Until October 10th, explore the fascinating world of ants in Empires of the Undergrowth at a 50% discount.
Explore amazing deals on all Hooded Horse titles during the Steam Publisher Sale.
"/> Empires of the Undergrowth is a real-time strategy game where you manage an ant colony, gather resources, and defend against predators. Check out the recent 1.0 release!
From Today Until October 10th
The discounts on Empires of the Undergrowth and all other Hooded Horse games are available through October 10th — perfect for enhancing your summer gaming experience. We're excited to see the worlds you build and the adventures you undertake.
Happy gaming!
Vlog 12 - Our Empires of the Undergrowth plans after 3 months
Now that we've had a few months post-release to ruminate on things, we've got a clearer idea of what we want to do for Empires of the Undergrowth in both the short and long term, outside of the things mentioned in the most recent roadmap for the project. Community manager mike breaks it down (as a talking head piece - don't expect dancing).
Including some new screenies of the upcoming tier 3 art refresh.
Optional Beta- Custom Game Stats & AI Changes, Campaign Balance, Lots More!
This optional beta is testing some fairly large changes to custom games, particularly AI colonies - as well as experimenting with more bold changes to ant stats specifically in that game mode. These changes are being tested in some extra levels, too, where we feel it’s appropriate.
For the first time we are separating stats between the story and custom games, to allow for better balancing (they have slightly different needs) and some more experimentation outside of the more rigid structure of the story. Most stats are staying the same for now, but there are some notable changes.
PLEASE NOTE: We’re taking some broad strokes with experimental changes to ant stats and abilities in custom games! As such they might seem a bit extreme, which is why we’d like to hear your feedback in the optional beta. We’ll be refining as we go on! Please post your feedback in the Steam community forum or on our Discord.
You'll notice a new tab on the main menu titled DLC - there is nothing there for now, but in the future this is where DLCs like the Myrmecia ereptor Kickstarter reward skin will live.
The version of Unreal Engine 4 the game runs on has been updated - please keep an eye our for any weirdness. There are also several balance changes, particularly to the newer story levels (5.x). We’ve be very keen to hear your thoughts on those, too.
The optional beta is only available on Windows 64 bit systems, and only on Steam. As well as the featured changes there are a large number of fixes and other balances. Recent changes to in-game text are currently lacking localisation and will display in English.
Code: balanceandchanges
If you would like to join the beta, the code is balanceandchanges. If you don’t know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions below:
Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"
Choose the "Betas" tab
In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter balanceandchanges
After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu
Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch.
Patch Notes
Changes - Custom Games ONLY
Black ant soldier hatch cost reduced to 3 (down from 5)
Black ant soldiers take no more than 40 damage from a single attack
Big-headed ant major soldiers have a new ability - adrenaline. This reduces damage taken by 60%, 20% increased movement speed and 80% increased attack speed for 40s (10m cooldown)
Big-headed ant major cost increased to 35 (up from 25) and egg hatch cost increased to 4 (up from 2)
Leafcutter media harvest quantities increased to 20 / 24 / 30 (up from 17 / 19 / 22)
Leafcutter media health reduced to 80 / 95 / 110 (down from 100 / 115 / 130)
Leafcutter media damage reduced to 4 / 5 / 6 (down from 4.5 / 6 / 7)
Leafcutter media build cost reduced to 65 (down from 80)
Leafcutter colonies will start with 200 fungus (up from 100)
Termite’s lignocellulose landmarks will now spawn a new node every 3m and will not despawn when empty
Large giant African mantis and large hermit crab will no longer invade nests
Earwig nymph should no longer invade nests
Earwig juvenile, earwig and alligatorback scorpion juvenile added as possible cavern creatures in custom games
AI colony queen workers are only sent out for the first 10m and return faster for smaller amounts of food. If harvesters are dead queen workers can go out again
Timid AI colonies are less likely to invade and will harass less frequently
Reduced AI colony food dropoff build priority (except for leafcutters and termites)
AI wood ant colonies make more melee tiles
AI ereptor colonies likely to make more balanced build choices, not always favouring larger ants
AI colonies receive damage reduction to patrols (differs based on cheat settings). This tapers off over time
