Vlog 8 is here, and it's been increasingly clear to us over the past several months that we're finally approaching the full release goal for Empires of the Undergrowth. The long road of early access is drawing to a close, and release plans are being worked on.

We will be releasing the game fully during 2024.



This vlog goes into a bit of detail about where we are with it, and while we're not ready to commit to an exact date (and never will do unless we're sure we can meet it) I hope you can gather from my enthusiasm that it really is a-comin'.

Current roadmap (published November 2023):

Another few fixes for the latest optional beta update!

• Fixed an AI base building issue in Imprisoned
  
• Gave wolf spiderling the frog hat
  
• Fixed a rendering issue with level 2 tiles that receive -2 refuse debuff
  
• Fixed an issue with the effect of refuse tiles on upgrade points at distance -1
  
• Fixed an issue where leafcutter initial resources were deleted on saving & loading if there were no non-leafcutter colonies in the game
  
• Fixed an issue on Imprisoned where creatures on islands without a colony on them could fail to spawn
  
• Fixed ants being stuck in certain situations
  
• Fixed several aphid issues
  
• Sand Spit now displays its map info when loading a custom game

• If a creature cannot transfer to the surface it is now killed instead of just being left underground to try again (for example, when exiting an enemy nest after water has risen)
  
• Updated localisations

An update to the optional beta has been released.

There's an experimental change to leafcutters in custom games in this one: potentially very game-changing and will need a lot of testing!

To test out this substantial change, start a fresh custom game. Remember that it's experimental and subject to change.

• Leafcutter colonies in custom games now start with 2 rings of queen tiles, meaning 19 starting workers / minims & increased fungus capacity
  
• Fixed an issue where saving & loading would cause all tunnel exits to be set to the same one if using the alternative exits in Strawclutch
  
• Added translator credits

A whole bunch of fixes and changes in this latest iteration of the currently running optional beta, including some experimental surface tunnel options for Strawclutch.

If you’re not participating yet and would like to, then please see here for details on how to join.

• Strawclutch:
  
  • Alternative surface tunnel locations can be chosen with the map option in the freeplay menu - this is experimental, so we’d like some feedback on this. It’ll significantly change the way Strawclutch plays. Is random in skirmish
    
  • Added in some food items to show the shape of the cavern in front of the nest exit
    
  • Adjusted positions of aphid plants
    
  • Player is no longer blocked by an enemy when tunnelling to the surface
• Imprisoned:
  
  • Water level change timings changed
    
  • Rising water no longer destroy resources it touches
    
  • Additional surface resources added
    
  • Dragonflies will now land on either side of the islands they inhabit
    
  • Dragonflies will no longer land if they are unable to reach their target after landing
    
  • AI colonies will now hide before water rises
    
  • Repositioned caterpillar plants
• AI colonies on Towhead & Embankment will hide for a time after a flood
  
• AI colonies & creature swarms attempting to invade a nest do extra checks for a valid path
  
• AI colonies stealing aphids now do more checks to make sure they’re reachable
  
• Significantly more creatures should spawn at the start of a custom game when using singular spawning (including skirmish)
  
• Environmental enemies ramp up faster in singular spawning (including skirmish)
  
• Adjustments to nocturnal / diurnal spawn timing in custom games
  
• Remaining translations for this patch added

• Fixed environmental creatures with singular spawning not attacking each other
  
• Strawclutch & Imprisoned now default to swamp creatures for ‘map appropriate’ choice
  
• Fixed weird pathing issue in Strawclutch underground
  
• Fixed an issue where praying mantises on patrols might not despawn
  
• Fixed the initial creatures in pack spawning not appearing
  
• Fixed enemy counting for objective in The Crucible
  
• Fixed camera focus issues in Strawclutch & Imprisoned
  
• Fixed an issue killing dragonflies when loaded too high off the ground
  
• Fixed an issue with dragonflies that could cause a slowdown over time
  
• Fixed AI digging issues in Imprisoned
  
• Fixed some missing grass textures

From now until December 13th, you can save 20% on Empires of the Undergrowth. Come check the game out!



https://store.steampowered.com/app/463530/Empires_of_the_Undergrowth/

With the start of the Autumn Sale, nominations for this year’s Steam Awards are underway and we’d like to ask for your support by nominating Empires of the Undergrowth for the Labor of Love Award.



In the years since Early Access release, we’ve continued to improve Empires of the Undergrowth with huge, game-expanding updates - but we’re not done yet. We know all too well that our tiny team takes their time on the major updates, but we do that in the name of quality - and your kindness in supporting that allows us to take a considered approach. We couldn’t be more grateful, so this isn’t just our labor of love - it’s yours too!

Over the past year, we’ve been working on the following:

• A whole bunch of changes to custom games, including Skirmish - a new way to play freeplay maps.
  
• More up-to-date artwork for the beach and rotting log levels, bringing them in line with the visual fidelity of the more recent parts of the game - our aim is not just to finish the game, but have it be at its best possible quality too.
  
• Extended the climbing system to many more creatures in the game, really helping us settle into the skin-crawling feeling of ants crawling over everything!
  
