h2]

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

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

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

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

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

[h2]Formicarium Challenge 4 Awaits![/h2]

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.

[h2]Other Changes[/h2]

• 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
  

[h2]Fixes & Optimisations[/h2]

• 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
  

[h2]Localisation[/h2]

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

[h2]Known Issues[/h2]

• 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)
  

Just a very short post to confirm that the launch of the fire ant update won't be occurring at midnight but at 6 pm UK time tomorrow, or approximately 23 hours after this is posted. Converted to some other times this comes out as:

1 pm: US East Coast
10 am: US West Coast
7 pm: Most of Europe
3 am on the 28th: Most of Australia

A quick search engine query should let you convert your own local time from the team's 6pm BST (British Summer Time).

Today we posted a quick tutorial video that should help you quickly get up to speed with some of the major new mechanics introduced with this update. It doesn't spoil anything that hasn't already been revealed, but if you're trying to keep entirely unspoiled you'll probably want to skip this one.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Roughly an hour before we launch the game, some of the team are going to do a livestream on YouTube going over some of the new mechanics, changes, and other such things. A quick breather before we push the button! Join us over there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jTm53w8fHk

Hey

Just a quick post to allow streams to appear on the store page during the summer sale and to celebrate the release of the fire ant trailer:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Cheers!

Dan

We are delighted to announce that the fire ant update is coming on July 27th 2022! Grab an eyeful of the updated trailer that shows off the new environment and (some of) the new enemies that come along with it.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

A whole new formicarium tier awaits - guide a young fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) queen and her first brood as she invades an unfamiliar swamp environment in two full new story missions. The swamp is swimming with amphibians that are not adverse to a spicy snack!

As well as having by far the most critters we’ve added in a single update, the 4th tier includes a long-awaited class of enemy: titans. Titans are huge creatures - big enough, in fact, to be climbed. They do not represent an existential threat since they’re too big to invade the nest, but they must be dealt with in other ways and are a challenging obstacle to be overcome.

Fire ants themselves have a unique ability, outside of their incessant stinging - by linking their bodies together, they can form floating pontoons that can cross water, reaching resources previously unplundered. This is a skill that will come in exceptionally handy in the regularly-flooded green swamp.

They come in two very different soldier varieties - pervasive and vigorous. If you choose pervasive, they will spawn for free after the egg has been on the tile for a time. This can be a crucial advantage when food is scarce. Alternatively, vigorous fire ants will have a significant buff to stats for a time after birth. This opens up the potential for aggressive expansion, but beware of pushing too far too fast. At level 3, both variants will be able to spawn 2 ants from each tile.

Once you’ve conquered the swamp, return to the formicarium where the scientist is far from done with you yet - what dastardly design has he decided is due to your Formica ereptor colony?

Finally, welcome to new people who are finding us through the Steam Summer Sale! We hope you find our little ant game worth your attention, and if you’re considering giving it a go you’ve joined us at a very good time.

We’ll see you on July 27th for the invasion of the fire ants!

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.


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

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



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

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



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

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



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

A fire ant tending to aphids on a milkweed

A milkweed stripped of aphids



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.

A whip spider glows in the moonlight from realpumadog

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

A ladybird beetle flies off from SamThePro