AI little black ant, black ant and fire ant colonies will make more soldiers than they used to (unless they are docile)
Changes - Story & General
5.1 nighttime invasion changes:
On easy and normal, the sun spider’s stun duration has been reduced to 2.5s (down from 5s) and damage reduced to 5 (down from 8)
On easy and normal, the sun spider’s confuse duration has been reduced to 2s (down from 4s) and damage reduced to 4 (down from 7)
On easy and normal, the giant African centipede’s venom pool damage per tick reduced to 4 (down from 8) and initial target damage reduced to 200 (down from 400)
On easy and normal, the giant African centipede’s body slam area of effect reduced to 200 (down from 300), damage reduced to 30 (down from 40)
On easy to extreme, the emperor scorpion’s attack damage reduced to 20 / 20 / 35 / 40 / 45 (down from 45 on all difficulties)
On easy and normal, the emperor scorpion’s stun has been reduced to 1s (down from 2) and confuse reduced to 2.5s (down from 5)
In 5.2, extra soldier tiles reduced on easier difficulties to 5 / 3 / 1 / 0 / 0 (down from 7 / 4 / 1 / 0 / 0)
In 5.2, casualties required for victory increased on easier difficulties to 120 / 135 / 150 / 150 / 150 (up from 100 / 125 / 150 / 150 / 150)
In 5.3 challenge mode, the emperor scorpion now maintains its health between days but heals 10% life each day
In 4.1 New Game Plus, enemy colonies now receive more food storage at the start of the game and more workers (based on how high NGP is set). The little black ant colony also gets more starting resources
Matabele anaesthetist revival time reduced to 7s (down from 10s)
Increased range of fire ant’s Last Laugh ability to 300 (up from 200)
Mounted creatures are thrown off when a large creature starts to move through a nest exit
Changed final objective in 1.2 Subjugation to say raid instead of wave
Other Changes
Achievements can now be completed on New Game Plus!
Hovering over achievement in the achievements menu will show the highest difficulty it was achieved on
The Nian Beast and Festive Spider levels can now be accessed at the appropriate times of year
Festive Spider now uses the same music as Hibernation
Festive Spider now uses the updated rotten log textures (WIP - will look overly contrasty for now)
It will now snow in the Festive Spider level!
Extra levels The Culling, The Culling 2, Tug Of War (1, 2 and 3) and Cramped will now use custom game stats rather than story stats
Environmental textures will now be more detailed (WIP - some levels may look dark due to the deeper recessing the extra ambient occlusion pass is causing, please report if you see this, particularly in extra levels and custom game maps)
Tile hover window now displays a message when tiles have been locked out
Graphical updates to Tug of War 3
Game engine updated to Unreal Engine 4.27 - please keep an eye out for any weirdness here
DLC menu added to the main menu in preparation for future content such as the Kickstarter reward (Myrmecia ereptor worker skin)
Fixes & Optimisations
Fixed a bug where AI was sometimes unaware of underground invaders in freeplay
Bullet ant attack damage increases from minor improvements should now work against targets that are not executed by their attack
Fixed an issue that could cause Matabele ant medics to get stuck at the queen (happened a lot in Tug of War 3)
Fixed an issue in The Culling 2 where floating seeds were not falling in a small section of the map
Fixed an issue that could cause resources to not count towards score in some levels
Fixed an issue with Imprisoned where termites sometimes could not path to where the water would be
Narrator in custom games should talk about termites more when they are fighting, rather than calling them ants
Assassin bugs will now despawn after 10s like other creatures in 5.1 and 5.2
Tug of War 3 name now in keeping with the other ToW levels
Final objective in 1.2 Subjugation now marks as finished on victory
Fixed an issue where two voice lines were showing as the wrong scientist
Fixes for UI scaling
Minor optimisations to large creatures and queens
Memory use reduction (more things should only load into memory as needed)
Known Issues
Some extra levels will appear dark or overly contrasty due to rendering changes - please report them if you see them
August 2024 Newsletter
As the dust continues to settle after the 1.0 launch, we’ve solidified our plans for the short and long term goals for Empires of the Undergrowth. This newsletter will be a bit briefer than usual, as we try to return to some form of normality after the huge upheaval brought by the game’s release!
The ereptor colony languishes in its cupboard purgatory, from Zvistic on our Discord
We’ll go over what the team are working on right now, but for a more comprehensive look at the future of the project I’d highly recommend taking a peek at the previous newsletter or vlog - there’s an in-depth breakdown of the intended roadmap in both of those, and there’s not much point in repeating that completely here.
