A localisation issue that didn't come up in testing meant we had to roll back yesterday. This has now been rectified, and so version 0.23 has been reinstated.

Other than that, all the patch notes from the 0.23 post apply. Thanks for your patience on this everyone, and thanks to the players who reported the issues they were having!

Hi all,

Due to some Mac and localisation issues that didn't come up during testing we're going to have to do an emergency rollback from 0.23 to the previous version, 0.22112. This should only be temporary but it's vital since those groups are having major issues to do with saves and language defaults.

We'll work fast to get everything sorted, re-packaged and re-uploaded. In the meantime this shouldn't affect much since there isn't any new content scheduled to come out until April 2nd - but we appreciate your patience on the matter!

Apart from 4 new levels set to roll out over the next few months (thank you to everyone who’s been helping test and balance them) the main bulk of this update is under-the-hood changes.

To deal with a persistent problem experienced by a number of laptop users, we’ve accelerated plans to upgrade the game engine by several versions. We’re always reluctant to do this since it invariably breaks lots of things, and most of the time over the past month has been spent dealing with the fallout. Once again, thank you to everyone who’s helped us iron out those wrinkles. Particular thanks to Scyobi_Empire who helped us diagnose the initial laptop issue.

There’s also a new menu for the extra levels, which will give a description of them and a preview of their minimap, as well as an estimate of how long they’ll take to complete and any reward associated with them.

• Extra levels now come with a description and minimap preview when selecting them from the menu
  
• New extra levels added to be rolled out every 6 weeks starting on April 2nd
  
  • Occupation - a wood ant level not unlike the campaign level New Home
    
  • Cramped - a heavily infested leafcutter level with a surface, kill all enemies!
    
  • Enemy of my Enemy - a unique game where digging is instant and done with the mouse; packs of enemies are hostile to each other. Get them to kill each other before they kill the queen!
    
  • The Culling - a black ant level with interesting enemy spawning mechanics

• The game will no longer crash on startup when using specific Intel graphics chips
  
• Fixed an issue where non-aggressive buried enemies were heading to the queen when dug out
  
• Fixed an issue where after a freeplay save one of the enemy colonies would become un-enterable
  
• Fixed an issue where ubers were linked to the wrong freeplay setup check boxes
  
• Fixed a pathing issue on The Crucible demo map
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur at low frame rates
  
• Fixed an issue in 2.1 where night creatures could get stuck in the tunnel exit
  
• Fixed an issue where creatures on top of tunnel exits could get stuck
  
• Fixed an issue on 2.1 where first night creatures to spawn would immediately despawn (there are now more creatures at night)
  
• Night creatures in 2.1 will now be more attracted to combat
  
• Fixed an issue with an ant getting stuck in 2.2 on a specific ramp
  
• Enemy woodworm dug out at start of 3.1 are now friendly again and hence the narrator makes sense
  
• Fixed an issue where the uber mole cricket would freeze instead of doing its thump attack
  
• Creatures will no longer decelerate when they spot and item of food or an enemy (movement should look smoother when going to gather food)
  
• Minor cosmetic painting issue fixed on 3.1
  
• Fixed an issue where the scientist was not coaxing your ants out when you retreated underground in formicarium challenge 3
  
• Fixed an issue where loaded food items underground could count as enemies being in your nest (this could cause a computer ally in freeplay to never stop protecting you)
  
• Fixed an issue where the scientists finger jab would aim at dead ants
  
• Changed victory animation on 3.1 and 3.2 so they correctly come out of the tunnel exit
  
• Minor cosmetic fixes to 2.2 (water edges and painting issues)
  
• Dug out a tile that should have been in the leafcutter demo level (on top of the tunnel exit)
  
• Fixed some potential issues with bots
  
• Freeplay AI enemy colonies will now leave an enemy’s nest faster after the queen is dead
  
• Fixed an issue with freeplay AI colonies that caused them to sometimes place a marker off the map resulting in the associated ants breaking
  
• Fixed various minor issues with Freeplay AI colonies
  
• Fixed a minor issue where leafcutters could rarely teleport to a plant to climb

• Upgraded to Unreal Engine 4.24 (up from 4.20)
  
• Minor optimisations in plant climbing
  
• Changes to how AI colonies in freeplay decide which resources to harvest from
  
• Cheating freeplay colonies can now resurrect more than one dead group at a time if they have no resources and their ants in groups are all dead
  
• Minor bot optimisations
  
• Minor tweak to the way trails work
  
• Improved checks added to food pickup meaning food should go ignored less

We have become aware that some Linux users are experiencing graphical problems with this version. In our tests these have only been minor but some may be having more serious issues.

