With this update to the Freeplay beta comes saving! Due to the complexity of this there are likely to be bugs here and there and we would very much appreciate reports of them. As this will affect saves we strongly recommend you backup your saves before trying this update.

We’re close to the end of the beta period for Freeplay and it will soon be made available for all players, but if you aren’t yet participating and would like to please follow the instructions here:

• Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your games library
  
• Right-click and select “Properties”
  
• Find the "Betas" tab
  
• Enter the code "betatestants" (without quote marks) and press "Check code"
  
• Make sure you've chosen the beta from the drop-down menu
  
• The game will now update to the beta branch version

As always, thanks for your help with this. We will soon be ready to test on Mac and Linux then finally release Freeplay officially.

• Freeplay games can be saved
  
  • WARNING: Whilst we are testing this we STRONGLY recommend backing up your game before trying the new update
    
  • At present Freeplay games do not save backups themselves; we will be introducing this in the future
    
  • You will notice the Freeplay colonies you have already made available to load when you open Freeplay – these saves will be incompatible, please delete them as loading them may cause a crash (they do not have level data saved with them)
• Fog of War added to Freeplay
  
  • This hides all enemies on the surface unless you have an ant close to them
    
  • Due to the difficulty this adds, it dramatically increases your score
• Some Freeplay setup options now add a multiplier to your score
  
  • Nest invasions increases score by 50%
    
  • Uber creatures increases score by 10%
    
  • Attack waves increases score by 10%
    
  • Fog of war increases score by 150%
• Placing a marker will temporarily draw the trail the ants are likely to take to reach it
  
• All ants have an icon on them which roughly describes their role (worker, melee, ranged, tank)
  
• Hovering over a chamber will now give information about the room (ants, eggs, tile levels, storage)
  
• The nest group can now be selected and can have aggression and gathering turned on and off
  
• Realistic mode added in general options (hides tile surfer outlines, food outlines, path arrows on markers and marker icon overlays)
  
• Request to dig to surface can now be cancelled
  
• Minimap darkens as the day darkens
  
• Game will now pause when notifications are open (can be toggled on and off via notification button or option)
  
• Some tech tree icons have been updated
  
• Some furniture added to main menu screen

A screenshot showing two new features - classic RTS Fog of War (Freeplay only) and the ant trails being temporarily drawn when you place a pheromone marker

• Fixed an issue that could cause all creatures other that colony ID 0's health to be halved in Freeplay
  
• Fixed Royal Decree (thanks to Rayalot72 for reporting this)
  
• Potentially fixed issue with some hardware causing large black shadows to appear in 1_1 and 1_2
  
• Fixed a crash that could happen in levels with no surface
  
• Fixed a bug with the last chance worker in Freeplay
  
• Fixed an issue with the spawn point of waves in Freeplay
  
• Fixed some text capitalisation inconsistencies
  
• Changed title of Other Modes
  
• Fixed the "Reload last save" button in Freeplay

• Uber creature corpses can now be harvested by 8 ants at a time
  
• Stunned swirl updated
  
• Performance improvement added for rendering the upgrade overlay
  
• Several minor optimisations added

Good afternoon, morning and variations thereupon ladies and gentlemen. We're back to the monthly newsletters after the dual one last time - we're about to pick up pace on the news front! It's very near the end of the transitory phase now - all three developers are full-time on the project from now on, and we're finalising the plans for everything going forward. However, we do have to give a special mention to one of our team - John, our lead Freeplay developer, has been celebrating the arrival of his baby daughter. Congrats to him on the expansion of his colony!


The Freeplay beta is continuing and we're still digesting all of your feedback. Remember, even if you don't get a direct response from Mike or another team member for your suggestion or bug report, we are reading all of it. There's just so much to read that it's not feasible to always reply, but we do our best! John is currently finishing off the saving system. Once he's done with that and a few other pressing changes have been made, it’ll be time to put it on the main branch so that all owners of the game can play it. You can still join in the optional beta testing (without saving) right now if you haven’t yet - see the top of our previous newsletter for instructions. The beta is for Windows only, but when we put Freeplay on the main branch Linux and Mac users will also be able to access it.