Tier 5 achievements
One of our main priorities, as mentioned in the previous vlog, is tier 5 / final formicarium achievements - they didn’t make it in quite in time for release. These are currently in the process of being implemented - there will be 45 of them in total, and as a little treat the devs have let me show you a preview of 3 of these (I had to twist a dev’s arm up his back to get them):
No Mound Left Behind - Beat “Drive Them Back” on medium difficulty without losing a termite mound.
Shoot Yourself In The Foot - Beat “Triage” on hard difficulty with no termite queens left alive.
Finish Your Vegetables - Beat “Last Mound Standing’” on impossible difficulty after harvesting 10,000 llignocelluose.
Rainforest Art Refresh
Our environment artist is getting on with his refresh of the Ecuador level artwork, to bring them in line with the style and fidelity of the rest of the game. Below are 3 previews of this work - please note, this is very much a work in progress and will change a lot before it reaches its final look (for example, no changes have yet been made to the leafcutter sapling).
Engine Upgrade & Graphics
We’re currently in the process of upgrading the version of Unreal Engine 4 that the game uses. We’ll be taking it to version 4.27, which is the final stable build of this engine. This is a pretty significant undertaking - we’ve done it before earlier on in the project, but this will be the final time that we do this. In theory, upgrading the engine leads to improved efficiency of the underlying UE systems - but there is always fallout and breakages when undergoing such a fundamental change, so it will take us a while to work through those.
While we’re in the throes of this, it’s worth mentioning that some people have been mentioning graphical issues that only arose with the release of 1.0 - they report overly smooth-looking surfaces on some models. We’ve yet to entirely nail down commonality between them - it appears to be people using some older graphics cards (the 10x GTX series crops up regularly here, although we don’t see the issue on our own 10x laptops).
It is entirely possible that this engine upgrade fixes the issues, and before we release the version of the game with the engine upgrade it’s entirely possible that we’ll run an optional beta - more details on that if/when it happens, but it would be greatly appreciated if people experiencing this issue can do some testing when the time comes.
If the engine upgrade doesn’t address these issues, then of course we’ll go engine diving a lot deeper again to uncover the cause.
Balance
We’ve been continuing to collect feedback based on player discussion on both Steam and our other official channels (forum, Discord, etc) and condensing those down into bullet points for our devs to ingest and ponder on. Please keep this coming - overall consensus is really important here for us to identify these areas where things could use tightening up a little.
We’ve also been gathering feedback on how best to tune the systems we have for custom game AI, and over the past several weeks a lot of careful thought has gone into it. We hope to have some of these tweaks ready to go along with the engine update patch.
Official Wiki
While an unofficial wiki has existed for some time now, we have recently launched an official wiki hosted by our publishing partners Hooded Horse! The Empires of the Undergrowth wiki is the best source of up-to-date information on the game. It contains information on all of the maps and creatures, including stats and abilities for the creatures. It also contains trivia and behind-the scenes info from the game’s development.
Our thanks to community member AntBZK for his work (or “hobby”, as he calls it) in creating the vast majority of the content on the official wiki (and its unofficial predecessor). There’s room in the future to bring on other official contributors - if you fancy a go at that and have a decent writing style, come and join us on the Discord where the wiki has its own channel for debate.
ANTCON 2024
Back in May, community manager Mike and marketing content creator Hei Man went to Carmarthen in Wales, to attent ANTCON 2024. This is the event for UK-based ant fans and keepers, and people come from much further afield as well. Mike had his camera with him and recorded some of the day, as well as taking some pretty darn great macro shots of some of the ants on display, even if he does say so himself.
A macro photo of Formica fusca ants taken at ANTCON. By Mike Connor
Mike also gave a short presentation about the creatures of the savannah, and talked a bit of what was to come in tier 5 (the event was roughly a month before full release of the game). A short travelog is in the works to document some of the day - expect to see that on our YouTube channel soon.
As always, it was a fantastic event and it was great to be able to attent. Thanks very much to Richard and the rest of the team from Ant Antics for organising it, and for inviting us and making it so memorable.
Screenshot Central
Ever my favourite part of the newsletter, here I gather some of my favourite screenshots from our Discord and the Steam community tab. If you’d like to submit a screenshot for this section in the future, then the Discord is the easiest way to do that. To get really great angles on your screenies, hold down shift while you enter photo mode to uncouple the camera from the ground plane.
