Empires of the Undergrowth News

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

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!

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.



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.

Leafcutters collecting leaves from Steam user a white wyrm



Colony-vs-colony combat has been something a lot of you have been asking for for quite a while, and it's something we've been itching to do for quite some time. The leafcutter levels finally allow this in a near-true fashion. The enemy colonies in 3.1 The Harvest and the 3rd formicarium challenge are much nearer to a true AI-controlled ant colony than have existed in the previous levels - they have their own underground, pheromone groups, and behaviour trees.

Army ant major from Steam user Fazan008

These are stepping stones to truly autonomous colonies which will be useful in a future freeplay update, which will properly dig out their own nests from scratch and all the bells and whistles. Liam is enjoying working on this AI (he's calling it HiveBot), but it won't be ready for quite some time - having an AI be able to come close to a human-controlled player without cheating is really tough!



There has been concern from a small number of players about the direction the game is headed with colony-vs-colony combat and resource wars. The new levels are very different to the ones that have come before, but it is worth reassuring these players at this stage that not all future levels will involve these mechanics. There's still plenty of things to explore in the world of the Undergrowth that don't just involve dominating another colony, but it was something a lot of players (and us) wanted to see.





The largest new addition we've made since the release of the leafcutter update is a new demo level called The Crucible. It features leafcutters (minus the majors) and is the only demo level in which you can access the surface. Owners of the game can access it from the alpha demo levels section of "Other Modes" from the main menu.

https://youtu.be/SIoc-zSngU8
DGA plays The Crucible

I imagine just about everyone reading this owns the game, but those who don't will notice that you have the option of downloading the updated demo from the Steam page. We've also put it up on IndieDB. Note that the level is limited and features only rove beetles and spiny devils as enemies.



We've added some new UI additions to augment the current selection of keyboard shortcuts - you'll notice these in the bottom right tab. These are easily-accessible toggle buttons for resource, tile and creature info.

Press shift whilst entering photo mode for a free camera! By Fazan008



We've also started in earnest our effort for language localisation with the support of two new languages - German and Simplified Chinese, which were the most logical ones for us personally to start with. Steam users from these regions should have these enabled by default but a language selection dropdown box can be found in the game options.

Since we now have a very robust system for localisation, we will be adding new languages over time. We've already started the process of getting some other translations done for the game - we'll let everyone know as they're added.



Since the pressures of completing the main content for the Leafcutter Update are now behind us we've been able to make some optimisation changes for some performance enhancements. A long-standing issue has been the upgrade overlay causing a significant drop in framerate, even on relatively high-end systems. Thanks to Matt's profiling pass there's been an up to 75% improvement on this now. Various other small things have been done as well (such as removal of near-invisible crystals from soldier tiles that had quite a heavy materials load).





The next large update that will come to the game is a significant re-working and update of features to freeplay mode. Freeplay is in need of some good TLC - we are aware that in its current for it is rather unbalanced and is particularly unforgiving to startup colonies. John has begun work on his reworked freeplay mode - see the video below for his first livestream post-leafcutter update.

https://youtu.be/IApQRvjZsJY

There are many new features he intends to add - first and foremost, he will be adding leafcutters themselves as a species option to the mode. This didn't make it into the main leafcutter update for several reasons - they operate so differently in their food gathering and caste system to the other ants that adding them is far from a trivial task.

It was relatively easy for John to add the new creatures to freeplay in time for release but the leafcutter colony itself needs a lot of work. The climbing system that the leafcutters use needs a way to be saved mid-climb (a first for freeplay - creature actions are not currently saved), and of course there needs to be special landmark and balance considerations for them since they harvest leaves as their only source of food, and want to avoid conflict with other creatures as much as they can since they get no resources from them.

There will also be a re-work of the creature spawning system. Currently, increased difficulty level leads to the spawning of more creatures. Towards the end of a freeplay game this can mean the entire map is simply swamped with enemies, which affects performance as well as experience. John's plan is to add tiered enemies instead, which means tougher individual enemies rather than more of them.

https://youtu.be/nKMESsSGZAk
DGA play freeplay in its current state

Also, something we've wanted to add to freeplay for some time is optional victory conditions. When we did our last recording session with our narrator we recorded some victory narration for freeplay, and this is the opportunity to implement that properly. Optional conditions might be collect X number of food, kill X uber creatures, or survive for a set period of time. There's lots of room for experimentation with this!

Finally, John is planning on a brand new freeplay level set in the new rainforest environment. He's likely to livestream quite a lot of this, talking to the chat and taking suggestions. We'll post on our social media when we do this and on occasion will post an announcement on the Steam page for particularly important streams.



Obviously, you all want to know what we're doing with the formicarium campaign next, and we're 90% sure we know the next species that will be focused on and the theme of levels 4.1 and 4.2. Until we've had our big design meeting in early June, though, we're not quite prepared to tell everyone what that is. As soon as we commit to it, we'll let you all know in the forums and we'll also have a section in the next newsletter.



Frazzz has covered Empires of the Undergrowth for a long time. With the leafcutter update he's taken up his coverage again with renewed vigour - and it's been a joy watching him discover the new mechanics. It was a little exasperating watching him wondering why his ants were getting sick and dying because he didn't read the tip about refuse chambers causing this - but he got there in the end!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1tIzAOPU_4



We've obviously been having a blast looking at the screenshots from the new content, and we've been spoiled for choice. Here's three of our favourites from the past month. If you'd like to submit some screenshots the easiest way is to use Steam (F12 by default to take a snap, and F9 by default to enter photo mode). A popup will allow you to upload once you exit the game. You can also email them directly to [email protected]. Also, here's a little tip- we've recently added an unlocked photo mode which has no camera restrictions. You might see some funky stuff but it's a way to get some really interesting angles - to enter it hold down shift while you press the photo mode.

A menacing but beautiful view of army ants from Jynn

Mantids and spiders and crickets, oh my! From Steam user Raptorofwar

A Formica ereptor colony including leafcutter majors in Freeplay from Steam user Hilfspage

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