In the past few weeks we’ve made a bunch of progress in the remastering of older art assets to the game, including some creatures - we’ll show you a little preview of some improved leafcutter animations - and the new rainforest environment. We’re also not a million miles away from our first DLC at this point; see the current roadmap below for a breakdown of what to expect in the near future.
The current roadmap - click to see the detailsIf you’d like to see an in-depth discussion of the full roadmap, then see
our latest vlog - the timecode for it is 5:10. Some of the things noted on the roadmap might come sooner than advertised (remember: everything in our roadmaps is subject to change), particularly the improved creature artwork.
In this slightly shorter newsletter (there’s lots more upcoming stuff I could talk about, if I was allowed to!) we’ll mainly be going over what we’re doing in our continuing effort to bring more of Empires of the Undergrowth up to the visual fidelity of the more recent additions. Until the official announcement for what the first DLC will consist of is made I'm not at liberty to divulge any details about that, but we can certainly talk about what is coming in the base game.
Now is a good time, once again, to say a big thank you for all of the support you folks gave us during our release year of 2024 - if it wasn’t evident by now EotU is very much a passion project for us, and as well as producing more content for the game we also want it to be the very best it can be in its entirety. The support we received around the release period means we can dedicate the resources to improving older artwork and bringing it up to scratch - a luxury that wasn’t at all certain but is now secured.
[h2]Artwork Improvements Continue[/h2]
Firstly, we’ll talk about recent improvements to the creature artwork - the models, textures, and animations. Everyone please say hello to Aron and Jack, our two new character artists who have been hard at work over the past couple of months to do just that. Whole species are in the process of getting remasters, and the first of these is the leafcutters. I don’t want to spoil their new look in its entirely just yet, but we would like to show some updated animations - I’ll show off their new texturing at a later time, perhaps as a Screenshot Saturday (see
our social media to keep up-to-date with that).
A new leafcutter idle animationUp until this point all of the creature art in the game has been made by a single artist (Matt, one of the devs / co-founders of Slug Disco, who is also a coder and engine specialist) but having dedicated character artists means that, over time, we’ll be able to add a bunch more fidelity and character to the models.
A new leafcutter melee attack animationAs you can see, the leafcutters will be one of the first to get this treatment to go along with the improved rainforest environment artwork. Others are of course on the list (more about that in just a moment) but another improvement is one that wasn’t ever released in the first place - the
Myrmecia ereptor worker skin that is coming soon for Kickstarter backers.
An improved Myrmecia ereptor
model performing an idle animationWhilst the older model was nice, at this point it was comparatively old so we thought it’d be a good opportunity to improve it for release. It’s absolutely terrifying up close! Those bull ant mandibles and the cold eyes make for an intimidating look, but these are only workers so don’t be too quick to pick up the bug spray.
I have the fearSome of the other creatures on the short-term list for improvement soon include the black ants and even one of the amphibians, but as mentioned, over time we’re likely to update quite a few of the creatures to newer standards.
3.2 Front Line in the newer art styleFinally, we’re very close to the completion of the updated rainforest assets for the 3.x levels, and of course the custom game levels based in the jungle as well. We’ve covered this fairly extensively in previous newsletters and vlogs so I’ll just quickly show off these couple of more recent screenshots here rather than retread ground too much. In short, environment artist DanC has poured the majority of his time over the past half year or so into this upgrade for the rainforest, making it the last of the older environment art style to be brought kicking and screaming into higher fidelity by a dedicated artist.
Custom game map Embankment in the new art style - note the newly-redesigned climbable plants[h2]Remix Updated Fixes - WIP[/h2]
We're currently working through a list of issues that evaded us during testing of the Remix update - most notably a couple of achievement issues, the most egregious of which is ‘Pillage the Pillagers’ which currently doesn’t trigger at all. Thanks for everyone who reported it - and we apologise for the frustration of trying to get that one and failing through no fault of your own.
Another issue that has been reported is the game not fully closing on exit for a small subset of players, and it needing to be Ctrl-Alt-Del’d or closed manually via Steam. We think we’ve narrowed this one down to an issue with the “Games by our Friends” widget on the main menu, but research into this area is ongoing and we may well run an optional beta fairly soon to see if we’ve worked out what the issue is. Thankfully one of our developers did experience it himself so that gave us a fairly reliable testbed for it.
There is also a semi-persistent crash again affecting only some players which appears to be due to the bullfrog, and probably to do with creatures climbing it - we’ve taken the time to remake its climbing rig for the next update and hopefully that clears the issue. Again, that is one for further testing the next time we run an optional beta.
[h2]Supporter's Pack[/h2]
More precise details on this will come closer to time, but since I’ve been asked about it several times recently I thought I’d just give a few more details on an upcoming supporter’s pack that is mentioned in the roadmap. In short, it will be a separately purchasable item for those who’d like to support the project a bit further consisting of the official OST / soundtrack to the game that comes with a ‘music toy’ that will allow you to experiment with the music from a separate screen in the DLC menu, adjusting its intensity and suchlike. I suspect I’ll be using it to make the background music for my tabletop RPG games a little more interactive!
Supporter's Pack music toy - WIPAlso bundled will be extras such as emojis, profile pictures, wallpapers and the like for use however you like. There may well be one or two other bits that I’m not quite allowed to talk about yet - so keep your eyes peeled for those.
[h2]Our Industry-Leading Sound Effects Process[/h2]
Here’s a video of developer Liam slapping himself in the forehead with a melon rind. It's worth watching the first time without any more context.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTKs3R5wFQ0
It may raise a giggle, but long-time followers will remember
a video from quite a few years ago that might add some context as to what he’s doing here. We make a lot of use of sound effect resources such as Freesound, but when we can get away with growling into a microphone or slapping ourselves in the forehead with fruit we will.
[h2]Screenshot Central[/h2]
I sometimes have to stop myself rushing to get to the end of a newsletter so I can do my favourite bit of it - some user-submitted screenies. The best way to take excellent screenshots is to hold down shift when you enter photo mode (check your button bindings for full controls - it's F9 by default) since this will uncouple the camera from the floor plain and allow for more creative shots.
To get the screenshots to me, the easiest way is to
join our Discord and post on the screenshot channel. Otherwise, you can upload to the Steam Community tab and I'll occasionally peruse it for some gems.
A termite queen about to meet an unfortunate end from Serp
An ant inspects a greedy larva from berdidmose
A victorious big-headed ant colony from ArmyAntGaming
A whip spider surveys the scenery from EutU_fan666
A queen with a healthy brood of Colobopsis explodens ants
A growing Neocapritermes taracua colony. Over time the workers darken in colour, indicating they are ready to go boom