We've pushed a hotfix update to Empires of the Undergrowth to fix 2 major glitches.

• Fixed an oversight with the music switch over from day to night that was crashing 2.2 Queen Of The Hill for some players
  
  This issue was missed by internal testing since it only seems to happen on certain hardware configurations and only for a small minority of players.
  
  
• Fixed an issue that was giving players 20 territory each time they returned to the formicarium
  
  An oversight in territory given to players on the upcoming 3rd tier Formicarium missions made its way into the previous build, creating an infinite territory glitch.

With the exception of a few necessary balance changes and fixes for the more recent playable builds, the team’s sole focus for the past month has been the leafcutter update. Over the past few weeks we’ve been showing off some of the progress on the creatures of Ecuadorian jungle where these levels are based. Our artist Matt has been producing amazing work to bring this sublimely rich ecosystem to life within Empires of the Undergrowth. John and Liam have been working on bringing the creatures into the game and figuring out how they interact with our leafcutters. This newsletter will therefore focus mainly on the amazing biodiversity of the rainforest setting. Without further ado, let’s get to having a look at some of these fantastic beasties!


The rainforest at night

Rove Beetles

Rove beetles are a diverse group of insects that can be found the world over - in fact, the European devil’s coach horse that’s already in the game is a kind of rove beetle. The main distinguishing feature for these beetles is the short elytra (wing coverings) that leave most of their backs exposed. Many, many species of rove beetle exist, and some of them are rainforest dwellers. They’ll come into conflict with our leafcutter ants.


Rove beetle larvae

Although leafcutters do not eat other creatures, they are fully aware that other creatures will happily eat them - and so they’ll defend themselves with the same deadly zeal that any self-respecting ant with giant slicing jaws would.



Two varieties of rove beetle adult

Spiny Devil Bush Cricket

The fearsome spiny devil bush cricket (Panacanthus varius) faces off against a leafcutter colony. Covered in defensive spines, this monster may well be guarding some of the choicest leaves for the harvest - which means it must be confronted. Bush crickets are also sometimes known as katydids.

https://youtu.be/H6ODtEzI4gs

In-game, the spiny devil's spines will mean that any creature that does damage to it will suffer some damage in return, whether or not it is actually being attacked by the cricket. It also has an area of effect bleed attack which will continue damaging the target for a time after.



The spiny devil is not idly named!

Praying Mantis

The mantids are an iconic group of insects - known for their "praying" folded forelegs and upright posture, as well as their covert hunting techniques. This particular species is a leaf-mimic praying mantis (Pseudoxyops perpulchra), specifically adapted to hide in the foliage with near-perfect leaf camouflage. In its final instar it's a voracious hunter of insects, using its natural stealth to get close to its quarry.




The leaf-mimic mantis will have a unique stealth ability reflecting its natural prowess at ambush attacks. It will not appear on the minimap - nor will its health bar be visible - until it decides to engage the player. The range at which ants can notice and attack it is also much lower than it is for more conspicuous creatures.

Army Ants

The relentless march of the army ants is legendary. These ants form large colonies, living a nomadic lifestyle. They scour the rainforest, sending out waves of workers to demolish anything in their path to feed their expanding empire. Like many species of ant, they have a distinct caste system. In these pictures we see two separate castes of Eciton burchellii - small and medium-sized workers.




Featured below is the soldier caste - analogous to the large majors that the leafcutter colonies produce. These brutes protect the flanks of the army’s trails from attack. Their large mandibles are more than capable of delivering a killing blow to any number of arthropods and a painful nip to things larger. Unless prepared for battle, it would be advisable for the denizens of the rainforest undergrowth to avoid the trails of the army ants lest they incur the wrath of their imposing protectors.




In Empires of the Undergrowth, the leafcutter colony will encounter army ants overlapping its territory. They represent a strong existential threat - unlike our leafcutters army ants readily eat meat, and the brood of a fledgling leafcutter colony would be a nutritious prize.