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Features:
Real-time strategy with an emphasis on colony management
Different ant species with unique traits and abilities
Dynamic environments with diverse biomes
Engaging campaign and endless freeplay modes
Stunning graphics and immersive gameplay
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Latest Empires of the Undergrowth Update & Future Roadmap
VLOG 11 - What's next for Empires of the Undergrowth
Empires of the Undergrowth has been out for a month, so what comes next? In this vlog, community manager Mike goes through the roadmap for the immediate future of EotU.
Since this is a Slug Disco vlog it also has some news about another game published by us - if you'd like to skip that and get to just the EotU bits, the timecode is 1.26.
Fixes & Changes - First post-release patch for Empires of the Undergrowth
We've released the first patch of fixes and changes for Empires of the Undergrowth, following its release into 1.0 last month. This deals with most of the more common issues that have been reported - more patches of this scale and type are likely to come in the near future.
Thanks to everyone who's been helping to test this patch in the optional beta over the past several days!
Changes
5.1's titans can now spawn in huge creature landmarks in freeplay
Added a system to restore saves from backup in-game rather than manually (not yet localised)
Added some extra protection when reloading or quitting the game when defeat rewards are being saved
Increased save backup number to 5 (up from 3)
Bullet ant tech tree video added
Scroll added to behaviour toggles box (will only appear when needed)
Added more recent localisation for Polish and Czech
Updated lighting for custom game levels and extra levels, and changed some underground tile grids to the new ones
Whip spider main menu icon is replaced if arachnophobia mode is active
Added arachnophobia hats to hybrids
Creature stat list can now show percentages to a single decimal point
Fixes
Reduced chance of all backups corrupting
Fixed some small reverb problems in Tier 5 lab music
Food taken from dead critters should now look closer to what it comes from
Wood ants now turn to their targets before each shot
AoE resistance now displays as a percentage in the Inspect tool
Creatures mounted on another are now killed when shaken off and landing off the tile grid
Fixed low resolution shadows in Tug of War 3
Large underground creatures in 5.1 and 5.3 can now only demolish a tile if at least one of its neighbours is demolished
Quadrupled VRAM allocated to overground tile grid textures - should improve issues when rapidly moving camera around the map
Inspect tool health-per-second now includes buffs (such as the Matabele medic aura)
Fix for whip spiders rapidly pinging from their creature encounter narration in 3.2
Bullet ant species hex now used in the improvements menu
Allowed marker placement through some plants that were blocking it in 3.2
Matabele colonies should now always drop termites when they sell a tile
Creatures that reach zero health while mounted will always drop to the floor to actually die
Water on the minimap removed on 5.3
Termites will no longer take sun damage in the ending cinematic of 5.3
End game messages now say the NG+ level that has been unlocked if this is not the first NG+ completion
Corrected some issues in the credits
Fixed a ping issue in Occupation 2
Texture size optimisations (should help with some blurry issues)
Skimmer in Battle Arena will now fly and land when there are enemies at the midpoint
Fixed some overhanging moss in the final formicarium / terrarium
Fixed an issue where loading a damaged creature with a star level would restore its health
Prevented ants walking into a rock in 5.1
Fixed an issue where several ants hatch costs were being affected by upkeep in custom games
Fixed an issue where bullet ant lean pupation was not applying in custom games
Fixed an issue where UI scaling 150% would cause formicarium rewards to be off the bottom of the screen and hence unselectable
Fixed an issue where Matabele colonies would drop seeds instead of termites when an upgrade was cancelled
Speed chambers now drop lignocellulose for termites and termites for Matabele when sold
Fixed an issue where food refunded into storage chambers owned by Matabele ants was seeds (and hence was worth a lot less)
Great blue skimmer displays health in battle arena again
Fixed an issue where ants would leave via the top of a tunnel exit on Strawclutch
Fixed an issue where poppy plants would appear on some custom game levels when loaded that were not meant to be there
Earwig nymph can no longer spawn as part of a wave in freeplay
Fixed an issue where huge creature landmarks if they could not find a slot could cause all other landmarks in the current queue to not spawn
Fixed an issue where under some circumstances less lignocellulose would spawn than was supposed to in custom games
Fixed some issues preventing AI controlled Matabele ant colonies from hunting termites
Lignocellulose landmarks now can only spawn weaker termites early game, ramping up to larger ones later game
Empires of the Undergrowth at Hooded Horse Summer Sale
Until July 11th, explore the fascinating world of ants in Empires of the Undergrowth at a 35% discount. Also, check out the fantastic discounts on all Hooded Horse titles during the Steam Summer Sale.
