Empires of the Undergrowth News

An optional beta is available to all Steam owners of the game running a 64 bit Windows system. The idea with these occasional builds is to give people access to new things that need wider testing, with the understanding that there are likely to be crashes and balance issues. We would appreciate feedback if you can provide it - post on our Steam forums, or our official forums.

The beta code is summertimeants. If you’re unfamiliar with how to activate a Steam beta, here’s how to do it:

1. Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"
   
2. Choose the "Betas" tab
   
3. In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter summertimeants
4. After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "openbeta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu
   
5. Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch.
   

IMPORTANT: If you participate in the optional beta, you do so with the understanding that crashes are likely and there are incomplete features since it is a test build. In this beta, freeplay saving is disable due to AI colonies not having the code to properly save their thought processes yet. Due to the unpredictable nature of beta tests, we strongly recommend you back up your formicarium saves before you play:

You will find your saves on Windows in:

C:/Users/YOUR USER NAME/AppData/Local/EotU/Saved/SaveGames

Note that AppData is usually hidden; you can either un-hide the folder in the files settings or just type it into the bar. If you make a copy of this folder and save it somewhere else, you can restore your saves by replacing this folder with the backed up one.



[h2]New Extra Level - Tug Of War[/h2]

• An auto-battler game mode in which you pit your chosen build against an AI opponent
  
• The enemy has a number of different builds to choose from; to beat it you’ll need to be smarter and faster!
  
• Instead of gathering resources you are given food periodically based on how well you’re doing
  
• Push back the enemy and kill their queen to claim victory
  

[h2]Freeplay AI Colonies[/h2]

• AI enemy colonies can now be added to a new freeplay game in the setup menu
  
• In this first implementation their AI is basic so they don’t have a difficulty setting (it is greyed out; this will be expanded on later) but you can give yourself a challenge by having them cheat to varying degrees
  
• A new victory condition - Conquest - can be set in Advanced Options. To achieve it, all enemy queens must be killed
  

• Fixed an issue where a loaded harvestman’s leg could cause the game to crash
  
• Can no longer place markers for nest group underground via minimap
  
• Blocked side routes for the huge whip spider on Aggrandise (preventing your ants pathing through its chamber unintended)
  
• Underground enemy icons are now scaled based on how many points they provide. This should make it easier to gauge threats before attacking
  
• Allied creatures now show health when camouflaged
  
• Ramp collision improvements
  
• Reduced point value of army ant media
  
• Marker calculations have been improved (should be more responsive)
  

It's a regular query, but we imagine not many of you here on Steam know the answer. We are often asked how big our team size is, and that's a very valid question - it affects many things about a game's development cycle. In our case, the answer is three - three developers on a very ambitious project that is laden with pitfalls.

Despite the extra difficulties in being very small, really neat things can come from tiny teams - we'd like to think that Empires of the Undergrowth, for all its small-team shortcomings (our big updates take a long time, but you're all super understanding!) is a quality game worthy of your time investment. There are many other indie devs that operate solo or in tiny teams, and some of the best works of this generation of gaming have come from that.

The Yogscast agree with us. We've been selected to be a part of their Tiny Teams games festival, which is running from 8PM BST tonight (9th August) until the 15th. It'll be highlighting and celebrating the very small teams (a core team of 1-3) who produce amazing things with limited resources.

As well as this Steam event, the Yogscast will be running tie-in Twitch streams to go along with the festival. Empires of the Undergrowth will feature.

Join the Yogscast stream at https://www.twitch.tv/yogscast. We'll see you in Twitch chat!

Also for you guys who don't visit the forum very often - here's a very early work-in-progress of fire ants building bridges with their own bodies.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Did you think your colony was the only one the scientists have been giving a hard time? How would things look from the perspective of the counterpart Formica ereptor colony - the one that has been providing feeder ants for the primary colony to fight against in its challenges?

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

It's time for some payback! In The Other Foot, you take command of the counterpart colony, controlling different units such as army ants, trap jaws and slave makers. To start off with, you'll need to provide workers for the scientist's diabolical experiments, working through challenges 1 and 2 before finally reaching the ultimate goal - the defeat of the primary colony in challenge 3.

Considering the context of this level, we do not recommend you play it until you've completed formicarium challenge 3.

Change history - because this time, the shoe is on The Other Foot. Available now in the Extra Levels menu!

During the last few weeks we've been able to really crack on with the fire ant update. After the long and arduous process that was re-designing the game's movement code from the ground up, we're really glad to be concentrated nearly solely on our Solenopsis invicta ants and all the accompanying flora and fauna that will bring them to life. As is always the case when we add a new formicarium tier to the game, there are several new systems that have to be designed and those are also in the works.

Taking down an uber Spiny Devil from Steam user BrickyGraph631


It's important to note that although this newsletter will concentrate mainly on the fire ant update, as a matter of policy we do not do estimates for the timings of our updates. That's because historically we've been pretty terrible at even guessing these, and given the small size of our team it's better for us to be 100% sure we can hit a deadline before we announce it. At the moment the best we can say is it's a while off yet, but as soon as we have a date we'll be very loud about broadcasting it!

[h2]Fire Ant Models / Animation[/h2]

Whilst he's our engine specialist and deals with lots of deep-level gubbins of Unreal Engine 4 which powers the game, Matt is also our artist. He's recently been working on the models and animations for the fire ants - the first one here is of the fire ant queen. By comparison to the existing queens in the game, she's positively miniscule!

The Solenopsis invicta queen


Below shows the queen next to some fire ant workers. There's a direct side-by-side later in the newsletter but they're comparable in size to Atta cephalotes minims. They'll do the nest jobs - digging and tending to brood. Fire ants will be a swarm-style unit - small, individually relatively cheap but high in numbers.