One Year On

As of 1st December 2018, it’s been one year since we released the early access version of Empires of the Undergrowth to you all. We’ve had incredible support, love and kindness from all of you and that makes each day we work on the project a joy. Such an ambitious project is not without its difficulties and pitfalls, particularly for such a small team, but with you guys behind us we feel we can achieve everything we’ve set out to do.

The last year has seen some big changes to not just the game, but the lives of those of us on the team. All three of the developers have been able to give up their day jobs to work exclusively on the game. Our entire lives have been restructured around it and that’s a very exciting thing.

As far as the game itself goes, we’re not too far from a huge update in the form of the leafcutter levels. We know you’re all desperate to sink your jaws into them, and we can’t wait to get them out to you. There are still some more surprises in store for this update, and we’ll be teasing a few more of them as we complete the work. Keep an eye on our social media - particularly Facebook and Twitter - for those.

So, here’s to the future! And here’s to you all, you lovely bunch. Continue being awesome.

YouTuber Highlight - Flexible Games

Flexible Games has been playing Empires of the Undergrowth diligently for several weeks now. What’s made his playthrough fun to watch for us as developers is that he’s gone into the game blind, with very little knowledge of what’s in store. Genuine reactions like this are often hard to come by, and it’s been an experience watching him get to grips with the systems. Here’s part 1 of the extensive series - he’s now completed the current campaign levels and moved on to Freeplay.

https://youtu.be/gFZMfsYr9oA

Screenshot Central

Once again it’s time to have a look through the Steam screenshot gallery for our favourite submissions of the past few weeks. As always, that’s the easiest way to get them to us (F12 by default from Steam) - but if you want you can email them directly to mike@slugdisco.com.


Testing the limits in Battle Arena in this snap from xw_elite06_wx


A funnel web spider claims a victim from z0mbiesrock


A simple, pleasing shot of a wood ant queen from M O T H

We've corrected some issues and resolved a final few things on our to-do list for Early Access V0.135. With any luck, this is likely to be our final patch before the upcoming major update (bar anything game-breaking). If you spot errors, please continue to report them in the forums, but as mentioned we're now cracking on full-steam ahead with the leafcutters!

• Creatures should no longer get stuck on grass
  
• Ladybirds will no longer leave after 10s unless they are stuck (they will now leave after 15s if stuck) and should be back to their usual aphid eating antics
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause creatures to get stuck trying to use an ability
  
• Fixed an issue where some high priority narrations could play after victory and defeat
  
• Fixed an issue on Battle Arena and Hungry Spider where the UI would be the standard one for a split second before switching to the correct one
  
• Fixed an issue where if you tried to upgrade a tile without purchasing the upgrade, then purchased the upgrade and tried again it would tell you you had not purchased the upgrade
  
• Fixed a typo on Queen of the Hill notification
  
• Fixed the spider’s slow in Hungry Spider
  
• Fixed an issue where if an ant was saved with a status effect active on it (such as poison) all future ants born from its tile would have that effect

• Attack tolerance reduced for all medium and large creatures, meaning they can no longer remain attacking once you have travelled away from them
  
• Small changes to movement behaviour on ramps
  
• Minor performance improvements with slows
  
• Movement speed changes have been unified into one system
  
• Navmesh changes should lead to more sensible creature movement around objects
  
• Freeplay ambience sounds now working
  
• Freeplay music now switches between day and night
  
• Freeplay map Towhead now uses the music tracks from Queen of the Hill
  
• Hungry Spider level full moon availability extended to 4 days from midnight the day the full moon will happen (up from 2)
  
• Added in narration that was missing from 2.2 (final morning announcement)
  
• Armour can now only reduce damage to 0.5 and no lower
  
• Reduced the armour on the Uber Beach Tiger Beetle to 2 (down from 3)
  
• Reduced the range of Uber’s basic attack to 200 (down from 300)

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


https://youtu.be/xHjECOl1TJU

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


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


All about the beach tiger beetle larvae

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


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


Towhead in all its glory

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


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


The Minor Improvements System in action

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

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



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

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



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


Swarming ants


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

https://youtu.be/L3QtFadJryI

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


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


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


One of the beautiful Ecuador maps in all its glory

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


Isn't it kind of cheating to use this?