• Working towards completing the systems and artwork for our final release, tier 5 – which will feature 3 new campaign levels set in an as-yet unrevealed location. Then a final climactic formicarium challenge which the scientist has been preparing your colony for!
  
• Bug fixes (ha!)
  
• And many more updates!

We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, the community, supporting our game throughout development and with each update we’ve brought to Empires of the Undergrowth. We are incredibly grateful for your support, and we know there will be a lot of competition for this award, so your nomination means the world to us. Please check the nominate button that’s part of this post if you would like to consider us for the Labor of Love award for the 2023 Steam Awards.

Thank you,

The Slug Disco team

With the start of the Autumn Sale, nominations for this year’s Steam Awards are underway and we’d like to ask for your support by nominating Empires of the Undergrowth for the Labor of Love Award.



In the years since Early Access release, we’ve continued to improve Empires of the Undergrowth with huge, game-expanding updates - but we’re not done yet. We know all too well that our tiny team takes their time on the major updates, but we do that in the name of quality - and your kindness in supporting that allows us to take a considered approach. We couldn’t be more grateful, so this isn’t just our labor of love - it’s yours too!

Over the past year, we’ve been working on the following:

• A whole bunch of changes to custom games, including Skirmish - a new way to play freeplay maps.
  
• More up-to-date artwork for the beach and rotting log levels, bringing them in line with the visual fidelity of the more recent parts of the game - our aim is not just to finish the game, but have it be at its best possible quality too.
  
• Extended the climbing system to many more creatures in the game, really helping us settle into the skin-crawling feeling of ants crawling over everything!
  
• Working towards completing the systems and artwork for our final release, tier 5 – which will feature 3 new campaign levels set in an as-yet unrevealed location. Then a final climactic formicarium challenge which the scientist has been preparing your colony for!
  
• Bug fixes (ha!)
  
• And many more updates!

We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, the community, supporting our game throughout development and with each update we’ve brought to Empires of the Undergrowth. We are incredibly grateful for your support, and we know there will be a lot of competition for this award, so your nomination means the world to us. Please check the nominate button that’s part of this post if you would like to consider us for the Labor of Love award for the 2023 Steam Awards.

Thank you,

The Slug Disco team

We’ve fixed and changed a few things in our ongoing optional beta - if you aren’t participating yet and would like to, see the previous post for details on how to join.

• 3.1 Hard achievement now correctly says ‘Boundary Dispute’ rather than ‘Shoot the Messenger’
  
• 2.1 Extreme with challenge mode will now spawn tiger beetle larvae
  
• 3.2 ‘Sitting Ducks’ achievement now only fails if an ant tile is upgraded to 3, not any tile
  
• Formicarium Challenge 3 Extreme difficulty now possible
  
• Fixed uber praying mantis, spiny devil and whip spider not being climbable
  
• Fixed an AI chamber building issue in Sand Spit
  
• Fixed an AI construction layout issue in Imprisoned
  
• Fixed amphibians using their swim animation underground
  
• Removed a floating seed in Strawclutch
  
• Pressing Esc during difficulty selection will no longer lead to a UI overlap
  
• Small beach wolf spider given correct hat

• Formicarium Challenge 3:
  
  • Easy difficulty now slightly easier
    
  • Enemy queen no longer has abilities on Normal as well as Easy
    
  • Mole crickets and praying mantises no longer have food reduction on harder difficulties
• Tooltips on freeplay sliders will now appear faster
  
• Uber mole cricket now climbable
  
• Added latest localisations
  
• Added some decorative rocks to Imprisoned

We’ve run out of time for this patch, and these issues are known but didn’t make it in this time (or we don’t yet have enough information on them) - they’ll be fixed next week once we figure them out.

If you are experiencing any of the following and have a save game file that demonstrates them, please send us an email to crashes@slugdisco.com with the save files attached (the instructions on how to find your files are in this thread)

• Ghost hybrids from older saves
  
• Enemies stuck in nest entrances on Sand Spit
  
• Something activating random caverns in freeplay
  
• Issues with dragonfly landing and dying on Imprisoned
  
• Wrong rewards displayed on easy in FC1 and FC2

New custom game / freeplay maps! Achievements! New difficulty options! More generous mission rewards! We’re close to pushing a large update, and we’re now at a point where we’re inviting anyone who’d like to test it a bit to do so.

We are adding over 100 achievements to the game in this build - but PLEASE NOTE, if you accomplish them in this test build they will not activate on Steam during the beta. You can use the in-game achievement tracker and victory screens to determine if you’ve accomplished an achievement goal, and we’d very much appreciate feedback on any problems with them.

We are after feedback on all manner of issues that may occur, focusing on glitches, crashes, and balance. Any and all feedback on this optional beta is very much appreciated - please post it to the community discussions! As ever, thanks so much to our closed testing focus group who have been providing feedback to get this patch to this point.

Let’s go over a few things related to these optional betas for people who haven’t participated in them before. Firstly, please note: optional betas are limited to the Steam Windows 64 bit build, and may be missing localisations in some newer or updates areas.


