Empires of the Undergrowth News

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!

A dramatic shot of leafcutters battling wood ants in freeplay from Steam user hugo27rex


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.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
The ants calculating ways to avoid each other (me irl)

The below video shows something we weren't able to do with the old system, which is to use a vector calculation when a creature hits an obstacle and feed it back into its direction. This means with a bit of tweaking we can give the appearance of quite natural avoidance of walls and other tricky bits of terrain such as ramp edges.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Bonus marvellous spider

As briefly mentioned above, once we have a release candidate for our movement code changes and freeplay update we will run a beta for all Steam owners of the game. This means that those who want to will be able to participate in a pre-release by entering a beta code into their Steam client. We will detail this when we announce a date, and as always, we won’t do that until we’re certain we can honour it.


Whilst Liam and Matt have been working on the aforementioned changes, it hasn’t been practical to test new content such as maps and game modes. John has therefore been using this time to get up to speed on several systems that we haven't had the time for until now such as achievements. He is now deep into the groundwork for this system and through his livestreams and our official forum has reached out to the community for achievement ideas.

Achievements of the Undergrowth!

We think we'll release the achievements incrementally through Steam (and eventually other platforms). There's still plenty of time to get your suggestions in for fun achievement ideas / names before we lock them in, so please do join us on our official forums and post in the thread made for this purpose!


Extra missions are going to become a hopefully regular feature (read the previous newsletter for extensive detailing) beginning shortly after the release of the freeplay and movement code overhaul. Here's a fun one that John's been working on on-stream, with a working title of Holdout Extreme! It takes the idea of waves of enemies in an underground space as in the existing demo level Holdout and runs with it. Takes it to the extreme, if you like.

It's like Holdout, but Extreme!

Once defeated you will be given an amount of unlock points based on how well you have done. Next time you play you can spend these to unlock new species of ant giving you a better chance to get further next time. The level also features randomised underground caverns adding to replayability.


This is a topic only indirectly related to Empires of the Undergrowth, which is of course our own self-published game. We've been working on EotU in some form since we had the idea back in 2014, and we've been through a lot with it. We'd like to think that the experience we've gained along the way, the pitfalls we've traversed and the mistakes we've learned from go towards some wisdom that might help other indie developers working on their own titles. If we were going to do this, we thought, it would make sense to stay within the sphere of nature-based projects for now. After all, that subject obviously fascinates us, and we know people who have been working on some wonderful projects.

With that in mind, let's go into detail about the first of these:



It's time for us to talk about a partnership we've forged with our friend Tom Johnson. Tom has been working on a unique evolution-based sandbox game called Ecosystem for some time now - and it's a game that really deserves to see the light of day. We've been advising Tom in the context of the wisdom we've gained from EotU, and will be acting as Ecosystem's publisher to bring it to the world!

An infinite variety of creatures can evolve in Ecosystem

In Ecosystem, you have control over an ocean environment where a huge variety of marine animals can evolve and thrive, or falter and perish. The pressures of natural selection, guided by your hand, will determine which lifeforms are fit for purpose and which will be confined to evolutionary history.

Reefs and plant beds, placed by the player, support the evolving Ecosystem

Your creatures can take on an infinite variety of physical and behavioural forms, all driven by genetic and neural algorithms. It's a game with incredible depth and, we hope, a bright future.

We invite you all to add Ecosystem to your wishlists and follow its social media accounts, where there will be regular updates, and the demo is available NOW! Go and give it a spin.

Ecosystem on Steam (download the demo here!) Ecosystem Official Site Ecosystem on Facebook & Twitter Ecosystem Forums

We'll talk about Ecosystem a lot more on the Slug Disco social media, and our official website. Normal service shall now resume!


TheGamingBeaver will be quite familiar to some of you but we just thought it was worth giving him a special mention this time around. He’s covered our game for a long time now (we first linked to him in a newsletter way back in April 2017!) and has recently come back to it to put his formicarium colony to the test against a whole lot of everything, which made for a fun episode. Thanks to TheGamingBeaver for playing EotU and bringing the game to his fans!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
TheGamingBeaver goes full mad scientist mode

Whilst we’re on the subject, if you know of any smaller YouTubers covering our game who deserve a special mention by us please let us know about them. Send an email to [email protected] with a description of them and a link to some of their videos.


