We’ve updated the currently-running optional beta - this will only affect you if you're participating in said currently-running optional beta, detailed in this post.

• Freeplay teams implemented - AI colonies in freeplay can now be assigned a team (including allied with the player)
  
• If the player places a marker on an enemy colony, AI allies will join the attack if it deems it sensible
  
• Allied players ping the minimap when they themselves are attacking an enemy colony to let the player know
  
• AI allies will join in each other's attacks on enemy colonies
  
• Conquest victory condition now takes into account allies
  
• Counterpart colony will now be available to play in freeplay once you beat extra level “The Other Foot” (you will need to beat it again if you already have done so; difficulty doesn’t matter)

• Royal Guard are now immune to stun, confuse, pickup and execute
  
• Royal Guard health increased to 200 (up from 120)
  
• AI colonies now build more rooms and should have a more sensible distribution of ants in their marker groups
  
• Formica ereptor AI colonies can now build from the entire pool of ants available to them (even those unlocked by editing the save files)
  
• Formica ereptor AI colonies will now build up to 4 species in freeplay
  
• Infestation landmark is now defaulted to off
  
• AI now turns off harvesting and turns on attacking when going into combat with a colony and turns both on when leaving combat with a colony
  
• AI cheats now have bigger pre-built bases at lower difficulties
  
• AI cheats now have smaller pre-built bases and higher difficulties
  
• AI cheats now have more starting resources at lower difficulties

• Fixed an issue where switching from evasive worker upgrade would leave the camouflage on
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause the first wave to have no creatures in Extremis
  
• Fixed an issue where creatures spawned on lab formicarium 2 after returning from a mission could be stuck slightly in the ground. The previously friendly spiders will now immediately attack; F in comments for spiderbro :(
  
• Fixed a bug where reloading a freeplay game that has no manual save would cause the map to load in its default setup without workers or queen tiles
  
• Fixed an issue where an AI colony ants could be carrying eggs on the surface
  
• If no AI player exists and Conquest is selected a Formica fusca colony is added in freeplay
  
• Fixed an issue where leafcutters were climbing empty plant leaves
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause AI colonies to attack player 0 even if no colony exists in the game with that ID (AI ants will no longer attack inactive nests)
  
• Fixed the revenge mechanic for AI colonies; they will now be more likely to attack a player that has killed some of their ants recently
  
• Fixed an issue where the whip spider (and other large enemies) could potentially skip the line-of-sight check if switching targets while an enemy is actually visible (stops whip spider attacking ants above it on the ridge)
  
• Minor improvement to target acquisition efficiency for abilities
  
• Fixed an issue where only 20 refuse was removed when cancelling a build or upgrade job rather than the full amount that was created
  
• Check added to prevent save files read-only crash and appropriate error message given to player
  
• Fixed an issue where resource numbers could appear to float upwards when food drops close to and behind the camera
  
• Fixed a crash that would occur when loading a level with pre-set leaves

An update to the currently running beta has been released - this will only affect you if you're participating in the currently-running optional beta, detailed in this post.

Here are the notes for this beta release:

• Fixed an issue where formicarium colony’s territory and jelly were set to zero and tunnel exit closed. (If you saved a formicarium in this state we advise restoring it from a backup, detailed here)
  
• Fixed an issue where Tug of War map would display formicarium rewards at the end
  
• Enemy ants should no longer provide vision in freeplay with Fog of War active
  
• Fixed an issue where freeplay enemy colonies unit selection was the opposite of what was chosen
  
• Fixed the game icon

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

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

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

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

You will find your saves on Windows in:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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


Taking down an uber Spiny Devil from Steam user BrickyGraph631


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


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


The Solenopsis invicta queen


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


Some workers with their queen


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


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


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


Fire ant animations


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


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


Solenopsis invicta worker vs Atta cephalotes minim


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


I wouldn’t mess with either of them, TBH



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

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

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




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

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



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

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

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

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


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

https://youtu.be/BHWclleyCu0


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


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



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



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

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



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

Some fairly significant balance changes for the game in today’s patch, as well as important updates to localisation and a bunch of fixes and minor changes, all detailed below!

Thanks to Raptorr575 for the screenshot used in the artwork for this post!