As a first step we would suggest ensuring you have the latest distribution of your particular OS (with an approved graphics driver), but if there's still no joy please let us know your distribution version and system specs, and we can put some time into properly troubleshooting the issue.

It's possible that forcing use of the Vulkan API might fix some Linux graphical problems you're having. You'll need to add the -vulkan command line argument as a launch option.

Thanks to DiloDog_ on Steam for the screenshot used in the artwork for this post!

We're likely to run this beta just overnight and get it out onto the main branch some time tomorrow, as long as no huge problems are discovered! Whilst it doesn't have much in the way of new features, v0.23 is a significant patch because we've upgraded the engine that Empires of the Undergrowth runs on (Unreal Engine 4), and we've spent a significant amount of time fixing problems that arise from that.

So, just to reiterate - no major new features since the last optional beta, but there have been plenty of changes going on under the hood. This beta is available on all platforms. It will also remove the four extra levels, with the first of them (Occupation) being due for full release on April 2nd.

If you'd like to join the beta just for the evening, the beta key is givemeextraextra. If you don't know how to join a 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 givemeextraextra
   
4. After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu
   
5. Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch

• Fixed randomised caverns in Freeplay
  
• Fixed Chinese and Russian languages
  
• Minor tweak to the way trails work
  
• Fixed a minor issue where leafcutters could rarely teleport to a plant to climb
  
• New extra levels removed from list & scheduled for release in future - set your system clock forward a few months to unlock them all if you'd like to continue beta testing them (at your own risk)
  
• The Culling balance changes
  
  • Slightly increased food dropped from creatures in hard and insane
    
  • Slightly reduced creature spawn rate on insane
    
  • Added an extra ramp to the south

Thanks to LilRenn on our Discord for the screenshot used in this post!

We’ve got another few Empires of the Undergrowth critters and some size comparisons from the upcoming fire ant update to show you in this edition of the newsletter. We’ve also done an engine upgrade which has had us banging our heads against our keyboards for the past few weeks! Those of you who have been having issues on certain laptops, whilst a small number, will be pleased to know that the next update will fix this problem in a roundabout way. At the time of writing this patch (0.23) was coming towards the end of optional beta testing. See this thread for more detailed discussion of the issue.


A wood ant queen surveys her dinner from Steam user roobyRoss

We’ll also be talking about the imminent release of Slug Disco’s foray into publishing, Ecosystem! We’re not the developers of this game by Tom Johnson but are publishing it under our banner, and are of course hopping up and down on the spot in anticipation of playing the early access version after months of playing the demo.


We first spoke about Ecosystem shortly after we brought it on board as the first Slug Disco publishing-only project (we are not developing it), back in September of 2019. Tom Johnson is an accomplished developer and we were impressed with his ingenious ocean evolutionary sim based on real-world science.

We’re very pleased to announce that the game is ready to hit early access on March 16th! Please check out the launch trailer below and read on further to find out about this genuinely brilliant simulation game.



Set in an ocean world of your devising, the first task in Ecosystem is to design your marine environment using an array of terrain generation and decoration tools. Your world can look decidedly familiar at one extreme and positively alien at the other. A variety of plants, rocks and decorations can be used to enhance the look of your Ecosystem. Plants and corals have a direct effect on how your creatures will evolve – they form the basis of the food chain on which all evolving animals ultimately depend. You can unlock new plants and corals as you progress.

Ecosystem is a technical marvel and it’s been a joy to see how far the game has come. It’s a remarkably satisfying experience to know your creatures are evolving in a true sense, using neurons that learn how to apply torque at the joints to push against the water, without any preordained animation. The game will be available on Steam from Tuesday 16th March – add it to your wish lists right now, and give the demo a spin if you’re not convinced!

Now, back to our regular programming!



Another species that will be tussling with fire ants in Empire of the Undergrowth’s 4th tier is the big-headed ant (Pheidole morrisii).

Like many species, it has minor and major castes, but it also has a category of major often called “supersoldier” in scientific literature. This beast has a huge head and a wicked pair of pincers. The head powers huge bite force much like a leafcutter major, but in a much more awkwardly-proportioned form.


