Hi ant fans! We're increasingly hearing complaints that we're not being communicative enough. We do our best - but we're new to this, so we're always learning. This isn't going to be a full newsletter (that will likely come next week) but just a bit of a round-up of what we're up to currently.



We've heard a lot of people fearing that the project is abandoned or in trouble due to a lack of updates - far from it! In fact the game has been successful enough on Steam that all 3 of our developers have been able to quit their day jobs and will soon (but not yet) be working full time on the game! Given the small size of the team we prefer to release larger, more complete updates rather than lots of smaller ones. Every time we update development is slowed for the testing and compiling processes - so you can see why this is our preferred model.

All 3 of our developers will, from April, be working full-time on the project. Naturally the pace of work will speed up then, but please be aware that 2 of the 3 are still working their day jobs up until then. So please welcome John and Liam, the newest full-time Slug Disco employees!


Thanks to Exquisite Bolagnese for this screenshot!

We'd hoped to get Freeplay mode out to you in February, but that is unlikely now and it's looking more like March. These things happen all the time in game development (as I'm sure you're aware - even the really big developers have trouble pinning down release dates for features) and although it's frustrating we're not going to give you something we feel isn't fun and worth playing.

We are doing some new stuff for Freeplay - check out this poppy head model! This is one of several "landmarks" that can appear in a Freeplay map - the landmarks will take random forms on loading. The poppy heads will drop seeds for your ants, giving you a regular food supply - but free food won't go unnoticed.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TB4sEA6j10

We've recently finalized our plans for the third formicarium tier - which will feature leaf cutter ants (Atta cephalotes). The mechanics they'll use to harvest leaves for food will be integrated closely with the different castes that exist in their society - which includes really huge Major ants, as well as Medium and Minor castes. We're excited to be adding some more complexity to the game mechanics in the levels going forward.

And finally, we're working on the challenge mode for 2.1 and 2.2. "Ant" and "lion" should rarely be uttered in the same sentence, let alone the same word!

Hi ant fans! We're increasingly hearing complaints that we're not being communicative enough. We do our best - but we're new to this, so we're always learning. This isn't going to be a full newsletter (that will likely come next week) but just a bit of a round-up of what we're up to currently.



We've heard a lot of people fearing that the project is abandoned or in trouble due to a lack of updates - far from it! In fact the game has been successful enough on Steam that all 3 of our developers have been able to quit their day jobs and will soon (but not yet) be working full time on the game! Given the small size of the team we prefer to release larger, more complete updates rather than lots of smaller ones. Every time we update development is slowed for the testing and compiling processes - so you can see why this is our preferred model.

All 3 of our developers will, from April, be working full-time on the project. Naturally the pace of work will speed up then, but please be aware that 2 of the 3 are still working their day jobs up until then. So please welcome John and Liam, the newest full-time Slug Disco employees!


Thanks to Exquisite Bolagnese for this screenshot!

We'd hoped to get Freeplay mode out to you in February, but that is unlikely now and it's looking more like March. These things happen all the time in game development (as I'm sure you're aware - even the really big developers have trouble pinning down release dates for features) and although it's frustrating we're not going to give you something we feel isn't fun and worth playing.

We are doing some new stuff for Freeplay - check out this poppy head model! This is one of several "landmarks" that can appear in a Freeplay map - the landmarks will take random forms on loading. The poppy heads will drop seeds for your ants, giving you a regular food supply - but free food won't go unnoticed.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TB4sEA6j10

We've recently finalized our plans for the third formicarium tier - which will feature leaf cutter ants (Atta cephalotes). The mechanics they'll use to harvest leaves for food will be integrated closely with the different castes that exist in their society - which includes really huge Major ants, as well as Medium and Minor castes. We're excited to be adding some more complexity to the game mechanics in the levels going forward.

And finally, we're working on the challenge mode for 2.1 and 2.2. "Ant" and "lion" should rarely be uttered in the same sentence, let alone the same word!

Good morning, evening and variations thereupon everyone - we've compiled and posted our January newsletter for 2018! The newsletter focuses mainly on the upcoming Freeplay mode (which we hope to have out to you in its basic form in a few weeks).

You can see the full thing on our website. We go into quite fine detail of what is currently being worked on for Freeplay - a potentially endless game mode where you can build your colony at your own pace, save it, and come back to it as and when you want. Some other games call this sort of feature "sandbox" or similar.

http://slugdisco.com/january-2018-newsletter/

Good morning, evening and variations thereupon everyone - we've compiled and posted our January newsletter for 2018! The newsletter focuses mainly on the upcoming Freeplay mode (which we hope to have out to you in its basic form in a few weeks).

