Empires of the Undergrowth News

Winter is... approaching. Since the last newsletter we’ve released what we’ve called the “interim update”, version 0.13 - interim meaning between Freeplay and the upcoming major update. That update introduced the planned challenge modes to the 2nd tier Formicarium levels, added a new level to Freeplay, addressed several issues, and included a spooky spider-based extra that you guys seemed to have a lot of fun with. In the meantime, the guys have also been working solidly on the next set of levels for the game, which of course will feature leafcutter ants. Let’s dive in and see how we’ve been doing!



https://youtu.be/xHjECOl1TJU

Our intent when releasing the Interim Update was to fill in some clearly missing gaps in the game as it stands, consolidate the game systems for future updates (and deal with issues arising from those system changes sooner rather than later), as well as giving you guys some fun extra stuff to do in the meantime. We also re-designed the main menu for clarity, going back to a more traditional system.



The 2nd tier Formicarium levels (2.1 Rising Tide, and 2.2 Queen of the Hill) have gained their own challenge mode. In the 1st tier levels, activating challenge mode introduced a new creature to the fray (the mole cricket). In keeping with that spirit, the 2nd tier introduces the beach tiger beetle larvae - the juvenile form of the tiger beetles that are found in these levels. They live in small burrows in the sand, hiding away for safety but listening for the vibrations of a suitable meal. They will snatch ants away one at a time, then quickly kill them - and it is in that brief moment alone that they are vulnerable.

All about the beach tiger beetle larvae

We’ve particularly enjoyed seeing some of our more seasoned players reacting to the difference the presence these critters makes to the level experience - on higher difficulties, the number of larvae that spawn can be huge! As always, there’s a way to overcome these difficult odds with skill and experience.



Towhead is a brand new Freeplay level. It’s set on a small island or sandbank near the mouth of a river, and has some features that make it an entirely different experience to The Dunes (our first Freeplay map). Firstly, it’s a lot smaller which makes the experience of jostling for resources significantly more intense. It also has a unique element - a periodic flood, which will purge the lower level of the map of all creatures. This is an optional addition to the map, but if activated it adds an extra thought and planning element to your food collection.

Towhead in all its glory

The release of Towhead also saw some necessary balance changes to Freeplay in general. After listening to some feedback by players, we’ve changed it so that at lower difficulty early game time, only lower-level creatures will spawn. This change happened in patch 0.133 - click here to read the full notes from that patch.



The Minor Improvements System has been added as a way to spend spare Royal Jelly. Some players have been sitting on a cache of jelly with no way to spend it, and some players find themselves with some left over after they’ve purchased their desired upgrades. The MIS allows players to spend initially small amounts of jelly to make improvements to their ant’s stats. The amount of jelly this costs will increase exponentially after multiple purchases, so there is a practical limit to how much a colony’s ants can be upgraded.

The Minor Improvements System in action

To access this new system, open up the Royal Jelly Tech Tree Menu from the top-left of the Formicarium hub. Select the icon of the kind of ant that you’d like to improve, and choose the jelly icon that pops up.

Please don’t feel that you need to grind for Royal Jelly to use this feature; it really isn’t intended to be used that way (hence the increasing cost for additional improvements)! It’s more a way of spending left over jelly efficiently before you progress to the next Formicarium tier.




We’ve recently done our recording sessions for the third Formicarium tier levels with our three voice actors. It all went swimmingly, but while we were at it we asked them to record some extra bits and pieces that we felt were missing from the existing game content. This is most apparent in Freeplay, where the narrator now introduces your fledgling colony to its world when the game starts.

Scientist #2 will also give some vocal indication when he drops food on the Formicarium surface during the gateway missions, and we’ve re-recorded Scientist #1’s voice lines entirely with better recording equipment. Whilst doing that, just about all the game’s audio has gone through improved filtering for consistency and clarity.




In preparation for the aforementioned major update, the code that governs the movement of ants about the nest and above ground has undergone an extensive re-write. Leafcutter ants, which will feature in the major update to come have a complex, multi-caste society and getting them moving efficiently around their environment has necessitated the creation of several new systems for movement and swarming. These are now also driving ant movement in the current build of the game - but you shouldn’t notice a huge difference right now. We’re laying the groundwork for the future with these changes.