A very ordered nest layout and lovely poppy display in this Freeplay playthrough by Switch

Full-Time Boys - Liam

Last time, we reported that John was able to quit his job and go full-time on the project. We're delighted to report that now, Liam has done so too - completing our trio of developers now working full-time. Up until a couple of months back, only Matt was dedicating his whole professional time to the project. We feel a bit like a record on repeat in saying it, but it's entirely true - only the support of our fans has allowed this to happen. Making the leap of leaving a long-held job for the unknown future of a home-grown project is a terrifying step - and one that we've only been able to take because of you guys. We owe you a really good game in return, and we're going to make that happen.

Enjoy these picture of Liam finishing his last day at his old academic job in Germany - getting in some last-minute ant revision, then enjoying his final currywurst before returning the the UK to work full-time on Empires of the Undergrowth.






Liam is now working full-pelt on the AI for a computer controlled colony. Whilst we have some basic AI options for colony control in the project, these currently boil down to scripted enemies with pre-built bases, sending waves out on regular timers. The current task of having a fully independent AI player, able to make informed decisions is a much taller order! This week the computer controlled colony (known in the project as “Hive Bot”) is being taught how to detect and avoid dangerous caverns whilst digging underground, or how to incorporate them into their base. For a human player, it is easy to spot the red exclamation marks hovering below the surface, but Hive Bot needs a little more help. In the picture you can see our new cavern data object; this is what the bot will see and will give it an idea of how much food and danger might be present if it digs through.


The Hive Bot's helping hand

The implication here is that AI colonies will, for all intents and purposes, operate in the same way that a human player does. They'll start off with a queen and a few workers, evaluate their surroundings, then decide on an appropriate form of expansion. The solution they decide upon will be different each time the game is played. Properly functional AI colonies are essential for our plans for the next tier of the Formicarium campaign mode, and will also be integrated into Freeplay.


A lot of thought goes into the selection of ant species we include in the game. Not least because once we commit, we have to put serious time into them! Both Formica fusca and Formica rufa were chosen primarily for being iconic temperate ant species - and the rufas obviously for their real-life acid spraying abilities, which fitted our RTS-style game rather well! For leaf cutters, we chose a fairly ubiquitous species with Atta cephalotes (picture below) which has lots of polymorphism (in-species different body shapes, allowing us to have fun with different castes of ant). In the very old versions of the game, there were many more ant species but they were much less fleshed out. Our philosophy now is definitely “less is more” - fewer species, but more love given to each one.



We’ll be showing some of the artwork for leaf cutters as we complete it. As an interesting note, we do stretch reality somewhat in the game but where we can we want to be realistic - so we recently asked one of our favourite entomology groups how they’d feel about the realism of Atta cephalotes coming into conflict with an as-yet unannounced species. They gave it the thumbs up! It’s nice to have those checks in place.


We were invited along to the Zealous Emerge awards a couple of weeks back. It was a fun event - and Empires of the Undergrowth won in the game section! Seeing that only his name is engraved on the trophy, Liam is currently taking quotes from contractors for a custom-built shelf to house it. We would like to thank the judges and the organizers for all of their help, particularly Guy Armitage who has spent the last week beating the game (but certainly not during work). We were joined in our booth by AsobiTech and their magical flying cat game Mao Mao, it's loud and colourful and should be coming to several different platforms this year. We wish them the best of luck with their launch! http://aso.bi/maomao/

https://twitter.com/asobitech/status/994667121132167169


Time to showcase some of our favourite screenshots of the past few weeks! Keep uploading your shots to Steam, or submit them via email to mike@slugdisco.net. Remember you can enter photo mode by pressing F8 (by default) to get some really cool angles for your shots.


AK_tion_47 proves he's still the king of Freeplay screenshots with this stunner


A simple but aesthetically pleasing shot of a Formica fusca queen by 3Rk4n


Welp.... Slam was unlucky enough to be attacked by two uber creatures in Freeplay. RIP.