• Updated translations for Russian, German, Chinese and Spanish
  
• Fixed some interface element issues that could occur in some languages

• Story now always highlights if the player does not have a formicarium colony
  
• Small army ants (media) now cost 3 to hatch down from 5 (this will affect both formicarium challenge 3 and an upcoming extra level)
  
• The ‘Evasive’ worker ability now avoids damage 60% of the time down from 95% and the workers are now camouflaged (enemy creatures need to be a lot closer to see them)
  
• Leaf landmarks in freeplay now regenerate every 5 minutes up from 4
  
• Aggrandise balance: Hard and Insane mode now have slightly more food available (an extra 10% of each creature’s base level food)
  
• Aggrandise balance: The fish provides 50 more food in Insane and 100 more food in Hard
  
• Aggrandise balance: Woodlice and woodworm will not wander about and are located closer to the player’s starting location
  
• Aggrandise balance: There is now a 3 tile wide access route between the player and the huge whip spider. If it or its two bodyguards are disturbed they will all now attack the player’s queen
  
• Freeplay now has an autosave feature. The time between saves can be set from the options menu. When loading a freeplay save you can choose to load the most recent save, the autosave or the manual save. Load most recent save from the in-game menu will now load whichever of those is most recent

• Tooltip for allied colony minimaps no longer says you need to be in their colony to see them
  
• Fixed an issue where the new ubers had incorrect (low) food values and too few harvesting points
  
• Pebbles will now be removed from web landmarks even in loaded games
  
• Fixed some issues with ants falling through ramps
  
• Fixed an issue where sometimes in freeplay egg collection would take multiple attempts
  
• Moved a problematic pebble in 2.1
  
• Fixed an issue with player starting ants being grey in an upcoming extra level
  
• Balance changes and fixes for upcoming extra levels
  
• Fixed an issue where the nest group marker could be placed via the minimap
  
• Fixed an issue on 2.1 where a voice line was not playing
  
• Creatures that do not wander such as wolf spiders can no longer stay still if they are inside a nest entrance (fixes the issue on Baby Sitting with the wolf spider hiding in the allied nest entrance)
  
• Potential fix for ladybirds being harvestable after they have flown away
  
• Fixed an issue in freeplay setup where play difficulty would not change if changed from advanced game setup
  
• Fixed an issue on 2.2 where a ramp near an enemy colony was trapping ants (the dreaded BOX 4 has been removed)
  
• Collision updated for cliff edges; should mitigate some movement issues
  
• Movement robustness improved around ramps (gaps should be removed)
  
• Fixed an issue allowing players to name their colony with the same name twice (or no name)

Welcome to our March / April 2020 newsletter! First of all, I'll address the corona-elephant in the room and hope that you and your families are staying safe during the lockdown. Let's all remember to be kind to everyone, especially to ourselves, during this pandemic. Let's hope things return to normal in a safe and steady manner. Play some video games, read a book, keep in touch with your loved ones, stay indoors when you can. Now, on to slightly more cheerful matters - including a new game that is joining Ecosystem as a Slug Disco publishing project - Beetle Uprising!


Uber wolf spider from Steam user fetisov.a


A month ago we released the 0.21 update for Empires of the Undergrowth. This update concentrated on an overhaul of freeplay mode, but more fundamentally it included a near-complete rewrite of the crucial pathfinding and movement code that all creatures in the game use. It's difficult to exaggerate the importance of this change, as well as how fundamental it is to the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptjMDWqm3QU
Ants working out how to avoid each other in the new movement system when it was in development in August

It took us many months to get to this point with it, since it replaces nearly all of the default Unreal Engine equivalents (which are excellent built-in functions but not ideally suited to our purposes) and thankfully there don't seem to be any major issues with the new system. Thanks so much to everyone who helped us test these updates - in particular HofNerd on our official forums, who I think has submitted more bug reports than everyone else combined!

On 24th April, a second extra level was added to the game to join Aggrandise - Baby Sitting. You can find the extra levels, which aren't part of the main campaign, from the "Other Modes" option on the main menu. We will be adding to these regularly - we're aiming for a month apart for them, but it might sometimes take us longer (hence us calling them "regular" rather than "monthly" - you know how it is with game development!).



For the first time in the game, Baby Sitting introduces allied colonies. In real-world nature, Formica rufa (wood ant) colonies often form large super-colonies, where an individual nest buds off from a larger one when queens move to a new location. Although they often have different birth queens, the ants recognise the pheromone signature of their cousins and sisters, and operate as one.


The two nest entrances of the allied colonies in Babysitting


In this level, you take command of a queen who has recently relocated to a new nest, apart from the larger colony. One of her sisters has also set up nearby - her ants are controlled by an allied AI. However, the sister nest's offspring are not quite as wily as you are - they will need help to survive! What they lack in intelligence, though, they make up for with fearlessness. They will charge to your aid when they think you need help, and may take on challenges a little beyond their capabilities. As the wiser of the colonies, it's your job to make sure they don't bite off more than they can chew - kill all enemy creatures and keep both queens alive to complete the mission!