Pheidole morrisii about to drop the hottest album of 2021

The head is very big in comparison to the body (hence the name), so although the bite is formidable the supersoldiers do tend to be a little on the clumsy side! This is likely to translate in-game as the supersoldiers being very tough, but also having the unfortunate tendency to stumble and fall every so often simply due to the disproportionate size of their heads.

The big-headed ant joins the little black ant (Monomorium minimum, see the previous newsletter for more details about them) as another peripheral species that will appear in the fire ant levels opposing them, but they’re not the focus of the update. Unlike the peripheral species of the leafcutter update (trap-jaw and army ants), both of these species are ideal candidates for inclusion in freeplay as their own distinct colonies, as they have suitable nesting and foraging behaviours. As always with unreleased in-development things, this is subject to change.


The cow killer, or red velvet ant (Dasymutilla occidentalis) is not an ant at all but is a kind of wingless wasp. In nature, the males fly to find mates but the females spend most of their lives looking remarkably ant-like as they busy themselves foraging. Seeing her resemblance to a queen ant but with distinct furry red patches, it’s quite easy to see how ants and wasps are closely-related in the insect kingdom – both being members of the order Hymenoptera.


She doesn’t actually kill cows, but her sting would certainly put one out of action for a while

Red velvet ants are usually non-confrontational and will avoid conflict if they can, but if threatened the sting is so potent that the species gets its common nickname of ‘cow killer’. Her exoskeleton is remarkably tough for an insect – it has been reported that entomologists have difficulty using metal pins to pierce it for display mounting!

Her stats and abilities are related to the tough exoskeleton, reluctance to fight and exceptionally painful sting. She’s likely to be very tough for her size, and to only start using the stinger at low health, perhaps also sometimes fleeing with a speed boost. Overall the cow killer is a tough and deadly addition to the swamplands of North Carolina.


The wasp mantidfly (Climaciella brunnea) is neither a wasp nor a mantid – the wasp-like pigmentation is mimicry to fool predators, and the mantis-like arms are an excellent example of convergent evolution, where similar solutions to a problem evolve in unrelated species.


Hello there!

Voracious hunters of insects, they are more than willing to tussle with fire ants for a quick snack. They grab their prey very much like a praying mantis does – using those uncanny front arms. They then fly off to devour it in peace. Expect to see them lurking among the flora of North Carolina waiting for your colony to stray too close!


Titans – huge creatures with unique behaviours that differentiate them from the regular denizens of the undergrowth – will be coming to the game along with the fire ant update.


She's a beauty!

We detailed the first confirmed titan, the great blue skimmer (Libellula vibrans) in the previous newsletter. Check out its animations to see it in action! What is difficult to see from these stills and video is just how big this dragonfly is. In the above picture, we’ve put it next to a very familiar ant type – the Formica ereptor ant – as well as the upcoming fire ants, who the skimmer will battle. You can see just how much of an absolute unit she is.


Always my favourite part of writing these newsletters – this time round taken exclusively from our Discord‘s screenshots channel. If you haven’t already, come along and join our nature-loving community! Friendly ant enthusiasts guaranteed.


Fezes are definitely cool in this shot from PeepsPlays_YT


The Hungry Spider never forgets his top hat. As long as you have arachnophobe mode on. From syrian dugong


The hermit crabs await the arrival of their uber-powered lord from Dr. Spooks

In order to fix a crash that was happening on certain laptops with Intel chips we have had to update the Unreal Engine version Empires of the Undergrowth is built on. Doing so may have some performance improvements but mostly the experience should be the same.

We’ve done plenty of testing ourselves but a change like this is systemic, so any part of the game could have issues that we’ve missed.

We are running this beta to make sure there are no hidden bugs that cropped up during the engine update, and we appreciate anyone who can spend some time testing any and all aspects of the game for problems.

If you would like to join the beta, the code is givemeextraextra. If you don’t know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions 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 givemeextraextra
   
4. After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu
   
5. Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch.

We highly recommend making a backup of your saved games before you run an optional beta, on the off-chance that some changes cause them to be corrupted. To see where your saves are stored, see the information in this thread on the Steam forums.