We’ve just released our first feature-adding, bug-fixing and balance-altering update to the Freeplay beta build! We’re currently in the testing phase for Freeplay (sandbox) mode and it’s open to all owners of the game on Steam - if anyone would like to participate who currently isn’t doing so please see our most recent newsletter for details on how to join in (please note - the beta is Windows-only). Now, let’s get to the fun stuff.

• Freeplay mode now has the option for Attack Waves. These are sent at the player periodically (every eight minutes) and comprise of random creatures of increasing power. They will give you no food when killed and will not be attacked by other creatures. They offer a real challenge for those looking for something truly hard in Freeplay. Every 5 levels there are special creatures added to the pool to make the fight extra hard. Be prepared if you make it to wave 15!
  
• Battle Arena now provides some basic stats for score and survivors that can be reset. Additionally, the battle arena panels can now be hidden (and are hidden in photo mode).

• Fixed an issue where attack and gather buttons were resetting or setting erroneously
  
• Funnel Web detection area and slow is now correctly removed when the landmark disappears in Freeplay
  
• Landmark spawn locations have been moved slightly further from the map edge on The Dunes
  
• Fixed an issue meaning creatures that spawned at map edges could get stuck (mostly an issue with ladybirds)
  
• Fixed an issue where “scale with colony” Freeplay difficulty only worked if you were in a specific underground starting location
  
• Fixed an issue that centred markers on closed tunnel exits when trying to place one on them
  
• Fixed multiple issues with victory and defeat animations on various campaign levels including issues with fading in and out. Please let us know if there are any more of these.
  
• Slow resistance is considered when slowing creatures on a funnel web; larger creatures should slow down less
  
• Fixed an issue where rapid-fire wood ant purchases were activating the wrong abilities
  
• Fixed an issue where green glow effect (and others) could be applied after death
  
• When looking for food or enemies, line of sight is now only blocked by tiles. This should solve issues of food being stuck on ramps.
  
• Removed Freeplay restart button
  
• Fixed an issue causing colonies on 2_2 to no longer be allied
  
• 2_2 nest entrances now have the correct colours
  
• Fixed a graphical issue with the surface painting on 2_1 and 2_2
  
• Nest group will no longer count food and speed tiles
  
• Fixed the camera focus on Freeplay defeats
  
• Fixed an issue preventing queen abilities announcing they have been activated
  
• Fixed an issue where ants did not always die on tile deletion
  
• Fixed an issue where creatures that did not contain food could spawn a corpse
  
• Fixed an issue that would sometimes cause spiders to not walk to the end in Battle Arena
  
• Fixed an issue where after queen abilities activate the queen would stop animating
  
• Fixed an issue where hats were causing collision and nav mesh changes

• Freeplay ramp rate doubled (should get harder twice as fast in ramp game difficulties)
  
• "Scale with colony" difficulty in Freeplay now takes upgrades into account as well as colony size
  
• Enemy pack sizes in Freeplay are now affected by difficulty (should be smaller below 100% and larger above it)
  
• Food harvested in Freeplay will now spoil after 3 minutes and disappear. Should stop the map being covered in small amounts of food.
  
• On transition to night or day if nocturnal / diurnal is selected several creatures will spawn based on the current difficulty (this is to make up for the ones leaving due to nocturnal / diurnal)
  
• Main menu music will play over loading screen and will fade out as the level begins
  
• Slight optimisation added to minimap rendering
  
• Surface minimap will now fade in when tunnelling to the surface
  
• Minor performance improvements

We need help replicating these issues. If you manage to figure out how to achieve these issues we would really appreciate a step-by-step of what caused them. Additionally, any information about what was happening at the time the issue occurred will help.

• Ants getting stuck underground / appearing to want to walk into walls
  
• Creatures disappearing when attacking the queen (specifically the large Beach Tiger Beetle)

Well met, one and all, for the March / April newsletter! As many of you know, a lot has happened since our last newsletter - the most important of which is the public release of the Freeplay beta. If you weren't aware of that and would like to participate, there are details on how to do so in the rather extensive section below this arbitrary introduction. In fact, let's end this arbitrary introduction and get straight to the best bit.