Swarming ants



It was a pleasure to be able to have a little surprise ready for you all in time for Halloween! We’re delighted with how well the Hungry Spider level was received. For those who didn’t catch it, a cobweb appeared on the main menu, which when clicked would take you to a special level where you play as a ravenous wolf spider, with your aim to consume everything in your path. It’s a devilishly difficult level, with not many managing to complete it.

https://youtu.be/L3QtFadJryI

Some members of our community have written fantastic guides on how to tackle this fiendish level, which was unexpected and awesome. If you didn’t get a chance to play, don’t worry - the cobweb will return whenever there’s a full moon!

It was great for me (community manager - Mike) to get a cameo in the game as the voice of the hungry spider!)



Whilst all this has been going on with the interim update, of course the guys have been hard at work with the third tier Formicarium levels. In the last newsletter we showed you all about the different castes that leafcutter ant society has, but this time we'd like to focus on their environment. As previously mentioned they will feature leafcutter ants, and are set in the subtropical rainforests of Ecuador. Our artist Matt has been hard at work producing some beautiful landscapes for our leafcutters to inhabit.

One of the beautiful Ecuador maps in all its glory

The above screenshot is from level 3.2 - we’re keeping the level names to ourselves for now, but you can see the detail that Matt has included to make these levels entirely unique to the beach environment that is featured in 2.1 and 2.2

Isn't it kind of cheating to use this?


As for the question of when we expect the leafcutter update to be ready, we have to be careful - history has repeatedly told us that we’re not very good at judging release dates, but we’re in pretty good company in that regard - even the really big studios have trouble pinning it down. Rest assured, Major Update 1 (as it’s described in our internal plan) is in good hands, and we appreciate the kind patience of you lovely bunch.



Leafcutters share their rainforest home with many other impressive animals. Trap jaw ants are one of their many foes, boasting the fastest-moving predatory appendage in the animal kingdom. Their jaws are so fast that they can close within microseconds, maiming their targets, or even using them to catapult foes or themselves away.







The leafcutters will encounter these ants in their various trials, and they're fearsome opponents.



DGA is a long-time follower of Empires of the Undergrowth and we always enjoy watching his relaxed, considered gameplay. He was one of the first to put up a play of the Hungry Spider level on YouTube, and although he may have been a little surprised at how hard the enemy wolf spiders bite, he came back for more anyway!

https://youtu.be/F_GkckRsumw



Let’s introduce a little competitive element to Freeplay. The current highest-documented Freeplay score belongs to JaXm at 6,360,777, and he posted the screenshot on 31st July 2018 to prove it. Can you do better? Upload your screenshot to Steam or post it on our forums to let us know if you’ve unseated the current champion!





In making these newsletters, it’s always a cleansing experience to have a gander at the screenshots you lovely people have been uploading - because when captured at the right time, Empires of the Undergrowth can be a very pretty game. If you’d like to participate, submit your screenshots to Steam (F12 by default) or email them to [email protected] !

A boquet of beetles by Martino

How could we pass up Limey21 with a total mastery of golden hour screenshots?

We couldn't ignore the beautiful layout of Enablin's base - look at the minimap to see what we mean!

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!

• 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)
  

• 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)
  

• 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
  

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

• 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
  • 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

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://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHjECOl1TJU

• Challenge modes added to Rising Tide and Queen of the Hill
  • 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!
    
  • 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
  • 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
    
  • 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
  • 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
    
  • 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?
  

• 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
  

• 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
  

• 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
  

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!

A lovely green Formica ereptor colony from jasong





The interim update will include the challenge mode for levels 2.1 Rising Tide and 2.2 Queen of the Hill. It was always our intent for each tier to have its own special mode with an extra challenge - and we're now at the point that we want to get this all up to date before any new levels arrive.



A screenshot of the beach tiger beetle larva in progress

Activating challenge mode on the 2nd tier levels will introduce lightning-fast beach tiger beetle larvae to the fray. Even in their larval forms, the beach tiger beetles are extremely deadly. They live in small burrows, lying in wait for a hapless victim to pass by - which they then grab with frightening speed. Matt has done some beautiful work bringing these living nightmares to our game - have a look at the screenshot below.