You can see the full thing on our website. We go into quite fine detail of what is currently being worked on for Freeplay - a potentially endless game mode where you can build your colony at your own pace, save it, and come back to it as and when you want. Some other games call this sort of feature "sandbox" or similar.

http://slugdisco.com/january-2018-newsletter/

Note these are minor fixes added for a couple of issues that have come to light recently. Mac and Linux users do not yet have these hot fixes and so we recommend turning Arachnophobia mode off for these users. We will get fixes for those platforms up as soon as we can!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed and issue with Arachnophobia Mode festive hats causing wood ants to not be able to attack the spiders
  
• Fixed an issue where the cavern tunnelled into south of your queen in the formicarium did not refund territory spent to mark it
  
• Main menu link to the forum now takes you to the correct forum landing page

Note these are minor fixes added for a couple of issues that have come to light recently. Mac and Linux users do not yet have these hot fixes and so we recommend turning Arachnophobia mode off for these users. We will get fixes for those platforms up as soon as we can!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed and issue with Arachnophobia Mode festive hats causing wood ants to not be able to attack the spiders
  
• Fixed an issue where the cavern tunnelled into south of your queen in the formicarium did not refund territory spent to mark it
  
• Main menu link to the forum now takes you to the correct forum landing page

For now this is available in windows. We will try and get the mac and linux builds up in the next couple of days!

At the moment these are still mostly bug fixes, however there are a couple of balance changes and additions in there as well! We very much appreciate your feedback and do keep letting us know if any issues occur.

Additions and Improvements

• Added photo mode:
  
  • Please note - this is an early feature. It is fully possible to see off the edge of the map or inside the terrain with this feature. Additionally, there are some issues with shadows that will be looked into in forthcoming builds
    
  • By default F9 will enter photo mode. This Pauses the game, hides the UI and gives you control of a unique camera allowing you to get closer screenshots and interesting angles. Additionally, you can unpause and re-pause the game whilst in this mode. Note the photo mode camera is tethered to a limited distance from the initial point the camera was activated
• Digging out the tunnel to the surface is now done in the same way as tagging any other tile to dig
  
• Formicarium ability purchases can now be swapped for the other (but for the full cost)
  
• Subtle increase of light levels underground
  
• Formicarium challenge mission button graphic updated to make it more obvious it is a mission
  
• Alert message added about seeds dropping on the surface each time you receive seed rewards
  
• Changes to Mac build to allow lower OS requirements
  
• Updates to Formica ereptor queen animations
  
• OpenGL has been added to windows (considered alpha)

Balance Changes

• Beach wolf spider nest behaviour has been changed - It will now path to random nursery tiles for 40 - 60s. During this time it will not attack the queen. This should give players time to respond to the attacks even if they have nurseries right next to the queen.
  
• Pop cap changed to 100 / 125 / 150 (from 50 / 100 / 150) allowing more ants to be used for formicarium challenge 1
  
• 2.1 Night creatures will now attack the player if they are attacked at night
  
• 2.1 When a night creature takes damage on the surface it may attract other night creatures (1 every 5 seconds) to its location

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where dead spiders (and possibly other creatures) could not be harvestable if they die on top of the surface tunnel (let us know if this still happens)
  
• Fix added for mass of eggs appearing at the queens rear. This was caused by a tile being deleted before it received an egg. The job is now removed as well as any eggs currently in transit to the tile
  
• Collision shape fixes for surface tunnel - ants should no longer get stuck in the walls
  
• Creature instant kills (water, spiders, tile removals) now always kill the creature
  
• Fixed an issue where upgrading an ant would not update its maximum health stat
  
• Fix added where pheromone markers placed on tunnel exit could sometime hit an invisible sphere and end up in the sky - the ants could not reach it and froze
  
• Removed code that stopped multiple version of the game being open at the same time (It was happening if you had any Unreal Engine game open which has undesired effects)
  
• Large Beach Wolf Spider devour ability now removes the ant it eats, rather than the ant floating in the air, along with other fixes for the ability
  
• Possible fix added for Oculus Home opening when the game was started. Let us know if this is still happening!
  