There are some pretty amazing Freeplay setups - like this one from Steam user Enablin


We've been working on Freeplay - a mode without a definite endgame and intended to take a long time - since shortly after early access release. The idea is to give players the opportunity to run a colony at their own pace, and deal with threats to it as they come along. A selection of choices in how the difficulty changes means that (hopefully) it will be a different experience each time.


Want to fill your entire underground with ants? Beta tester Pontus Meths did - and it took an afternoon

Freeplay works in such a way that initial starting conditions affect the long-term outcome of the game. These are very difficult to judge, and we've been asking for feedback on it by making a public beta for all owners of the game on Steam. If you haven't heard about this yet and would like to participate, and you are on a Windows system, please follow the steps below:

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 the following code: betatestants
4) After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen the beta 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.

By doing so, you are acknowledging that this is a beta and things are not in their finished state. The biggest issue currently is that THERE IS NO SAVE FEATURE IN THE BETA. If you would like to play for a while, clear some hours in your schedule! The main Freeplay release will feature saving but that feature is not ready yet.


It's all going on in this busy Freeplay screenshot from Steam user AK_tion_47

There is a small inherent risk that save files might become corrupted when testing beta, due to the fundamental changes the game has undergone in the time since the last patch. We don't expect this to happen, but just in case 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.

The beta will be getting some changes - and we're working on the save system. Right now you can't save, but since it's a mode designed to last several hours we will want the save system working before we release it on the main branch. Your feedback is much appreciated - please visit our forums (either on Steam or our own official ones). At this point we're interested in bug reports and balance issues rather than ideas for new content. The finished update will of course be available for Mac and Linux but right now for testing purposes it's Windows-only.


Freeplay's Uber creatures in all their glory - showing their characteristic glow


In their very young days, developer John and community manager Mike (who is typing this in third person and feeling a bit weird about it) went to the GamesMaster exhibition. Back then, GamesMaster was a TV show hosted by Dominic Diamond and the late, great Sir Patrick Moore - it still exists in the form of a very popular monthly magazine. We were utterly delighted to see a review of the early access build in their most recent publication, and even more delighted when we saw how kind it was. The article only exists in print form so here we're linking a tweet by its author, Leon Hurley.

https://twitter.com/LeonHurley/status/974698523840086016


Essential to the next set of single-player levels is a fully autonomous AI to control enemy colonies - Liam, who is leading the development of this feature, has called it "HiveBot". It will work intelligently to play the game in a similar way that a human player would - digging out a nest underground, placing pheromone markers, evaluating its options, identifying sources of food and tactically deciding what and when to attack.

As well as being needed for the next set of levels (which as revealed previously will feature leaf cutter ants, Atta cephalotes), HiveBot will be integrated into Freeplay mode! The current freeplay map, The Dunes, has four underground spaces and the player is randomly assigned one of them on game setup. AI-controlled colonies will be an optional addition, cropping up in one of the unused underground spaces that the player doesn't occupy. Future Freeplay maps will follow a similar format.

In the below video, you can see the HiveBot deciding how it's going to dig out its underground nest space, both in the presence and absence of obstacles in its way. It tries to be efficient - in EotU it's usually best to build your nest chambers in a hexagonal pattern where you can, for tile efficiency - and to have corridors that ants can use to efficiently move through the nest space.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0n9uBd1iUo


The Battle Arena is a feature that is intended to help the player work out how army and creature compositions play off against each other, and due to some speedy work by John we've been able to include it in the currently active beta build along with Freeplay. If you've ever found yourself asking the question "who would win - 150 ants or 25 tiger beetles?" then you need look no further. This feature is included in the beta build detailed above but will otherwise be accessible for all players soon.

https://youtu.be/m3v1Fvh_eSI


Matt has been full-time on the project for a good long while now. John took this unassuming yet poignant selfie a few weeks back - it's him packing up the remainder of his belongings at his previous day job. John is now a full-time Slug Disco developer, and his day job is Empires of the Undergrowth! This has only been possible due to the amazing love and support you guys - our community - have given to the project. Liam will soon be joining him, and then all of our developers will be full-time on the project.