"/> Empires of the Undergrowth is a real-time strategy game where you manage an ant colony, gather resources, and defend against predators. Check out the recent 1.0 release!
From Today Until July 11th
The discounts on Empires of the Undergrowth and all other Hooded Horse games are available through July 11th — perfect for enhancing your summer gaming experience. We're excited to see the worlds you build and the adventures you undertake.
Happy gaming!
Optional Beta - New Freeplay Titans & Bug Fixes
Along with the 5.1 titans making it into freeplay, this optional beta has a bunch of fixes and improvements to make the game more stable.
Let’s go over a few things related to these optional betas for people who haven’t participated in them before. Firstly, please note: optional betas are limited to the Steam Windows 64 bit build, and may be missing localisations in some newer or updates areas.
WARNING: YOU ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO MAKE A SAVE BACKUP
Saved games are in C:\Users[YOUR USER NAME]\AppData\Local\EotU\Saved\SaveGames
We highly recommend making a backup of your saved games before you run an optional beta, on the off-chance that some changes cause them to be corrupted. More info on where games are saved is in the Steam forums (but some of the information here will soon be obsolete, if this beta goes to plan). Copying the data in that folder to somewhere else will keep it safe from any potential issues.
Code: customtitans
If you would like to join the beta, the code is customtitans. If you don’t know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions below:
Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"
Choose the "Betas" tab
In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter customtitans
After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu
Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch.
Updates / Changes
5.1's titans can now spawn in huge creature landmarks in freeplay
Added a system to restore saves from backup in-game rather than manually (not yet localised)
Added some extra protection when reloading or quitting the game when defeat rewards are being saved
Increased save backup number to 5 (up from 3)
Bullet ant tech tree video added
Scroll added to behaviour toggles box (will only appear when needed)
Added more recent localisation for Polish and Czech
Updated lighting for custom game levels and extra levels and changed some underground tile grids to the new ones
Whip spider main menu icon is replaced if arachnophobia mode is active
Added arachnophobia hat to all hybrids
Creature stat list can now show percentages to a single decimal point
Fixes
Reduced chance of all backups corrupting
Fixed some small reverb problems in Tier 5 lab music
Food taken from dead critters should now look closer to what it comes from
Wood ants now turn to their targets before each shot
AoE resistance now displays as a percentage in the Inspect tool
Creatures mounted on another are now killed when shaken off and landing off the tile grid
Fixed low resolution shadows in Tug of War 3
Large underground creatures in 5.1 and 5.3 can now only demolish a tile if at least one of its neighbours is demolished
Quadrupled VRAM allocated to overground tile grid textures - should improve issues when rapidly moving camera around the map
Inspect tool health-per-second now includes buffs (such as the Matabele medic aura)
Fix for whip spiders rapidly pinging from their creature encounter narration in 3.2
Bullet ant species hex now used in the improvements menu
Allowed marker placement through some plants that were blocking it in 3.2
Matabele colonies should now always drop termites when they sell a tile
Creatures that reach zero health while mounted will always drop to the floor to actually die
Water on the minimap removed on 5.3
Termites will no longer take sun damage in the ending cinematic of 5.3
End game messages now say the NG+ level that has been unlocked if this is not the first NG+ completion
Corrected some issues in the credits
Fixed a ping issue in Occupation 2
Texture size optimisations (should help with some blurry issues)
Skimmer in Battle Arena will now fly and land when there are enemies at the midpoint
Fixed some overhanging moss in the final formicarium / terrarium
Fixed an issue where loading a damaged creature with a star level would restore its health
Prevented ants walking into a rock in 5.1
Fixed an issue where several ants hatch costs were being affected by upkeep in custom games
Fixed an issue where bullet ant lean pupation was not applying in custom games
Fixed an issue where UI scaling 150% would cause formicarium rewards to be off the bottom of the screen and hence unselectable
First Post-Release Newsletter! May-June 2024
We’ve put many of our best years into Empires of the Undergrowth, and it is finally released. Welcome to our first newsletter in a post-1.0 world! For all of the many new people who are joining us, you are most welcome, and we hope you’ve been enjoying the game since launch on Friday, 7th June 2024. It’s been a rollercoaster of a few days for us, to say the least, and we’ve got a lot to talk about - so let’s get to it.