We have introduced a new way of spending royal jelly to improve certain aspects of your formicarium colony. The type of tweaks that can be made depend on the creatures themselves, but there are 2 types for workers and queens and 4 for the black ant soldiers and wood ant ranged units (there will also be 4 for the leafcutter majors when they arrive).

Spending jelly will give a stat improvement. This can be done multiple times but will cost much more each time you do it. It'll also be a way for those of you who are sitting on a cache of royal jelly to spend some of it before the next update (but please don't feel like you have to grind for it - you don't!). The exact ins-and-outs of this new system will be detailed when the patch comes.



The recent recording sessions with our lovely voice actors have given us the opportunity to add some dialogue we felt was missing from certain points of the current game - particularly in freeplay. There will be some extra narration for this game mode, as well as some small bits and pieces for the campaign levels.



Whilst you’ve been getting heartily stuck into Freeplay and the response has been great, we realise that there’s not much in the way of variety at the moment. To that end, the interim update will include a brand new Freeplay map! Towhead is set on a small sandbank in a body of water, which has some interesting implications for resource gathering. It hasn’t been decorated yet but you can see how things are shaping up from the in-editor screenshot below.

The work-in-progress Towhead. Note the unusually-shaped underground spaces!

And now, back to the leafcutter update...



Whilst previous levels were set on a beach in a temperate environment, the next set of levels take place in the humid subtropical rainforests of Ecuador with its clay-rich soil. This gives a distinct red hue to the underground.

The leafcutter queen beneath the rainforest soil

Various castes of Atta cephalotes patrol their nest

We also have luminous fungal growths illuminating our Leafcutter colony instead of the crystals from the beach levels - a little extra flavour given that the leafcutters themselves are fungus farmers!

Illuminated by fungal growths!



Here's the current animations for the leafcutter major. Pay particular attention to that leaf-cutting action - after all, that's what leafcutters are born to do.

https://youtu.be/DKB7cy8AWeI



Liam put together this little montage of test material showing the various ways that the leafcutters are being worked on. You can see an example of the upcoming size hierarchy system that will allow some ants to literally run under the legs of bigger ones, as well as seeing some of the vertical ant movement that Matt has been working on to allow leafcutters to collect cuttings from leaves above floor level. There's also a small audio snippet of what Scientist #2 is up to in the next update. Frankly, he scares us.

https://youtu.be/mEhlDIJny8s



Anyone who has watched the live streams will have seen how putting levels together is a time consuming process (even ones that do not have a story), so to help with this we have developed plugins for Unreal Engine. These allow us to change tiles with a variable size spherical tool in many ways (raise, lower, dig out, make indestructible and even paint) not only speeding up level design but making it more intuitive.

See a short demonstration of John using the new in-house tools on Giphy

Please note that although this time-saving measure is a good thing for the project, we are not currently planning to release a level editor for the game. For now these are UE4 plugins that benefit us - if everything is going well when the game graduates from early access, we might revisit the level editor idea. But not yet!



There has been little in the way of live streaming recently - and for good reason. John likes to keep his streams relatively spoiler-free, and pretty much all of his current work has been leafcutter-related. We don't want to spoil all that good stuff for you prematurely.



It's rare that we see an EotU-playing YouTuber who's also an antkeeper IRL, so of course we're going to watch their videos when we do. ManOftheAntz plays the game from a remarkably unbiased perspective, given the subject matter, and manages to be damned entertaining whilst he does it. We've thoroughly enjoyed watching his trials and tribulations with EotU, and we look forward to seeing how he does with the upcoming content!

https://youtu.be/iLZ9TH3mMAc



As has fast become a tradition for the newsletter, we like to trawl through Steam screenshot uploads and manually-emailed submissions (send them to [email protected]) for fun screenshots. F12 does it by default on Steam, if you'd like to participate.

The ants go marching 4 by 4, hurrah! Thanks to Johathon for emailing this in

The destruction of an uber devil's coach horse by joshua.schneider

A never-ending battle? Crabs vs crabs in the Battle Arena from Bilbo Baggins