The allied colony's underground nest

Next time for the extra levels, there will be a mission called "Extremis" - which is a wave-based survival mode with a rogue-like twist. Other maps in the works include a mode where you'll play as the other formicarium colony from the 3rd tier challenge and a tug-of-war style map, which is rather like the very first implementation of the game we made way back in 2014, when it was still a project for tablets and mobile devices. Keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook for more info on extra levels.


As you're aware, the species of the 4.x formicarium tier will be fire ants. Now that we're tackling the very last of the issues with the new movement and pathing code, we can concentrate on the next batch of preparations for the fire ant levels. A while back we completed the final list of creepy crawlies we'd like to include in these levels, and whilst we can't be sure they will all make it into the final build (the sadly-cut velvet worm from the 3.x levels is testament to this) we would like to share the names of a couple we're pretty sure will make the cut, as well as the setting we’ve homed in on for these level - North Carolina in the United States.


The determining factor of where we’d like to set our fire ant levels was dictated by the natural range of this fascinating plant. Because of the range of the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula), the fire ant levels will be set in the swamps of North Carolina - more specifically an area called the Green Swamp Preserve. Fire ants are not native to this area, but are invasive to it as they are in many parts of the world.


Fly in a flytrap, from Wikimedia Commons. License: CC-BY-SA 4.0. Cropped for newsletter

I scarcely need to introduce the iconic Venus flytrap to you - it is by far the most famous carnivorous plant at least in the west, with dramatic traps that use a trigger system to close and trap insect prey. Nectar is secreted on the surface of the traps, but if an insect touches two of the trigger hairs inside, its fate is slow digestion. Lovely! Mechanics will evolve with development but it seems likely ants will be able to collect nectar from the traps, with a chance of triggering them.


Firing hot, noxious liquid from the end of its abdomen, the bombardier beetle lives up to its name. There are many kinds of these ground beetles - this one is specifically Brachinus alternans. They hunt other insects at night, but are also remarkably social - they will tend to congregate with others of their species when not actively looking for food.


A bombardier beetle, from Wikimedia Commons. License: CC-BY-SA 2.5

When threatened, these insects can unleash a mix of two chemicals - hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide - which very quickly gets to near the boiling point of water. As the hot gases expand, they are ejected explosively from the end of the abdomen, often with a distinct “popping” sound. This may inflict a mild stinging burn to an amphibian or bird, but will certainly be fatal to any small insects threatening the beetle.

We're not quite ready to show finished artwork for these yet, but as always, follow us on our Twitter and Facebook and we'll be sure to start sharing things with you all as soon as we can! The bombardier beetle is a convenient segue into the introduction below...


About seven months ago, we announced our partnership with our friend Tom Johnson, who is working on a complex evolution-based sandbox game called Ecosystem. Although we're not developing the project (it's entirely Tom's baby) we are acting as the publisher for it through Steam and other platforms. During our time developing Empires of the Undergrowth, we'd like to think that we've learned a few things about media and marketing for a nature-based game project, and we've kept our eye out for projects that fall under this banner. We'd now like to talk about Beetle Uprising!



Beetle Uprising has been on Steam for some time now. John and Mike played it on a live stream at one point - we've had a friendly rivalry with Iocane Games (who are developing it) ever since we heard that in the game you can be awarded a trophy commemorating beetle dominance over ants. Whilst we were expecting an enjoyable mix of Sims-like home building and real-time tactics (RTT) combat, we weren't expecting the deep complexity of its genetics breeding system, which kind of blew us away. These systems are remarkably close to real-world genetics, with all the subtleties of genes, alleles, gametes and all those words you'd nearly forgotten about from school.



We thought this game really deserved to see the light of day more than it had, so we got in touch with the guys at Iocane to see if they'd like to work with us to that end, and to our delight they did. We've been advising them on getting a demo up for the game (in a similar vein to the one we have for Empires of the Undergrowth and Ecosystem) and improving its website and the like. The demo is available now to download from IndieDB, follow this link to download it from IndieDB, and also the project is near completion and can be purchased from Steam! The demo is currently in the review process on Steam - once it's been approved, this newsletter will be updated to reflect that.


Click above to visit the Beetle Uprising IndieDB page and download the demo! Steam demo pending

We really hope you give the demo of this surprisingly complex, genre-defying genetics / home building / tactics game a go, and if you enjoy it support the project. The Iocane guys are looking forward to your feedback on this game - jump into the discussion forums on Steam or on our official forums to let us know what you think. Now, back to regular programming!