John on his last day at his old day job - he was devastated!


John and Mike took a day out to visit Harper Adams University - we set up a booth for the game at the Entomology Society outreach event. The idea is to get secondary-school aged people interested in entomology (insect studies) - and for some crazy reason the organizers thought having video games involved may help attract that clientele. This was the second time we've been to this event, and it's been a cracker both times. It's great fun meeting young people considering a career in science.

https://twitter.com/SlugDisco/status/986174575523311616



https://twitter.com/RoyEntSoc/status/986228261654007808


As always, we love seeing the interesting screenies you guys capture - so here are three of our favourites from the last few weeks! If you'd like a more interesting camera angle for your screenshot, hit F9 (by default) and follow the instructions. Please keep uploading your favorite shots to Steam - that's the easiest way for us to see them. Otherwise, email them to mike@slugdisco.com


Caught in the act of hatching - by Steam user The PILOT


A remarkably detailed yet hapless morsel - by Steam user MrDolly


An almost Brutalist nest layout in this Freeplay screenshot from Steam user Inixus

We have activated the beta for Freeplay and are opening it up to all owners on Steam! If you'd like to participate and are familiar with joining beta branches on Steam, here is your access code:

betatestants

If you're not, please follow the instructions in this post on our forums:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/463530/discussions/0/3211505894108961652/

That post also has a detailed changelog; there have been many fundamental changes to the game that this update introduces.

Note that the beta is Windows only. We're likely to release it for Mac and Linux a short while before the end of the beta period to ensure things are working properly.

As an added bonus, we're also adding in the Battle Arena at the same time! This mode allows you to test creature army compositions against each other to see how they work. Find it in the "Other Modes" main menu option along with Freeplay.

We're interested in hearing your feedback with regards to balance, glitches and crashes. Note that the beta version does not have saving, but the final release of this update will - so for now if you'd like to have a good long session, free up your afternoon!

Hi guys!

We're approaching a point where we can get Freeplay mode out, without the saving functionality. After some internal discussion we feel our closed beta testing group isn't going to be big enough for feedback for this one, since it's a complete unknown and such a hugely randomised game mode that balancing it is going to be really tricky.

So, we're going to open up a beta branch on Steam to owners who don't mind testing. There are some important caveats, please read:

• THERE IS NO SAVING YET. This is the most important one - Freeplay mode will eventually be save-able since we intend games to last several hours, but for the purposes of the beta, this functionality is not yet available. If you'd like to play a long game, please clear some time for it!
  
• There will be crashes and glitches. Our usual approach has been to really polish things before making them publicly available but in a beta things are different.
  
• Some deep fundamental changes to the way the game works means that other things may be broken - including the current campaign levels and formicarium mode. We would appreciate testing on these too.
  
• Whilst you are welcome to post ideas and suggestions, we are mainly interested in balance and bug fixing at this point. So please do not think your ideas are being ignored (we always read everything, even if we can't reply to everything) but for the sake of beta we are looking to fix the build, not expand upon it.
  
• This is not technically an "open" beta, but a beta that is available to all current Steam owners of the game. You will need to own a copy of the game activated on Steam to participate.

This will happen in the next few days. A code will be given out on our Steam forums that people can activate to access the beta branch - instructions for those unsure how to do that will be included in the post. Keep your eyes on here for announcements!

Hi all - gosh, March already! Time flies when you're having fun - and for that reason it certainly flies when you're developing a game about ants. We've recently been assessing the way we tell you all about the future of the project, and we realize there's a deep need for us to communicate better - as we posted in a mini-update a couple of weeks ago. Although we have been developing Empires of the Undergrowth for several years, we only launched on Steam in December and therefore we're new to having a big community that we have responsibilities to. We want you guys to feel justifiably assured that things are progressing well (as they are) - and for this reason we're going to be doing our best to communicate here. We've been doing these newsletters for some time - but this is the first time we've worked out that we can actually post them properly formatted to Steam, rather than just a link to elsewhere. Always learning.