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


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







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


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

https://youtu.be/F_GkckRsumw


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




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


A boquet of beetles by Martino


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


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

Happy Halloween! That and a few more changes to 0.13 make it the perfect time to try out the Hungry Spider level (click the cobweb on the main menu - before it disappears!). We've also made a few other changes. Notes below!

• Added warning text above the play button in level setup telling the player what they must click on to allow them to press the play button
  
• Fixed an issue where root aphids would be spawned at 0,0,0 (causing ladybirds to fly to a very strange location in top left of Towhead)

• Some balance changes have been added to Freeplay. This should allow players struggling to start a colony to get off the ground before harder creatures are about. For example setting the starting difficulty to zero will give player 15 minutes where only devil's coach horse larvae, wood worms and woodlice will spawn making the surface a lot more manageable.
  
• Medium creatures will no longer spawn below 20% difficulty in Freeplay until 15 minutes have passed
  
• Large creatures will no longer spawn below 40% difficulty in Freeplay until 30 minutes have passed
  
• Removed the word none from freeplay scoreboard
  
• The underground spider in Towhead has been replaced by a devil’s coach horse adult
  
• Fixed and issue in Freeplay not displaying the green outline of tunnels to surface before dug out
  
• Renamed map option in Towhead to Flood
  
• Fixed an issue that would flood Towhead immediately at the beginning of every play (removing all food including fish from the lower level)
  
• Fixed death sequences on Towhead (and the ghostly queen)

• Slightly increased the spider's attack and Venom Strike speed
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause the keyboard controls to stop working when trying to use an ability that is on cooldown
  
• Fixed an issue with the spider's projectile causing some particles to fly off to the bottom right
  
• Fixed a spelling mistake on the hungry spiders bite ability

We've made some changes to the recent 0.13 build and released the patch for our Mac and Linux-running friends. Hurrah! If you experience any issues with the build, please pop by our Steam forum and we'll have a look.

V0.131

• Fixed a tooltip on the improvements panel
  
• Fixed an issue on Towhead where the tiles were over the top of the southern tunnel exit
  
• Fixed an issue where pressing [ on the keyboard at any point would kill the player's queen (accidentally left in from a test)
  
• Fixed an issue where the starting workers on the demo levels were showing up grey rather than the colony colour

V0.132

• Fixed a bug where the player could stay underground in 2.1 and 2.2 and just wait to achieve victory. Now on first nest attack the player's tunnel will open automatically
  
• Fixed an issue where selecting to restart 2.1 or 2.2 would switch ant type to mortar regardless of what the player chose
  
• Fixed a lighting issue on some undergrounds that changed lighting in certain camera positions
  
• Fixed an issue on towhead causing creatures to try and shoot down cliffs but constantly failing
  
• Fixed an issue that could sometimes spawn aphids and ladybirds in walls on Freeplay
  • Additionally any that were hiding in walls will now fly off (if you had horrible speeds in a freeplay save this could be you!)

Improvements / Changes

• Made the underground spider a smaller one on Towhead

Hungry Spider level

• UI now hides in photo mode
  
• Spider can now be controlled with the pan camera controls (WSAD or Up Down Left Right by default)
  
• Increased the range of Bite and Venom Strike to 150 (up from 100)
  
• Sped up the time it takes for abilities to deal damage. Animation is still same length but damage happens sooner in it
  
• Spider thoughts have been vocalised

It’s time for an update! We’re calling V0.13 the “Interim Update” - it adds a several things that were missing from the game and prepares the path for the major update to come. Without further ado, here are the patch notes! The game should update automatically through Steam.