Matabele ants in a custom game from Zvistic
First and foremost, thank you so much for making sure that our launch to full release was a successful one. So far, our highest concurrent player count was on the Sunday after launch - peaking at 6,367 - absolutely annihilating our previous best of 2,509 which happened nearly 2 years ago when the fire ant update was set live. These are stunning numbers for our little ant game, far higher than we could have hoped for, and we will be eternally grateful for that.
On launch day we also posted a new roadmap, detailing some of our plans for the immediate future of Empires of the Undergrowth. This newsletter will mainly deal with that, but we’ll also talk about some of the coverage that the game has been getting and how the launch itself went.
1.0 Launch
In the early evening of 7th June, we took a short break from our preparations to do a short livestream celebrating the reach of 1.0. It was great being able to take a quick breather with more than 800 of you watching at one point, and to be honest this was for us as much as it was for everyone else! The recording of the livestream is available on YouTube for anyone who would like to have a look:
We did all the traditional things you do in a launch livestream - briefly interrogate an environment artist, mix a themed cocktail, that sort of thing. Cue me getting through the entire livestream in good humour only to get emotional at the very end of it - an absolute classic. As always, a privilege to share a little about our process and our team at the end of the road. Well, at the end of this road, anyway.
The Immediate Aftermath - Roadmap
Even after a project that has done objectively fairly well for several years, you can never guarantee that that will translate to a bigger player base at the end of proceedings. Thankfully, you folks came out swinging for us, and we had both our best day of sales AND concurrent player count on launch day, up until that point (beaten over the following weekend, however!).
Roadmap:
On the day of launch we also released an updated roadmap. While our roadmaps are always subject to changes in ordering and even inclusion, it gives a good idea of what our immediate priorities are to continue content and improve what’s there. Let’s go through the roadmap now and discuss the major points in a bit more detail.
Fixes & Improvements
Our first port-of-call is to fix the inevitable list of glitches and issues that pop up when a lot more eyes are on the game all of a sudden. Obviously we did our best to get everything tested properly before release, but with a small dev team and a volunteer focus group (as well as some limited professional QA) it isn’t possible to catch everything until a whole bunch more people are seeing it. Over its long development time, Empires of the Undergrowth has become a fairly big project, after all.
Some of the very common ones have already been identified and fixed, and we in fact hope to get back to doing optional betas fairly regularly. The first of these may well be ready in the short term - so look out for that.
Savannah AO improvements - before & after
In the above pictures, we've included some improvements to the ambient occlusion system that are currently in the works in a before / after form - this should add extra detailing to bare areas like the open parts of the savannah. We hope to get this into a test build as soon as we can.
Balance
When in a closed testing environment, one of the things you have to be aware of is that everyone who is involved is at least somewhat familiar with the game and therefore things are likely to be a touch easier for them than the average player. This is really a ‘feel it out’ kinda situation, and although we’re relatively happy with how the difficulty turned out there is certainly some work to be done here. 5.1 could probably do with being a shade easier on lower difficulties, for example, but the general consensus will develop over time in what we need to be doing here.
Balance therefore won’t be one of the things that is worked on immediately (we’ll be working on glitch fixes first) but as it becomes clearer what direction we need to go in it will come a little bit later.
Tier 5 Achievements
One of the things we were a bit perturbed to have to leave out of 1.0 is achievements for the final tier of the formicarium story. This was simply a time thing, but we absolutely intend to go back in and finish off the ‘chieves for tier 5. We promise not to make them too devious this time. Maybe.
Rainforest Art Refresh
About 3 years ago we hired a dedicated environment artist to the team. The 3 core devs are all generalists, really, because that’s what you have to be with an ambitious project and a tiny team! DanC’s art has now defined the look of Empires of the Undergrowth, and the last bastion of the old style remains in the rainforest biome that the third tier of the game takes place in (as well as some extra levels and custom game maps).