Screenshot credit: Garenator on Steam

We're certain that we don't want to rush - and that's always been the case. Our modus operandi has been quality first - ultimately, we're making our dream game here and we want it to be great just as much as you do. Given our limited resources (our team size is 3) we've made decisions - like not releasing small, incremental updates and instead focusing on the bigger picture with larger updates. That's because the whole process of an update is a drain of resources and time. In a larger team or for a game of lesser scope, this might be doable. We feel we're in the right place here.

With that clarified, due to many understandable requests, we've made what is often referred to by makers of early access products as a "road map".


A road map refers to a rough outline of how a developer intends their project to progress. It's usually an abridged version of the internal plan the developer has, as it is in our case. This is ours for the remainder of 2018.



You'll notice that it's rather vague - this is deliberate; as we'll talk about later in the newsletter - software development is so unpredictable that even the most seasoned veterans have real difficulty in pinning down exact release dates. However, you can see that we plan on releasing the third tier of the Formicarium in the summer (Major Update 1), and the Freeplay mode before that. All of this, by necessity, comes with the caveat that it's subject to change.


John, after moving house, has been continuing his work on Freeplay mode. He's recently been working on the vast amount of options that the mode will allow - the difficulty slider will feed in to many different things that affect how the game will play. In this stream recorded in February, you can see him tweaking things such as creature temperament, and connecting all the disparate systems that need to work in harmony in order for this game mode to become a reality.


A poppy head "landmark" - this will drop seeds for your colony in Freeplay

It's clear from the complexity of Freeplay that a lot of its enjoyment factor will come down to the setting of parameters - and for this reason it's definitely going to be a mode that will be balanced and tweaked extensively. We're going to need your feedback on that one - and that brings us to the matter of when we release it. As mentioned earlier (and is discussed more extensively below) deciding on an exact release date in this line of work is folly until you're sure - and even giving vague guesstimates is usually pointless. The best we can give on this is "a few weeks". We hope you guys understand why.


A tiger beetle guards a dead fish in Freeplay

John is continuing his streaming after a short break for the aforementioned house move - it's usually on a Thursday afternoon, Greenwich mean time. For now, John is working the notice on his day job and that will continue until the Easter break. After that, he's a bona fide full-time Empires of the Undergrowth developer and the streams are likely to become more scheduled and regular.


A landmark occupied by aphids - landmarks can take a wide variety of forms.


As previously announced, the next species of ant added to the game will be Atta cephalotes - a South American leaf cutter ant. These ants don’t eat meat - although they can give you a particularly nasty defensive nip with those huge mandibles, they're in it purely for the leaves. The colony forms distinct trails as it searches for suitable leaves, before cutting them down in a variety of ways and transporting them back to the nest. Here, the leaves decompose due to a mutual relationship the ants have with a special kind of fungus - and it is the fungal growth itself that the ants feed upon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysiP1ZRL808

Although we've had a bit of variation of sizes between ants before (between workers, soldiers and upgraded ants) that's just peanuts to leaf cutters. Atta cephalotes is a very distinctly polymorphic species - meaning it has within it several "castes" of ant that exhibit obviously different traits. The "minors" are undeniably tiny compared to the "majors" - which can be several times as long and more than 100 times the mass of the minors. They have unusually-shaped heads that house the huge muscles needed to power their slicing jaws. There is also an intermediate "medium" caste.

An Atta cephalotes major, giant mandibles and head muscles visible. Photo by Alex Wild.

In our game, the majors will certainly be formidable in combat - huge, imposing and a target for enemies (we will be introducing a "taunt" mechanic that makes enemies want to attack them preferentially). However, all 3 of the castes will be intrinsically involved in what leaf cutters do best - cutting leaves. Each one will have a distinct role that, when used efficiently, will speed up production of your colony-sustaining fungus. We don't want to spoil it too much, so we'll leave it there for now!


So, a bit of self-reflection and commentary on development as a whole for this section of the newsletter. "When it's done" has become a meme relating to game development for good reason. We suddenly have a large audience - and with that comes expectations. That’s been a bit daunting but we'd like to think we're learning quickly from the experience.