Please note, right now this is Windows only. Mac and Linux users - we’ve still got a few bugs (ha, ha) to work through for these builds. We’ve made significant progress on that but just ran out of time tonight and didn’t want to delay for everyone. We’re confident we can get stable builds out for you lovely people in short order, so keep your eyes on the news page!

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

• Challenge modes added to Rising Tide and Queen of the Hill
  
  • The new challenge mode introduces a new creature – the beach tiger beetle larva. This critter lies buried waiting for unsuspecting victims to walk near its trap, then snatches them away in the blink of an eye!
    
  • They will only attack if your ants are alone, and can only be damaged for a short time after attacking. Will your colony accept the losses to get the food they need, or will they rip these ambush hunters from their burrows?
• New Freeplay map – Towhead
  
  • Set on a small island near the mouth of a river, Towhead offers a much more intimate experience on the surface, with higher densities of creatures
    
  • A map option allows a periodic flooding of the lower level. This will raise your score but at the cost of possibly losing ants and resources when the waters rise
• Minor Improvements System for Formicarium colonies
  
  • Got spare Royal Jelly laying around the nest? Fear not, we have you covered! Minor improvements can be accessed by selecting any already purchased species from the tech tree and selecting the icon
    
  • The improvements start cheap and get more expensive the more you buy for a species. Each ant species has their own different improvements which complement various play styles
• What is that pesky spider’s web at the back of the lab? Could someone have a look at that for us, please?

• Main menu is now a list to make it clearer to new users what content is available
  
• Creatures now have various sizes and some sizes can pass through others (this has been done on a visually logical level for example beach tiger beetles can walk over most none massive things, where as a hermit crab cannot)
  
• Tunneling to the surface now takes multiple ants and take 5 times as much digging
  
• Threat system added. Some creature’s attacks cause them to be a more desirable target for other nearby creatures (mostly in preparation for leafcutter update)
  
• Battle Arena creatures have been put into tabs based on which tier of the game they first appear

• Creature movement has been reworked - should now have less issues, creatures should walk more centrally in corridors and should be more efficient
  
• Ants now reserve space on tiles they are taking food to. If all tiles are reserved they instead take the food towards the queen (until all tiles fill- they then drop food as they do now)
  
• Increased main menu loading speed
  
• Multiple minor optimisations made throughout
  
• Optimisation added to creatures searching for other creatures
  
• Multiple game assets have been optimised
  
• Beach texture improvements (normal and roughness masks)
  
• Improvements to pathfinding underground (many distance checks are now tile based rather than path based)
  
• All audio passed through new filters and re-recorded, female scientist audio re-recorded
  
• New audio lines added in some Formicarium challenges
  
• New audio lines added to Freeplay (start and uber spawning)
  
• Ubers are no longer affected by food scaling and will drop full food no matter the Freeplay difficulty
  
• Food size now changes slower at higher food quantities
  
• Queen chamber workers now have a crown icon
  
• Ants hatch first from queen tiles
  
• Food spend is now taken from random rooms rather than the order they were built
  
• Ants no longer drop food when attacked if combat is turned off for the group

• Tiles can no longer be tagged for dig when the game is paused
  
• Fixed a bug with food pickup that could cause food to be stored not on top of a tile
  
• Fixed an issue that would sometime cause wood ants to misfire on surface tunnels
  
• Stun, confuse and other status debuffs are now hidden in fog of war
  
• Fixed an issue where AOE attacks could be blocked if something obscured vision
  
• Fixed an issue where loaded part-built tiles would appear full built but with a job to build them
  
• Various minor bug fixes

Greetings all! We hope you've enjoyed your summer. Time moves on relentlessly, and as we chug the first pumpkin spice latte of autumn we've made significant strides in the progress of the leafcutter levels as well as plenty of other exciting things. We've recorded with our voice artists Mary Jo, Eric and Callum (Scientist 1, Scientist 2 and Narrator respectively) for the next levels and we're delighted with their work. Before we conclude our work on 3.1, 3.2 and Formicarium Challenge 3, there are some missing bits and pieces in the existing game that need finalising in preparation. Our current plan is to do an interim update between now and the leafcutter update, and that's going to be fairly soon. Let's get on to what that'll include!