Photo mode is activated by pressing F9 by default. It will allow you to get all sorts of fun angles to make for interesting screenshots! If you hold down shift whilst pressing F9, you’ll have a free camera, allowing you to take some potentially amazing shots (but you might see level stuff that’s usually hidden, so prepare to have the illusion spoiled if you do this!). Upload them to Steam or mail them to [email protected] and we’ll include some of our favourites with our newsletters.

A pleasing trail of leafcutters from Steam user germinal.ronse

Battle formation against an Uber creature from Steam user AK_tion_47

RIP Hungry Spider from Steam user doge gamer

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.

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!

An ereptor colony takes on a wolf spider from appropriately-named Steam user wolf



Whilst we have a fairly clear path towards the completion of the formicarium campaign mode (2 more major updates, the next of which will feature fire ants as its protagonist species, as discussed in the previous newsletter) we do want to add plenty of extra content to the game to give a more rounded experience. The current plan is to release these fairly regularly starting from the freeplay overhaul update.

A WIP shot of an as-yet unnamed extra level

A very fair criticism of our way of doing things is that updates are slow. We want to release polished chunks of the finished product rather than things that are very glitchy and need a lot of refinement. This, combined with our small dev team, means that our user base has to be famously patient. We hope that with regular extra missions that are lesser in scope but very different from the main campaign branch we can go some way to addressing this.

The turnaround on these extra missions can be significantly quicker than for the main campaign. This is because the things that take us the majority of the time to do (artwork assets, animation, writing, music, voice recording) won't be needed. We'll be re-using existing assets for these missions - this makes them a very efficient thing to enrich the game with.

https://youtu.be/VkOMXg5sT-w
John begins work on one of the extra missions

Unlike the main campaign branch which tries to be somewhat realistic in its approach to ant behaviour and likely scenarios, there is infinite room for experimentation with these extra missions. Variety is the spice of life, and we have plenty of fun ideas to keep us going for a long time. For example, in the below video, John is working on a side mission where you have to look after an allied colony which isn’t very clever, so you’ll have to babysit it to make sure it isn’t overwhelmed!

https://youtu.be/9TyS9ei6wWI
Babysitting mission!

We’re getting a bit of a head start on these missions at the moment because with lots of resources currently tied up in the overhaul to movement and collisions, there’s a bit of breathing space where we can set up levels and victory conditions before we can properly test them (when the deep-level work is done).



Right now there's not much we want to share about our work on the 4th tier formicarium levels featuring fire ants. The planning process is well underway by now, and work on them shall really accelerate when we're confident that our deep changes are stable. Those changes will be tested thoroughly when the freeplay rework update is released - hopefully by you guys as well as us!



A more technical thing to report on here, but as part of the efficiency and CPU overheads-saving round of changes that are currently deep in the works, here’s one that might interest a few people. Liam has been working on a new path finding method called jump point search, and as you can see from the demonstration video below it’s a faster way to calculate paths than the more conventional A* algorithm in most circumstances. The video shows how the two systems go about finding a path between two points on a hexagonal grid (like EotU uses in-game). This will have a small impact on the time it takes to calculate creature movement routes but we’re including it here mainly as it’s an interesting curiosity, if you happen to like such behind-the-scenes gubbins. Also, name that theme tune!

https://youtu.be/NckJFg3WRoQ
I'll have a P please, Liam!



When one of the devs makes a change to the game they make a note in the source control (the system that tracks changes). Looking through these recent changes can give a little insight into how things are currently progressing with the build. Here’s a selective look with a short description for each entry, and given the recent work it’s no surprise they’re almost all to do with optimisations:

• Profiling additions on tick
  • This is Matt, our engine specialist, adding things into the code that help him find out exactly where excess calculations are being performed. In Unreal Engine 4 terms, a "tick" is a complete cycle of the program loop so things that tick perform calculations every frame the game runs. By eliminating as many of these as possible CPU processes are reduced, frame rates increase, and the world becomes a happier place. Ultimately, these rounds of profiling make the game better for everyone.
• Optimisations to the chamber representation widget
  • "Widgets" are a feature of UE4 we use for user interface and HUD elements. The process of profiling and optimising happens throughout the project, and this is another case of processes being refined and streamlined for faster performance.
• Re-working of creature overlap detection
  • A recent change has meant that creatures aren't constantly checking to see if they're overlapping other things (which is quite expensive for the CPU if it's happening every tick). Instead, John has recently gone through the code to see exactly where overlap calls are important, and by running the overlap detection functions only at these times a considerable number of calculations can be cut down.
• Minimap optimisations
  • More work by Matt. The minimap is a remarkably complex thing to do correctly and there are lots of avenues to making it more efficient, so these changes will contribute to the overall efficiency savings.