• The game will no longer crash on startup when using specific Intel graphics chips
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur at low frame rates
  
• Fixed an issue with player-controlled spider movement
  
• Fixed an issue in 2.1 where night creatures could get stuck in the tunnel exit
  
• Fixed an issue where creatures on top of tunnel exits could get stuck
  
• Fixed an issue on 2.1 where first night creatures to spawn would immediately despawn (there are now more creatures at night)
  
• Night creatures in 2.1 will now be more attracted to combat
  
• Fixed an issue with an ant getting stuck in 2.2 on a specific ramp
  
• Enemy woodworm dug out at start of 3.1 are now friendly again and hence the narrator makes sense
  
• The Culling is no longer stuck on easy
  
• Fixed an issue where the uber mole cricket would freeze instead of doing its thump attack
  
• Creatures will no longer decelerate when they spot and item of food or an enemy (movement should look smoother when going to gather food)
  
• Minor cosmetic painting issue fixed on 3.1
  
• Fixed an issue where the scientist was not coaxing your ants out when you retreated underground in formicarium challenge 3
  
• Fixed an issue where loaded food items underground could count as enemies being in your nest (this could cause a computer ally in freeplay to never stop protecting you)
  
• Fixed an issue where the scientists finger jab would aim at dead ants
  
• Changed victory animation on 3.1 and 3.2 so they correctly come out of the tunnel exit
  
• Minor cosmetic fixes to 2.2 (water edges and painting issues)
  
• Dug out a tile that should have been in the leafcutter demo level (on top of the tunnel exit)
  
• Fixed some potential issues with bots
  
• Improved checks added to food pickup meaning food should go ignored less
  
• Freeplay AI enemy colonies will now leave an enemy’s nest faster after the queen is dead
  
• Fixed an issue with freeplay AI colonies that caused them to sometimes place a marker off the map resulting in the associated ants breaking
  
• Fixed various minor issues with Freeplay AI colonies

• Extra levels now come with a description and minimap when selecting them from the menu

• Minor bot optimisations

Thanks to syrian dugong on our Discord for the screenshot used in the artwork for this post!

In our first newsletter of the new year, covering news from December 2020 and January 2021, we have some critters from the fourth tier of the formicarium story to talk about (and perhaps a tiny little sneak preview of a story mission), as well as some discussion of some new extra levels that will be coming your way over the next few months. Also, on the company side of things (which we do have to occasionally think about) we’ve recently launched an updated version of our website, which should make it easier to find information about Slug Disco Studios Ltd. and the games we publish. Thanks to Dan, our recently-hired marketing content creator, for his stellar work on bringing the website into the 2020s!


A screenshot from an upcoming extra level – Cramped


With our artist Matt on a big drive to complete lots of 3D models, textures and animations for the fire ant update, we have a few new creatures to show off to you. It’s exciting to be able to see some of the denizens of the swamp ready and in the game! The 4th tier levels take place in a nature preserve known as the Green Swamp in North Carolina, so all of the creatures in the 4th tier levels are either native or invasive to that place in real life.

Since we’re talking about the 4th tier levels, it’s worth reiterating our policy on release dates. We do not do estimates for big content releases – we’ve done that in the past and since game development is very unpredictable in how long certain tasks will take, we’ve ended up disappointing people before and end up having to push estimates back further. To that end, we stick to the old development adage of “when it’s done” – and as soon as we have a date we are 100% sure we can hit, we will be very loud about letting everyone know.


We announced this critter some time back, but now we have completed artwork to show you. The six-spotted tiger beetle (Cicindela sexguttata) is a common sight in the undergrowth of North America. A fast daytime hunter, its large compound eyes scour the landscape as it also feels for vibrations. It is a voracious hunter of ants, and your Solenopsis invicta are very much on the menu.


Cicindela sexguttata, in-game model

Cicindela sexguttata will be a little smaller than the other tiger beetle in the game (the beach tiger beetle), but just as deadly. We particularly like the motion that Matt has bestowed him with, just look at that elytra (wing casing) action in this animation showreel!




The great blue skimmer (Libellula vibrans) is a large dragonfly native to eastern parts of the United States. It is the first creature that is officially in a new class known in-game as “titans”. These are invariably large enemies that have special behaviours beyond that of the regular fauna you encounter on your adventures in the undergrowth.


Libellula vibrans, in-game model

In the case of the skimmer, it is of course capable of flight and will periodically land, and that is when you can attack it. Titans are always tough to take down and typically represent a large amount of resources if they can be beaten. Its animations are fun – we particularly like its overly-dramatic death after attempting take-off!




The little black ant (Monomorium minimum) is a tiny North American ant species that your fire ants will come up against. Although small (very likely the smallest ants that will ever be in the game), they are fierce and territorial – they wave their gaster (hind section) in a technique called “flagging”, which releases secretions from their poison glands.