A trail of leafcutter ants from Heolx
We have gone through the game and updated the earlier artwork, so the rotten log and the beach are now up-to-date with the more modern look. The rainforest was left until last, since it certainly represents the best of the older style. With 1.0 now out of the door, there’s time to go back and update the jungle to fit better into the rest of the game.
Savannah Maps
Our lovely new savannah biome has a sort of semi-arid beauty to it, and it’d be a real shame if we didn’t create some custom game maps using them! At least 2 new custom game maps using these assets are planned in the short term, perhaps with more to follow. They will of course feature the towering spires of the termite mounds, which are the primary visual feature of the savannah.
Driver ants clash with stink ants in this shot from AntBZK
CSV Setup for Custom Games
This system is still very much a work-in-progress, but the idea here is to allow users to create custom game setups via CSV (comma-separated value, or spreadsheet). It will require the users to learn a little bit about the system (we’ll provide some simple documentation when the time arrives) but it should allow for some more funky stuff to be achieved than just basic setup saving.
If this all goes to plan there’s no reason why we couldn’t open this up to the Steam workshop, and allow people to share and download clever custom game setups that way.
Ubers / Huge Creatures
We are also due some variants of the tier 5 creatures being added properly into custom games. The sun spider, African giant centipede and emperor scorpion are all due to make an appearance as huge creature landmarks in their larger or ‘titan’ forms.
The emperor awaits, from Orion (Dilphy)
5 new creatures will also get uber variants, because who doesn’t love a walking lightshow that is an existential threat to your colony? I won’t spoil all of them now, but one of them will be the uber alligatorback scorpion.
New Extra Levels
Freed from the stress of completing a nearly decade-long project to 1.0, we will have a bit more time to do some of our more fanciful / experimental (or both) levels. For those who haven’t tried them yet - making extra levels takes practically no time at all compared to the campaign, because they typically don’t involve extensive new asset and / or system creation. Given that they exist outside of the canon of the game, they also give us creative license to be more experimental and create scenarios that wouldn’t be appropriate to the campaign.
An overview of Adventure, one of the more ambitious extra levels
As the roadmap says, these extra levels may come at any time as they are devised. They take a few hours to a couple of days each to produce compared to months for the campaign, and if developer John (who has made all the extra levels thus far) gets an idea he likes he may well just do it and release it in fairly short order. We’ll try to give a little bit of a heads-up about that, though, so keep those eyes peeled!
Further Custom Game Changes
It is likely that custom games will remain an area of tweaking and changes for some time to come, and it is by far the game mode with the most subjective taste involved. Although it is very customisable, getting those default values right always takes experimentation and iteration, as well as getting the gist of player consensus as well. Another option open to us, which we haven’t used yet, is individual stat changes to creatures that are different to the campaign.
The AI is also due further tweaks and changes, and although its newer decision making system is more sophisticated than the old one by a large margin, there are still some areas where it can get stuck in a logic loop that prevents it from sending trails out, and we’ll be weeding this issues out as we continue.
Firecracker Mode
No comment. Coming 2025. Boom.
And more!
We’ll be continuing to do changes, new maps and extra levels, and perhaps even bigger updates for the foreseeable future. The roadmap will continue to be updated every 6 months, and we’re very happy to have been secured by the successful launch to continue work on the project. There is a lot more stuff we want to do, and we now have the chance to do it.
Thank You
The part of the launch live stream that turned me into a big soppy mess was when it came time to thank you, our players. You have been exceptionally kind and patient with us, as we completed our dream game and brought it to fruition, over a far longer time than we ever expected it to take us. Oh, our naivety all those years ago!
Thank you to our players, those who have contributed with testing and suggestions, our supporting artists and voice talent. Also to Hooded Horse, our co-publishers, whose guidance and superior wisdom has steered us through the trickiest part of the project.
Screenshot Central
It feels like it’s been an age since I got to do my favourite part of the newsletter, but it hasn’t even been 3 months (it feels like a year). If you’d like to contribute to this section in the future, the easiest way is to get on our Discord and post in the appropriate screenshot channel there. Alternatively, you can post to the Steam community and I will occasionally have a search through there. This month it is, predictably, tier 5-themed.
An Aloe shadow looms over the savannah from ~SlushieChris~
A basking rainbow lizard from NightEqual2374
Bonk! An emperor scorpion stuns its prey from AhYesAnts
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