This time in lockdown has been a bit difficult for us all - even I, who normally only likes to actually leave the house a few times a week, have found it difficult not being able to walk my dog in the park very often or even just be out in nature for a short while. I thought the time we have indoors would be a great opportunity to concentrate on community-submitted screenshots, so that's what I've been doing for a few weeks on Saturdays. Here's links to the Twitter posts for them, each week following various themes. I'll do a few more of these whilst the pandemic is ongoing, so if you'd like to suggest a theme for future weeks please comment!

Theme: "Monsters"
https://twitter.com/SlugDisco/status/1246461641614639111?s=20

Theme: "Huge Armies", suggested Gustav Bäckström on Facebook
https://twitter.com/SlugDisco/status/1249020783256535040?s=20

Theme: "Nest Design", suggested by Mr_Ced on our forums
https://twitter.com/SlugDisco/status/1251622985619955713?s=20

Theme: "Up Close", suggested by Huỳnh Cẩm Thành on Facebook
https://twitter.com/SlugDisco/status/1254073977045164032?s=20


And finally, my favourite part of the newsletter - as I have done for the Community Screenshot Saturday, I trawled through recent submissions to the Steam screenshots section of our community tab, and submissions directly to me mike@slugdisco.com. No particular theme for these ones, I just select ones that look the most striking. To take a screenshot, press F12 (by default) in-game. To get a really nice screenshot, press F9 to enter photo mode with camera controls, or press shift + F9 for a completely free camera.

An excellently-designed hexagonal nest by Mr_Ced. It includes paths between the hexes for efficient nest movement


Leafcutter majors charge in the formicarium from Steam user Bilbo Baggins


Looks like an argument between rove beetles from Steam user Atta Republic

For patch 0.213 we’ve addressed some issues that have come up in the past few weeks - in particular one which has prevented new content (the 4 jungle uber creatures) from appearing. Freeplay map Towhead has seen a fair few changes - increased landmark numbers and some new paths. Also a bunch of quality-of-life changes in this one.



Towhead has seen several changes this time round

• Solved a bug preventing the 4 new ubers showing up in freeplay (they would be announced but not show)
  
• Landmark spawn rate with leafcutters reduced down to 200% (from 250%) as it was filling all available landmark spots causing landmark droughts on some maps
  
• Leaves now regenerate every 4m down from 5m
  
• Increased the number of landmark locations on Towhead by about 8 (and shuffled some around)
  
• Added a couple of central crossing paths into Towhead to allow better access to the new landmark locations from all spawn points
  
• Funnel web landmarks no longer spawn pebbles (eliminates a bug making ramps inaccessible if the web spawns near one)
  
• Fixed an issue where creatures could end up stuck on top of your nest in freeplay
  
• Uber spawn chance increased when playing Hunter victory condition
  
• Creative mode now automatically spends resources allowing you to harvest resources if you wish
  
• Wave number will no longer increase if defeated before the timer for the next wave starts in freeplay
  
• Added option in freeplay to disable difficulty increase when approaching victory
  
• Renamed a couple of difficulty options in freeplay
  
• Uber spawns now cause a minimap ping
  
• Funnel web landmark despawn timer will tick down 4x as fast if all its inhabitants are dead
  
• Funnel web spiders will not be given targets until they reach their nest
  
• Besieged victory now occurs on final wave defeat rather than just before spawn
  
• You can no longer save the game during an attack wave

• Achievement fail and success messages are now off by default and can be turned on from an option in the menu or from the scoreboard (achievement tracking)
  
• Added a widget to the main menu that will show up after you have completed the campaign and will highlight games made by our friends (only on Steam)
  
• Fixed a bug that could break formicarium challenge 2 if you kill the tube spawning ants too quickly after they spawn
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause a green riser to appear if you cancel a dig job the moment a cavern is tunnelled out
  
• Fixed more issues with creatures or food getting stuck under ramps
  
• Funnel web now has immunities to several crowd control effects
  
• Hungry Spider projectile is now visible again
  
• Hungry Spider mouse movement should feel a lot smoother however it no longer paths around walls so you need to manually manoeuvrer it
  
• Fixed an issue where Hungry Spider bite and venom strike were doing less damage than intended further from the centre of the attack
  
• Creatures with low visual range can now see enemies that attack them from further away
  
• Fixed some text issues
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause aphids to float (sometimes very high in the sky) when ladybirds attempt to pick them up
  
• Ladybirds will no longer try and escape once they have started picking up an aphid (they will escape after anyway)
  
• Fixed an issue with brood tile hotkeys not functioning correctly
  
• Massively reduced issues with chamber rep panel thinking the mouse is hovering over a chamber when it is not (worse at lower FPS)