The 3 kinds of Monomorium minimum - soldier, queen and worker

This intimidating chemical and visual threat display / territory marking is effective enough to see off most competition. The exact details of the gaster flagging are yet to be tested, but it’s likely to be an area-of-effect ability that will help them make up for their small stature.


The layouts for the fire ant missions (and even missions beyond that) are completed at this point. With no further context, we thought it’d be fun to show you a little in-editor preview of what one of them looks like from above. Remember that the fire ant levels take place in swampy conditions so expect plenty of water to be present in its final form! It looks fairly bland right now as we haven’t decorated it with the swamp flora just yet – we’re not quite ready to show that off, but you can imagine how it’ll be with plants such as the Venus flytrap populating its shores.




Like many ant species, fire ants are resourceful and one of their many sources of food is honeydew that they milk from aphids. Some new aphids will be added to the game – these ones will live amongst foliage instead of roots. A modification of the “cart” system used to let leafcutters climb plants will let other kinds of ant climb plants to harvest from aphids, and indeed move them.


The Unreal Engine 4 blueprint flowchart for the aphid relocation system

A new system will be in place that allows the ants to relocate said aphids to suitable plants nearer the nest. This will be a type of command the player gives rather than the ants doing it themselves. Bringing aphids closer to the nest has the obvious advantage of reducing travel time to tend to the flock.


We’ve spoken before about the ability to climb creatures coming along with the fire ant update. As part of their attack behaviours, ants will be able to climb onto certain large enemy creatures that have been rigged up for mounting. This once again involves using an extended version of the plant cart system, but this time attached to a mobile creature.


Some of the in-editor intricacies of the titan climbing system

Not only can the target move, but it’s also likely trying to eat the ants that are trying to climb onto it. All sorts of problems came up, as you can imagine, from spinning creatures trying to attack ants that had mounted them, to ants jumping off creatures’ limbs that overhang the edge of the map and culling themselves in the process. A lot of these issues have to be considered to make the effect seamless and sensible!

The climbing system will be extended to previous levels eventually, but probably not with the initial release of the fire ants as allowing creatures to be climbed will change the balance of levels. This will particularly affect the levels that have the most large creatures such as 3.1 and 3.2. We’re likely to include the community in an update post-fire ants to rebalance levels around this new mechanic.


We have a number of extra levels awaiting release. We occasionally hear from people worried that these extras are taking development time away from the main campaign – there’s no need to be concerned there. They do not take anywhere near the amount of time that the campaign missions do because they all use existing assets and systems. A simple extra level can go from concept to the balancing phase in just a few short hours. John, who is the predominant creator of extra levels thus far, finds them a convenient thing to stream that doesn’t spoil upcoming campaign levels, too.


Leafcutter extra level Cramped lives up to its name!

Quite simply, they are a nice productive thing for one of the devs to do if they’re waiting on work from the other two – they create some new content for everyone to be getting on with whilst we work on the big updates. They also allow experimentation outside of the comparatively rigid / realistic settings of the campaign levels (Tug of War is a perfect example of this). Below is a description of the four that are being tested and tweaked right now:

• Occupation – a wood ant level not unlike the campaign level New Home
  
• Cramped – a heavily infested leafcutter level with a surface; kill all enemies
  
• The Culling – a black ant level with interesting enemy spawning mechanics
  
• Enemy of my Enemy – a unique game where digging is instant and done with the mouse; packs of enemies are hostile to each other. Get them to kill each other before they kill the queen!

Extra level The Culling has some unique enemy spawning mechanics

At the time of publishing (29th January 2021), these four levels have recently begun undergoing optional community testing on Steam. If you’d like to help out, please follow this link and see the instructions there. Once the testing period is complete, they will be properly released a month apart, as with previous extra levels. We’re thinking of running a little speed running competition for Enemy of my Enemy in particular!


Quite a lot of time has been spent dealing with old issues, and new ones have cropped up in the meantime. Starting in early January, an issue started to be reported amongst a small subset of players of the game suddenly stopping working altogether, which puzzled us as the game hadn’t been updated since before Christmas. It’s almost certain that an operating system, driver or proprietary software update is to blame, but getting to the bottom of it has been very tricky. We’ve found some commonality in that everyone who has this issue is using laptops with Intel processors, but frustratingly only a small percentage of that demographic is having any problems at all.