If you’d like to see your screenshots in this section of the newsletter simply upload them to Steam in the normal way, or you can email them to [email protected] if you’d rather be a little more direct. Whenever we write a newsletter we trawl through recent additions and find our favourites.

A Formica fusca ant faces down a pack of beetle larvae from Steam user 1269053484

This ant is about to go on a very unpleasant journey from Steam user redmoth27

A neat overview of the jungle from Steam user Medin

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!

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.

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.

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

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!

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.



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.


Solenopsis invicta ants. Source: Wiki commons

Fire ants have diverse and interesting behaviours - particularly relevant to us is the habit of using their own bodies to create structures. Holding onto each other to create a bridge is observed in some species, and this is directly relevant to us - it was one of the Kickstarter stretch goals back in 2016. We'll be talking about the details of how this will work as development continues.

Concept art for fire ant structures from the Kickstarter campaign



This is a very important issue for the longevity of the project - and one that will affect the timing of the next big update.

At the moment, the creature movement and collision detection code is dependent on default Unreal Engine 4 actor functions. These are not at all optimised for use in an RTS game that has potentially hundreds of moving, reacting creatures at any one time. This is the primary reason that the game often starts to suffer when a lot of creatures are in play. Whilst it allows us to create beautiful graphics and we love working with it, UE4 was written with FPS-style games in mind - and many of its features are geared towards that. Those on lower-end systems particularly will feel the pinch when army sizes get large.

Too many ants! From Steam user Cas

We've decided that now is the time to address this issue. We are rewriting lots of the code relevant to this to meet the specific needs of Empires of the Undergrowth. It will take some time but the benefits are multitude, including:

• Significant increase in performance
  
• Algorithm responsible for stuck creatures removed
  
• Reduced overheads for future enemy colonies
  
• Much more viable to have larger armies
  

The downside is that this is such a fundamental change to the way the game works that it is likely to break more or less everything, so it'll take time to work through the resultant issues. We know you're a patient bunch and are great with waiting for good things, and this is a good thing that will make the game better for everyone, forever.

When we're getting close to having the optimisations done, we're very likely run a public beta on Steam for all owners to allow lots of feedback on them.



As detailed in the previous newsletter, the next large update for the game will come in the form of an update to freeplay. John has spent a lot of time recently working on the new menu system for this updated mode, which with the planned changes is a major consideration. The end result will be a much more friendly-looking menu with presets. The advanced options will be there for people who want to make a custom setup - and you'll have the ability to share them.

Whilst he's making significant progress on this, its timing will be affected by the aforementioned optimisations. The update to freeplay will arrive at the same time as them.

John has been streaming his work on this. See a recent one below - at around the 2 hours 12 minutes mark of this one he also shows a little preview of a creature that was cut from the leafcutter update for time purposes, the velvet worm! We intend to finish and add the velvet worm in a future update.

https://youtu.be/uZJiTu3CHS4



One of the Kickstarter rewards was an option to have a Myrmecia ereptor colony instead of Formica ereptor. Our artist Matt has been working on the necessary changes. Below are some screenshots of the Myrmecia ereptor workers. The addition will be purely cosmetic, and will likely be activated in the form of a Steam key sent out to backers of the appropriate tiers.



It'll be our first foray into working with DLC systems so it'll be a learning experience for us as well as everyone else! Please note that for now this is an exclusive cosmetic for Kickstarter backers.





For the past couple of months Snootz has been covering Empires of the Undergrowth at the highest difficulty settings with his trademark calm, soothing manner. We've thoroughly enjoyed his playthroughs. His more recent attempts at insane difficulties for the third tier levels may well precipitate some balancing on our behalf.

https://youtu.be/6pG3TwMs_Hw



If you'd like to contribute to this section then simply upload your screenshots to Steam (F12 by default) or mail them to [email protected]. You can enter the cinematic photo mode by pressing F8 - and if you do that whilst holding shift you'll have free movement of the camera, allowing you to get some really interesting angles.

Night falls from Steam user Raymond2500

Whip spider circle of death in freeplay from Steam user Lord Distruct

Ladybird beetle in flight from Steam user Fazan008