Some workers with their queen


Fire ants will also have a soldier unit. These are significantly bigger than the workers and will specialise in fighting, in a similar way to the Formica fusca black ants currently in the game. In our research for fire ants we've found that there's significant debate amongst myrmecologists about the existence of true fire ant polymorphism. Whilst there are a range of sizes, there does not appear to be discrete castes in the way that, for example, leafcutters clearly have. For this reason, we are simplifying things and calling the larger ants "soldiers" and the smaller ones "workers".

Soldiers and workers vs wood ants. Fire ants won't be fighting wood ants in the campaign; they're included for size comparison only!


Fire ants get their name from the burning sensation their sting delivers- ouch! In-game, as well as their regular bite attacks they have a sting which they will use periodically. The bite will deliver regular physical-type damage whilst the sting will deliver venom-type damage. Below is a short video showing off the animations for these attacks.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Fire ant animations


The system that will allow these ants to swarm over larger enemies (titan climbing) is still in development but they have their own unique animation for that too, whereby they will bite hold of the victim and deliver several stings in quick succession. We're looking forward to showing off this system once it's closer to completion - it's one of the main new mechanics that will enrich the game and differentiate the fire ant update from others.

[h2]Fire Ant Sizes[/h2]

Fire ants are, for the most part, quite small in stature compared to other ants in the game. In the below pictures you can see the level 1 worker being slightly smaller than the leafcutter minims, which are currently the smallest ants in the game.


Solenopsis invicta worker vs Atta cephalotes minim


Pictured below is a rather unfair comparison - the largest queen (again, leafcutter) versus the smallest. Do not be deceived by the small stature of the fire ant - they’ve earned their name!

I wouldn’t mess with either of them, TBH


[h2]Fire Ant Bridges & Water Traversing[/h2]

The fire ant levels are set in the swamps of North Carolina in the USA. As such, the levels will feature a lot of water. Back when we did our Kickstarter, one of the stretch goals was to include fire ant bridges as a gameplay mechanic. That goal was reached, and Matt has been puzzling out the details in his head ever since. We’re not quite ready to show off the results of this yet, but there’s an offshoot of this mechanic that has expanded things significantly.

There are of course many creatures that swim in or on the surface of still water, the latter exploiting surface tension to avoid sinking. Liam, the developer who's been working on this system, has shared the below picture and paragraphs explaining the technical details.

"In anticipation of floating fire ants in the next update we have been tacking on some upgrades to our new movement systems to allow creatures to do a few things that were previously impossible. While we were at it, it seemed a shame to have the realm of water limited to fire ants and so we loosened the rules a bit to potentially support a few other water-faring critters."




"To start with, the navigation rules in the game have always been based on a single, connected, immovable mesh (a structure that informs the navigation system). This was the first problem to overcome as if water is a ‘walkable’ surface it could create routes to previously unconnected zones. Now instead of being connected or disconnected, meshes are now members of zones that can be linked or separated.

Next, we needed to account for water being able to rise and fall. On the campaign levels Rising Tide and Queen of the Hill, the water is very dynamic and we wanted to be able to keep this sort of movement as an option. The plan at the moment is to do this with multiple static layers of mesh, rather than having a single layer of movable mesh. Layers are generated for every height the water is expected to reach and baked into the level data (‘baked’ here means pre-calculated and included in the level file)."


[h2]Fire Ant Abilities[/h2]

Following suit from previous species, fire ants will have selectable types for their soldiers. Like with the wood ant ranged units (mortar or rapid fire) and leafcutter majors (stun or taunt), on starting a fire ant level you'll have the choice to take one of two kinds of soldier into battle with you. Fire ant abilities encourage aggression, which is very true to their nature. They're detailed below:

Pervasive - if pervasive soldiers are selected, hatching new soldiers after the previous ones have died will be free if the egg has been on the soldier tile for a set period of time. The exact time will be down to balance, so we'll decide on that when we're in a position to properly test them.

Vigorous - soldiers with this option will have a buff to their stats (attack damage, speed and health) for a time after they are born. Again, the exact time and buffs will be down to balance.

As you can see, these abilities encourage aggression and you are actively rewarded for spawning new ants as the old ones die. It wouldn't be very fitting of the reputation of fire ants to be retreating into their nest to hide from danger - much more becoming of their character to attack it until there's no longer a threat!

[h2]Can it be done? Formicarium Challenge 2[/h2]

A question was asked on our Steam forums - is it possible to complete the formicarium challenges using only workers? We knew it was possible for Challenge 1 - in fact there’s an achievement for it. We weren’t so sure beyond that; and in fact said we’d only believe it given video footage. Cue Phoenix7786, who proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Challenge 2 can be done using only workers, using a very simple yet clever nest layout and appropriate queen abilities.

https://youtu.be/BHWclleyCu0

[h2]Screenshot Central[/h2]

Always my favourite part of writing a newsletter - if you’d like to submit a nice screenshot for this part of the newsletter, simply upload it to Steam (by default F12 takes a shot - you’ll be given an upload option on exiting the game) or email it directly to [email protected]. F9 activates photo mode for artistic composition!

I think you got him! Overwhelming numbers from Steam user Raptorr575


Those mandibles though - from Steam user The Great Empire of Japan


F in comments to pay respects to Steam user YOZEN折 22's Formica fusca queen

A new extra level is available now for Empires of the Undergrowth - Extremis. The aim is to survive all the waves - but you won't do it first time. After you die, you are given a number of points (based on how far you got) to unlock new units for your army the next time you play! You might need to reinforce your colony with some wood ant ranged units, or save up for the mighty tanks of the leafcutters!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

To find the new level, choose "Other Modes" from the main menu, then "Extra Levels". Please note that your game client will not need to update to unlock Extremis - it will be present in version 0.2131.