Due to the kindness of the community (particular thanks to Scyobi_Empire who has uncomplainingly helped us test various things) we’ve found a workaround that involves upgrading the engine version. This is something we intended to do in the not-too-distant future anyway, but it’s likely that our priorities have changed because of this issue so that will be happening sooner rather than later. Upgrading the engine will inevitably lead to crashes and plenty of things game-wide that need fixing, so we may be asking for some help testing that in the near future.

In other fixing stuff news, there have been some recently-reported resource gathering issues in the currently running beta. Liam spent time trying to get to the bottom of this by making a special scenario where he could quickly test ants trying to reach resources at the bottom of a cliff. The below video is representative of his entire afternoon.




Once again, the best part of writing a newsletter has arrived where I trawl through recent screenshots to find the real gems that show off the beauty, chaos, or both of Empires of the Undergrowth. If you’d like to contribute a shot to Screenshot Central, either upload your shot to the Steam Community or to the screenshots channel in Discord. By default, press F9 to enter photo mode, and hold down shift whilst you do it to get an unlocked camera and some really neat angles.


Hydra? A quadruple threat of mantids from Dr. Spooks on Discord


Night is no time to halt the harvest from Josselin17 on Discord


A pleasingly-lit shot of beta level Occupation from BrickyGraph631 on Steam

2020 was a uniquely challenging year for many of us, and 2021 hasn’t shown many signs of being much different thus far – but it’s going to be a big year for Empires of the Undergrowth, and indeed Slug Disco as a company.

Thank you for being with us throughout, and your gentle patience is as appreciated as your boundless enthusiasm! You’re a uniquely lovely bunch and as community manager I love that a good proportion of my job is interacting with the fantastic group of people that has built up around EotU and our other games. If you’re not already more closely involved and would like to be, we’d be absolutely delighted to have you in our Discord (where we’ve recently begun doing pre-releases of the optional betas) and our official forums. We hope to see you there.

Mike & The Slug Disco Team

It’s time for an optional beta! This beta has some fixes for long-standing issues and, more excitingly, comes with 4 (!) new extra levels for testing and balance. Extra levels are fast to develop as most of them don't need extensive new systems and artwork; we can make one of these in just a few short hours but testing them for balance is another thing. They need some feedback!

We are looking for feedback on balance in the 4 new extra levels. You can leave them on our Discord, Steam forum, or official forums.

If you’d like to help out, we’d be very happy for you to give them a spin now! You’ll need to be a Windows 64 bit owner on Steam to join the beta.

PLEASE NOTE! Once the testing phase is over and this update goes live on the main branch, the new extra levels will be removed from the list again, and will reappear periodically after that (exact dates to be announced as the time approaches).

If you would like to join the beta, the code is givemeextraextra. If you don’t know how to join a beta and would like to, follow the instructions 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 givemeextraextra
   
4. After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu
   
5. Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch.

0.2222 Patch Notes

• New extra levels added to be rolled out monthly, but available in this beta for testing for a short time:
  
  • Occupation - a wood ant level not unlike the campaign level New Home
    
  • Cramped - a heavily infested leafcutter level with a surface, kill all enemies!
    
  • The Culling - a black ant level with interesting enemy spawning mechanics
    
  • Enemy of my Enemy - a unique game where digging is instant and done with the mouse; packs of enemies are hostile to each other. Get them to kill each other before they kill the queen!
• Fixed an issue where non-aggressive buried enemies were heading to the queen when dug out
  
• Fixed an issue where after a freeplay save one of the enemy colonies would become un-enterable
  
• Fixed an issue where ubers were linked to the wrong freeplay setup check boxes
  
• Fixed a pathing issue on The Crucible demo map
  
• Minor optimisations in plant climbing
  
• Changes to how AI colonies in freeplay decide which resources to harvest from
  
• Cheating freeplay colonies can now resurrect more than one dead group at a time if they have no resources and their ants in groups are all dead

EDIT: Has been brought up to version 0.22221 with a small patch.

0.22221 Patch Notes

• Fixed an issue preventing creature spawning and marker placement in Towhead
  
• Removed a UE4 cone shape from Cramped that shouldn't be there
  
• Removed campaign rewards and narration from The Culling ending
  
• Reverted some changes to resource targeting that were causing issues

Thanks for the people who have helped us identify a crash with the recent short optional beta. This has now been fixed and we're ready to move this patch to the main branch just in time for Christmas. It is now possible to save your freeplay games that include AI colonies! This should make them more viable for long-term games instead of short skirmishes.