A lovely green Formica ereptor colony from jasong



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



A screenshot of the beach tiger beetle larva in progress

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




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

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


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


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


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

And now, back to the leafcutter update...


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


The leafcutter queen beneath the rainforest soil


Various castes of Atta cephalotes patrol their nest

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


Illuminated by fungal growths!


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

https://youtu.be/DKB7cy8AWeI


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

https://youtu.be/mEhlDIJny8s


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

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

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


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


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

https://youtu.be/iLZ9TH3mMAc


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


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


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


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

Greetings everyone! This has been another one of those months where the general timings and various circumstances have meant we've not managed to get the newsletters done to the regular schedule - so enjoy this newsletter for both June and July! The biggest news since the last newsletter is obviously the release of Freeplay mode on the main branch. It's been available for everyone for several weeks beforehand in beta form, so those of you who were most keen are likely to have been fairly familiar with it when it finally landed for everyone on 2nd July. We've also got some great progress to show you with our next Formicarium update - Leaf Cutters ants!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm4WJl1Dq5w

The reaction to Freeplay has been very positive - you've been enjoying these longer-form games and the ability to save your progress in it has been welcomed warmly (even if getting the save system working has accelerated John's aging process!). There's still plenty we are planning to do with Freeplay mode - balance changes, more maps, more environments, more creatures, fully autonomous enemy ant colonies - all that good stuff is still in its future. For now, John has joined Liam and Matt to crank up development on the next set of levels, but Freeplay will be revisited soon. After new content is created for the next set of levels, it will be integrated into Freeplay like the content from the first two Formicarium tiers is currently.


Some crazy late-game Freeplay action here from Steam user Jumbo6565

It's been great fun seeing your Freeplay setups, from those who just want a nice chilled out, slow base-building experience to the fearless guys who crank up the difficulty all the way from the start! The current documented high score for a finished game that starts at max difficulty is very nearly 4 million on our official forums by Balanite - can you do any better?


Those of you who have been following us on our social media accounts likely know that we're deep into the creation of the next set of levels now, and we have plenty of art assets that the talented Matt has been working on. Leaf cutters are our next species of ant - Atta cephalotes to be precise, a South American species with some impressive traits. They're fungus farmers - they gather leaves from the surrounding environment and place them in chambers in their nest, where a fungus that has a mutualistic relationship with the ants will grow. The ants ensure the propagation of the fungus, and the fungus provides the ants with food.

Boasting four different worker castes, introducing this species to the game promises to bring some much-needed natural increase in complexity as the player progresses through the Formicarium campaign. Below are all of the completed ant models and a description of the caste they represent. Please note that in these pictures we've put the ants in the beach environment, for the sake of having them not floating in space - in their final levels they'll inhabit an entirely new biome - the rain forest.


No leaf is safe .... bow down to your Queen.


The mighty Leaf Cutter queen

Despite forming some of the most complex societies on Earth, Atta cephalotes is not a multi-queen species as many ants are. There is one queen who can live for up to fifteen years and she's rather large. Below you can see her compared to our fictional Formica ereptor queen (the species that inhabits your Formicarium).


The Leaf Cutter queen compared to the Formica ereptor one


The smallest members of Leaf Cutter society - the minims - are positively dwarfed by their mother. These tiny ants rarely, if ever, leave the nest - instead they work tirelessly to tend to the fungus gardens the Leaf Cutters rely upon to survive.


Minims are tiny compared to all other castes - here's one with the queen

In our current design the minims are not directly controllable by the player - in fact they're so tiny that enemies will practically ignore them too; but they can get damaged by crossfire. Rather than having their own brood chambers, a number of them will spawn for each brood tile placed for another caste. They're not just there for decoration, though - they have an important role in mulching the leaves gathered by other castes into the final form that can grow fungus.