Delays are frustrating for both developers and consumers. It’s a considerable risk to even give an estimate of when a feature or product will be ready without total certainty. A recent example of that unexpectedness for us is the way that we've been decorating our levels - the Unreal Engine that powers our game has changed in such a way that the method we were using is no longer viable. So, Matt has been working on a custom plugin to help him do the artwork - as a necessity, but it's a drain on time we couldn't have predicted before it happened. On the plus side, in this case - the new method comes with a performance boost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wf8c8wO3CU
In 2015 we failed our first Kickstarter - and took a philosophical approach to our failings. We're always learning.

Communication is key - from the point of view of our small team of 3 developers and 1 social media guy, 3 months is not a long time between updates - however, in the eyes of the consumer who is used to quick patches for their games, it sets off alarm bells that the game is abandoned (we've heard that word used more than once in concerned forum posts). This isn't the case - we're just a smaller team and things are going to take time to be done properly. We don't have the resources of the team behind the excellent Factorio, for example.

In a small way the early access model doesn't help these concerns - people know they are paying for an incomplete product and therefore have to have some faith that the investment they're making now will be returned by a great complete product. We'd just like to assure you all that things are progressing well, and the deep transitional phase that Slug Disco is currently undergoing will soon be finished. Once is it, we'll have 3 full-time developers working on Empires of the Undergrowth.


We like to trawl through the Steam screenshots of EotU every so often. Here's a few of our favorites from the past few weeks! To get some great screenshots yourself press F9 (by default) in-game to enter Photo Mode.


It's all about that butt - because that's where the eggs come from. Credit: Serafine


Invaders! Credit: Charles the Bald


Sorry, but our queen is hungry. Credit: vervedan

Hi all - gosh, March already! Time flies when you're having fun - and for that reason it certainly flies when you're developing a game about ants. We've recently been assessing the way we tell you all about the future of the project, and we realize there's a deep need for us to communicate better - as we posted in a mini-update a couple of weeks ago. Although we have been developing Empires of the Undergrowth for several years, we only launched on Steam in December and therefore we're new to having a big community that we have responsibilities to. We want you guys to feel justifiably assured that things are progressing well (as they are) - and for this reason we're going to be doing our best to communicate here. We've been doing these newsletters for some time - but this is the first time we've worked out that we can actually post them properly formatted to Steam, rather than just a link to elsewhere. Always learning.


Screenshot credit: Garenator on Steam

We're certain that we don't want to rush - and that's always been the case. Our modus operandi has been quality first - ultimately, we're making our dream game here and we want it to be great just as much as you do. Given our limited resources (our team size is 3) we've made decisions - like not releasing small, incremental updates and instead focusing on the bigger picture with larger updates. That's because the whole process of an update is a drain of resources and time. In a larger team or for a game of lesser scope, this might be doable. We feel we're in the right place here.

With that clarified, due to many understandable requests, we've made what is often referred to by makers of early access products as a "road map".


A road map refers to a rough outline of how a developer intends their project to progress. It's usually an abridged version of the internal plan the developer has, as it is in our case. This is ours for the remainder of 2018.



You'll notice that it's rather vague - this is deliberate; as we'll talk about later in the newsletter - software development is so unpredictable that even the most seasoned veterans have real difficulty in pinning down exact release dates. However, you can see that we plan on releasing the third tier of the Formicarium in the summer (Major Update 1), and the Freeplay mode before that. All of this, by necessity, comes with the caveat that it's subject to change.


John, after moving house, has been continuing his work on Freeplay mode. He's recently been working on the vast amount of options that the mode will allow - the difficulty slider will feed in to many different things that affect how the game will play. In this stream recorded in February, you can see him tweaking things such as creature temperament, and connecting all the disparate systems that need to work in harmony in order for this game mode to become a reality.


A poppy head "landmark" - this will drop seeds for your colony in Freeplay

It's clear from the complexity of Freeplay that a lot of its enjoyment factor will come down to the setting of parameters - and for this reason it's definitely going to be a mode that will be balanced and tweaked extensively. We're going to need your feedback on that one - and that brings us to the matter of when we release it. As mentioned earlier (and is discussed more extensively below) deciding on an exact release date in this line of work is folly until you're sure - and even giving vague guesstimates is usually pointless. The best we can give on this is "a few weeks". We hope you guys understand why.