Freeplay AI should still be considered to be in its early days and there are a multitude of extra things we'd like to do for it (making it cleverer being the main one) but it's likely this is the last feature update for freeplay until after the 4th tier campaign levels (fire ants) are released.

• Saving is now available with AI colonies in freeplay
  
  • Please keep an eye out for strange behaviours of the enemy or allied colonies after a save and load in freeplay; it is possible some of their behaviour has not been correctly restored. Please report these on our forums or Discord!

• Fixed some underground visual tile bugs
  
• Fixed a minor issue with the slave maker button in battle arena
  
• Swarm slave makers now have team colours working properly
  
• Fixed a surface tile painting issue on The Dunes
  
• Removed some specks of dirt that were floating on the open nest entrances in The Dunes
  
• Fixed an issue where AIs that were cheating could only get a free hatch once per game
  
• Fixed issues with the AI colony’s visibility of spawned landmarks (should lead to some more sensible landmark harvesting decisions)
  
• Fixed an issue where surface tunnels could switch when a freeplay game was loaded
  
• Fixed an issue where randomised caverns were not loading and saving
  
• Fixed an issue where some creatures could freeze if interrupted during picking up another creature
  
• Creatures eaten by other creatures will no longer drop invisible food
  
• Festive Spider level funnel web kills now count towards your experience
  
• Adjusted web size in Christmas spider level the better represent the area funnel webs can detect enemies
  
• Webs in the Festive Spider level will no longer expand upwards covering the map
  
• Webs stop increasing in size beyond level 9 in the Festive Spider level
  
• Fixed an animation issue to do with wood ants rapid firing
  
• In freeplay uber mole crickets now count towards the hunter victory condition
  
• Can no longer tag and untag another colony’s tunnel exit for excavation
  
• Stopped aphids moving when being eaten by a ladybird; should fix floating honeydew

• Optimisation added to creature spawning when looking up its class (should speed things up when lots of ants are hatching at once such as the beginning of a freeplay game)

Thanks to whoamijr for the screenshot used in the artwork of this post!

We’ve made big strides towards getting the freeplay AI save-able, and we’re at the point where we could do with some extra feedback before we declare it good to go. This opt-in beta build adds saving to freeplay games with AI colonies, which should make them much more viable in a long game.

If you would like to participate, the beta code is christmasants. You will need to be a 64 bit Windows user to join. If you’re unfamiliar with how to activate a Steam beta and would like to, 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 christmasants
   
4. After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "Open beta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu
   
5. Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch.

WARNING - We highly recommend you backup your saves before testing this beta build. This beta is primarily testing saving so this is more important than usual - there’s an above-normal chance of save files becoming corrupted. Save files are located at:

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

• Saving is now available with AI colonies in freeplay
  
  • Please keep an eye out for strange behaviours of the enemy or allied colonies after a save and load in freeplay; it is possible some of their behaviour has not been correctly restored. Please report these on our forums or Discord!

• Fixed some underground visual tile bugs
  
• Fixed a minor issue with the slave maker button in battle arena
  
• Swarm slave makers now have team colours working properly
  
• Fixed a surface tile painting issue on The Dunes
  
• Removed some specks of dirt that were floating on the open nest entrances in The Dunes
  
• Fixed an issue where AIs that were cheating could only get a free hatch once per game
  
• Fixed issues with the AI colony’s visibility of spawned landmarks (should lead to some more sensible landmark harvesting decisions)
  
• Fixed an issue where surface tunnels could switch when a freeplay game was loaded
  
• Fixed an issue where randomised caverns were not loading and saving
  
• Fixed an issue where some creatures could freeze if interrupted during picking up another creature
  
• Creatures eaten by other creatures will no longer drop invisible food
  
• Festive Spider level funnel web kills now count towards your experience
  
• Adjusted web size in Christmas spider level the better represent the area funnel webs can detect enemies
  
• Webs in the Festive Spider level will no longer expand upwards covering the map
  
• Webs stop increasing in size beyond level 9 in the Festive Spider level
  
• Fixed an animation issue to do with wood ants rapid firing
  
• In freeplay uber mole crickets now count towards the hunter victory condition
  
• Can no longer tag and untag another colony’s tunnel exit for excavation

• Optimisation added to creature spawning when looking up its class (should speed things up when lots of ants are hatching at once such as the beginning of a freeplay game)