After the minims, the next members of Leaf Cutter society are the minors. Being substantially bigger than the minims, these ants join the foraging trails, tend to larvae, cut and collect leaves, and help defend the nest from predators and other threats.


Minors will take on the EotU worker-like role

Leaf Cutter minors will take on a very similar role to the worker ants from the current species. Versatile units which form the backbone of the work force.


Next are the medium-sized media ants. These bad girls are much bigger than the minors, and they pack a serious bite with their slicing jaws. Formidable fighters in their own right, they're perfectly adapted for a life of cutting and collecting foliage for their colony's fungus gardens. A solid combat unit with strong resource gathering potential.


Now we're getting to the big girls!


In awe of the size of these ladies. Meet the Leaf Cutter majors - the deadly tanks of Atta cephalotes, and the largest of their species with the exception of the queen. These absolute units are huge soldiers - whilst they will collect leaves for the fungus gardens their main role is to fight and protect the colony. Huge muscles are housed in their heads which power mighty crushing jaws - they can easily cut through leaf, chitin and skin alike.


A Leaf Cutter major slicing effortlessly through foliage

Leaf Cutter majors will have either a "taunt" or a "stun" ability (player's choice, in the same way as rapid fire or mortar for the wood ants), representing their imposing presence on the battlefield. Taunt will make enemies want to attack them preferentially, whereas stun will temporarily disable nearby foes. Combined with their high health pool, this means they can efficiently distract whilst other units such as mediae get in extra damage to the affected creatures. They will also have an extremely powerful attack - although it is slower than that of their smaller brood mates.


A comparison of all of the Leaf Cutter castes

As you can see, Atta cephalotes is our first truly polymorphic species, with clear caste divisions throughout the colony. Although we do have "workers" and "soldiers" in the existing species, we've taken a little artistic license there since most Formica species are relatively homogeneous. Leaf Cutters show true diversity, and we're excited to get that into the game properly.

We're always a bit hesitant when it comes to estimating release dates for things - in no small part because we've proven ourselves to be pretty terrible at it. The plan on our road map says late summer - and that's still our aim. As always, this is not a promise - software development is such a complex subject that you can easily spend much longer on a problem than you thought you'd need to (and vice versa). That said, Liam will be recording with our voice actors soon and is making daily strides with his systems for fully-fledged enemy colonies, John is feeling energised after being able to work on something other than Freeplay and getting stuck into some Atta cephalotes AI action, and Matt is pumping out artwork and novel solutions to difficult stuff like vertical ant movement like it's his job. Which it is.


We sometimes like to show off some of the more aesthetically pleasing screenshots uploaded by our community - do it through Steam (F12 by default; it'll give you upload options when you end the game session), or you can email them to mike@slugdisco.com.


Good capture of Devil's Coach Horse beetle using its spray attack by KLOGO-hoPPeR


A rather pleasing nest layout from Roflcopterkklol - almost looks like a beetle!


The low light of dusk, a splash of colour from the marker, a pleasing snap by Sammiday

https://youtu.be/mm4WJl1Dq5w

Freeplay is a highly customisable game mode giving the player full control over what creatures and landmarks can spawn, how hard they want the game, how the difficulty of the game will change as time goes on and much more.


The Dunes is the largest map in the game to date, made possible through optimisation of the surface tiles allowing us to get more for the processing power. It boasts:

• 4 possible start locations for the player’s colony
  
• 120 by 120 surface tile grid (the previous biggest being 96 by 126)
  
• 80 locations for landmarks to spawn and 25 locations for creatures to spawn

Freeplay colonies can be saved and returned to later, allowing you to take your time and even try that horrible attack wave again. For now saving is manual and there is no backup; we are planning on introducing backups in a future update.

Landmarks are various interesting points on the surface. They are randomised in look, functionality and location, will appear and disappear as your game progresses and scale with the difficulty setting.