• Fix added for surface torch being on in the ending cutscene
  
• Fixed some pebbles in 2.1
  
• Disabled access to the wiki from the tech tree (currently wiki only has placeholder text)
  
• Time bonus has been removed for levels 2.1 and 2.2, as these levels cannot be completed any faster
  
• Fix added to reduce (and hopefully prevent) creatures getting stuck when moving from above to below ground
  
• Fixed some issues that could cause eggs to be dropped on floor where there is no nursery
  
• Fixed some issues where text would appear un-wrapped then suddenly wrap in tooltips
  
• Royal Jelly tooltip in tech tree corrected
  
• Fixed a typo on the rapid fire wood ant tooltip
  
• Fixed a typo in challenge mode

For now this is available in windows. We will try and get the mac and linux builds up in the next couple of days!

At the moment these are still mostly bug fixes, however there are a couple of balance changes and additions in there as well! We very much appreciate your feedback and do keep letting us know if any issues occur.

Additions and Improvements

• Added photo mode:
  
  • Please note - this is an early feature. It is fully possible to see off the edge of the map or inside the terrain with this feature. Additionally, there are some issues with shadows that will be looked into in forthcoming builds
    
  • By default F9 will enter photo mode. This Pauses the game, hides the UI and gives you control of a unique camera allowing you to get closer screenshots and interesting angles. Additionally, you can unpause and re-pause the game whilst in this mode. Note the photo mode camera is tethered to a limited distance from the initial point the camera was activated
• Digging out the tunnel to the surface is now done in the same way as tagging any other tile to dig
  
• Formicarium ability purchases can now be swapped for the other (but for the full cost)
  
• Subtle increase of light levels underground
  
• Formicarium challenge mission button graphic updated to make it more obvious it is a mission
  
• Alert message added about seeds dropping on the surface each time you receive seed rewards
  
• Changes to Mac build to allow lower OS requirements
  
• Updates to Formica ereptor queen animations
  
• OpenGL has been added to windows (considered alpha)

Balance Changes

• Beach wolf spider nest behaviour has been changed - It will now path to random nursery tiles for 40 - 60s. During this time it will not attack the queen. This should give players time to respond to the attacks even if they have nurseries right next to the queen.
  
• Pop cap changed to 100 / 125 / 150 (from 50 / 100 / 150) allowing more ants to be used for formicarium challenge 1
  
• 2.1 Night creatures will now attack the player if they are attacked at night
  
• 2.1 When a night creature takes damage on the surface it may attract other night creatures (1 every 5 seconds) to its location

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where dead spiders (and possibly other creatures) could not be harvestable if they die on top of the surface tunnel (let us know if this still happens)
  
• Fix added for mass of eggs appearing at the queens rear. This was caused by a tile being deleted before it received an egg. The job is now removed as well as any eggs currently in transit to the tile
  
• Collision shape fixes for surface tunnel - ants should no longer get stuck in the walls
  
• Creature instant kills (water, spiders, tile removals) now always kill the creature
  
• Fixed an issue where upgrading an ant would not update its maximum health stat
  
• Fix added where pheromone markers placed on tunnel exit could sometime hit an invisible sphere and end up in the sky - the ants could not reach it and froze
  
• Removed code that stopped multiple version of the game being open at the same time (It was happening if you had any Unreal Engine game open which has undesired effects)
  
• Large Beach Wolf Spider devour ability now removes the ant it eats, rather than the ant floating in the air, along with other fixes for the ability
  
• Possible fix added for Oculus Home opening when the game was started. Let us know if this is still happening!
  
• Fix added for surface torch being on in the ending cutscene
  
• Fixed some pebbles in 2.1
  
• Disabled access to the wiki from the tech tree (currently wiki only has placeholder text)
  
• Time bonus has been removed for levels 2.1 and 2.2, as these levels cannot be completed any faster
  
• Fix added to reduce (and hopefully prevent) creatures getting stuck when moving from above to below ground
  
• Fixed some issues that could cause eggs to be dropped on floor where there is no nursery
  
• Fixed some issues where text would appear un-wrapped then suddenly wrap in tooltips
  
• Royal Jelly tooltip in tech tree corrected
  
• Fixed a typo on the rapid fire wood ant tooltip
  
• Fixed a typo in challenge mode

*EDIT* This patch is now available for Mac, Linux and Windows.

This is a very small patch that fixes a couple of the most major issues (and a typo).

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a major bug that caused loading to sometimes create duplicate ants. These ants did not die when their tiles were deleted.
  
• Fixed a crash caused by the above duplicated ants attempting to assign themselves to deleted tiles (this is what has been causing the formicarium load crash)
  
• Fixed a crash on game startup caused by loading time taking longer than 30s. We have now allowed 60s for the game to start up before it crashes. Please let us know if you are still having issues with this after the patch
  
• Fixed an issue where Prevent Gather tooltip would display the hot key for Remove Marker