A tiger beetle guards a dead fish in Freeplay

John is continuing his streaming after a short break for the aforementioned house move - it's usually on a Thursday afternoon, Greenwich mean time. For now, John is working the notice on his day job and that will continue until the Easter break. After that, he's a bona fide full-time Empires of the Undergrowth developer and the streams are likely to become more scheduled and regular.


A landmark occupied by aphids - landmarks can take a wide variety of forms.


As previously announced, the next species of ant added to the game will be Atta cephalotes - a South American leaf cutter ant. These ants don’t eat meat - although they can give you a particularly nasty defensive nip with those huge mandibles, they're in it purely for the leaves. The colony forms distinct trails as it searches for suitable leaves, before cutting them down in a variety of ways and transporting them back to the nest. Here, the leaves decompose due to a mutual relationship the ants have with a special kind of fungus - and it is the fungal growth itself that the ants feed upon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysiP1ZRL808

Although we've had a bit of variation of sizes between ants before (between workers, soldiers and upgraded ants) that's just peanuts to leaf cutters. Atta cephalotes is a very distinctly polymorphic species - meaning it has within it several "castes" of ant that exhibit obviously different traits. The "minors" are undeniably tiny compared to the "majors" - which can be several times as long and more than 100 times the mass of the minors. They have unusually-shaped heads that house the huge muscles needed to power their slicing jaws. There is also an intermediate "medium" caste.

An Atta cephalotes major, giant mandibles and head muscles visible. Photo by Alex Wild.

In our game, the majors will certainly be formidable in combat - huge, imposing and a target for enemies (we will be introducing a "taunt" mechanic that makes enemies want to attack them preferentially). However, all 3 of the castes will be intrinsically involved in what leaf cutters do best - cutting leaves. Each one will have a distinct role that, when used efficiently, will speed up production of your colony-sustaining fungus. We don't want to spoil it too much, so we'll leave it there for now!


So, a bit of self-reflection and commentary on development as a whole for this section of the newsletter. "When it's done" has become a meme relating to game development for good reason. We suddenly have a large audience - and with that comes expectations. That’s been a bit daunting but we'd like to think we're learning quickly from the experience.

Delays are frustrating for both developers and consumers. It’s a considerable risk to even give an estimate of when a feature or product will be ready without total certainty. A recent example of that unexpectedness for us is the way that we've been decorating our levels - the Unreal Engine that powers our game has changed in such a way that the method we were using is no longer viable. So, Matt has been working on a custom plugin to help him do the artwork - as a necessity, but it's a drain on time we couldn't have predicted before it happened. On the plus side, in this case - the new method comes with a performance boost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Wf8c8wO3CU
In 2015 we failed our first Kickstarter - and took a philosophical approach to our failings. We're always learning.

Communication is key - from the point of view of our small team of 3 developers and 1 social media guy, 3 months is not a long time between updates - however, in the eyes of the consumer who is used to quick patches for their games, it sets off alarm bells that the game is abandoned (we've heard that word used more than once in concerned forum posts). This isn't the case - we're just a smaller team and things are going to take time to be done properly. We don't have the resources of the team behind the excellent Factorio, for example.

In a small way the early access model doesn't help these concerns - people know they are paying for an incomplete product and therefore have to have some faith that the investment they're making now will be returned by a great complete product. We'd just like to assure you all that things are progressing well, and the deep transitional phase that Slug Disco is currently undergoing will soon be finished. Once is it, we'll have 3 full-time developers working on Empires of the Undergrowth.


We like to trawl through the Steam screenshots of EotU every so often. Here's a few of our favorites from the past few weeks! To get some great screenshots yourself press F9 (by default) in-game to enter Photo Mode.


It's all about that butt - because that's where the eggs come from. Credit: Serafine


Invaders! Credit: Charles the Bald


Sorry, but our queen is hungry. Credit: vervedan

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!