Aphid Farm
• Has between 2 and 4 patches of 10 aphids
  
• Has randomly generated plant decoration
  
• Ladybird attacks increase with difficulty
Poppy Plant
• Will intermittently drop poppy seeds; the dropped seeds have a limited lifetime
Funnel Web Nest
• Generates dead creature chunks
  
• Contains funnel web spiders that will kill nearby enemy creatures (from the player’s colony… or anything else it is big enough to take on!)
  
• Number of spiders increases with difficulty
  
• Has randomly generated stones nearby
Dead Fish
• A large source of food
  
• Will attract enemy ants
Infestation
• Attracts large group of enemies of a specific type
  
• This large group stays around the central point
  
• The size of the group increases with difficulty

In Freeplay mode creatures on the surface will duke it out with one another. However, they will not just attack anyone! Some of them will not attack larger creatures, or will ignore the smaller ones. In Freeplay every creature has a list of other creatures they do not want to fight.

The player will start in a random pre-prepared start location. These undergrounds are similar in the resources that are available but the locations of resources are different, including where they start on the surface.

If turned on, the game will slowly tick from day to night and back again. When day turns to night nocturnal creatures will come out, and diurnal creatures will hide. Some creatures are about in both time periods. A full 24 hour cycle lasts 30 minutes in game-time.

Creatures killed in Freeplay mode have a limited time to be harvested before they “spoil” and disappear (3m). Additionally, food generated by funnel web and poppy plant landmarks do the same so as to not cause too great a buildup of food.

Ubers are souped-up versions of some of the larger creatures. They can be identified by a red glow, increased size and will be announced in a message when they spawn. There are 4 types that are as difficult as each other and all provide 1000 food when killed. They take much longer to spoil than other creatures because of this (10m). The 4 types are uber hermit crab, uber beach tiger beetle, uber devil’s coach horse adult and uber beach wolf spider. Enabling Uber Creatures increases your score.

Up for a real challenge? With this enabled waves of enemies will spawn every 5 minutes after an initial setup period of 12 minutes. These wave will get stronger over time and do not drop food. How many can you survive? Enabling attack waves increases your score significantly.

Difficulty is handled differently in Freeplay mode. The difficulty changes as the game goes on and affects things such as the spawn rate of enemy creatures, how aggressive they are, how much food dead creatures drop and the difficulty of landmarks. You can set the start point of the game difficulty and how you would like it to change as the game progresses. There are several options.

• Constant – the difficulty remains at the value initially set and gets no harder.
  
• Ramp – the difficulty gradually increases at a steady rate.
  
• Spikes – the difficulty remains constant however it will spike up in difficulty every now and then. It spikes for a
• random amount and for a random length.
  
• Ramp with spikes – the difficulty steadily increases as the game progresses but will every now and then spike up in difficulty. It spikes for a random amount and for a random length.
  
• Scale With Colony – as your colony size increases so does the difficulty, meaning you should always feel a bit pressured no matter how well you are doing.
  
• Random – every so often the difficulty is randomised and stays there for a random amount of time. Note you may end up starting at some very hard difficulty.

In Freeplay, your route to the nest entrance is not dug out to begin with - giving you the freedom to plan your nest your way. You will know where the entrance is from the minimap, however you will need to tunnel to it to reach the surface.

Choose from one of the species from the campaign (currently black ants or wood ants) or chose one of your Formicarium colonies to play Freeplay with! If you choose one of your formicarium colonies all the upgrades you have chosen for that colony will be available for your Freeplay colony (note the ants themselves do not transfer, just the upgrades).

Enemies and food will be hidden from you unless you are nearby, what will be lurking for you in the shadows? Fog of war greatly increases your score!

After a certain number of tiles have been built, further tiles will begin to increase in cost. This makes the end game more challenging whilst also keeping performance high. Workers have a seperate population. This can be disabled in setup.

• You are free to build up a colony and try and survive as long as you can! You can also try to score as high as possible as you will be given a score on defeat. This score is affected by several options:
  
• 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%
  
• Disabling population upkeep reduces your score by 60%