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. Copying the data in that folder to somewhere else will keep it safe from any potential issues.


If you would like to join the beta, the code is mapsandachievements. 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 mapsandachievements
   
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

• New Custom Game Maps! The 2 winners of our summer map design contest have been completed & added to the game, as well as one more
  
  • Imprisoned, based on a design by 鶴轟 - a swampy area that floods & drains, opening up easier access to other resources & colonies
    
  • Strawclutch, based on a design by Noctazar - tightly-packed nests around central resources in the swamp ensures intense skirmishes with neighbours
    
  • Sand Spit - a sandy peninsula designed for a 3v1 setup, where the single colony has an uphill battle ahead of them
• Achievements! Over 100 new achievements for all aspects of the existing story mode & seasonal levels
  
  • Please note: in this test build, meeting an achievement’s conditions will not activate the achievement on Steam, but you’ll be able to see if you got it in victory screens
    
  • Icons for the new achievements are still in the works, so worry ye not if you spot them defaulting to an older one!
• Reworked Difficulty Settings! More resolution in lower difficulty settings with more linear gradation between them
  
  • Easy, Medium, Hard, Extreme & Impossible are the new difficulties, with new Easy a little easier than the old, & Extreme being where old Hard was. Impossible is the new name for what used to be Insane

• Mission rewards increased significantly:
  
  • Formicarium rewards for a repeated play of a mission have been increased (increased by 67%), for a defeat have been increased & the rewards provided at higher difficulties are higher.
    
  • Easy, Medium & Hard - although these difficulties are easier than before they provide the same rewards they used to
    
  • Extreme - although this is as hard as Hard used to be, it will provide the same rewards that Insane used to
    
  • Impossible - although this is as hard as Insane used to be, it will provide more rewards than Insane used to

• Pine woods tree frog now climbable
  
• Uber hermit crab is now climbable
  
• Uber red velvet ant is now climbable
  
• Young velvet worm is no longer climbable
  
• Improvements to climbing points on hermit crabs
  
• Small harvestmen now become food on death
  
• Jumping spiders now become food on death
  
• Ladybirds now become food on death
  
• Young praying mantis can now only be harvested by 1 ant
  
• New beach creatures now spawnable in Battle Arena

• Creature resource quantity slider added to freeplay options
  
  • Allows players to make creatures in their freeplay game drop more or less food if they like
• Restart button added to custom game defeat screen
  
• When spawning attack waves, freeplay director will now choose larger creatures to spawn if none can be found in the smaller creature options
  
• AI harvesting process now considers the average of total & ants alive when deciding where to harvest & not just enemy ants alive
  
• Freeplay now starts with a default save name

• Default FPS is now set to 60
  
• Updated beach loading screen to use new assets
  
• Arcade button graphics updated
  
• Improvements to the living sea urchin decorative asset
  
• Seaweed models updated in 2.1 & 2.2
  
• New hat for the sand bear wolf spider

• New early game objectives added to 3.1 The Harvest, the same as in The Crucible
  
  • The idea here is that the early objectives act as a mini tutorial, so the player has a good-sized leaf & refuse chamber before encountering the enemy colony. Shouldn’t interrupt established gameplay otherwise
• New narrator dialogue added regarding leafcutter refuse storage
  
• Formicarium Challenges now have names instead of numbers
  
• Visual pulsing effect when the queen is at low health & has recently taken damage to more urgently telegraph that the queen is in imminent danger
  
  • Can be disabled in Advanced Options
• Minor Improvements can no longer be applied mid-mission
  
• Creatures no longer heal in the formicarium after purchasing an ability
  
• Adventure: leafcutter supermajor can no longer climb creatures or carry food
  
• Extremis: food from killed creatures increased
  
• The Culling: tripled food from spawned creatures
  
• The Other Foot:
  
  • More time given on Impossible (previously Insane) difficulty
    
  • Food drops from spawning creatures build up & spawn with the next drop
• Both spider levels:
  
  • Added sound effects to spider abilities
    
  • Increased healing from Devour by 17%
    
  • Increased max health gained be Bite level
• Hungry Spider only:
  
  • Reduced uber wolf spider’s attack damage (down from 410 to 150)
    
  • Added some queen corpses with 60 food each near the uber wolf spider
• Many new & updated localisations

• Enemy colony health bars are now properly hidden in fog of war
  
• Adventure-specific UI elements no longer overlap the huge whip spider health bar
  
• UI elements no longer visible when photo mode is on during a victory animation
  
• Fixed depth of field in tutorial level victory camera
  
• Fixed depth of field in Hungry Spider victory & defeat cameras
  
• Formicarium Challenge 4 (‘The Final Experiment’) victory camera positioning fixed
  
• Fixed some old beach style level tunnel exit to use the old one
  
• Fixed some issues that would cause the wrong loading screen to show in some situations in a custom game
  
• Fixed some huge creatures & hybrids appearing to resurrect after a formicarium reload
  
• Fixed long creatures adorably chasing their own tails (sorry!)
  
• Fixed a crash when colony 2 was empty in a custom game
  
• Hermit crab shells & spider hats no longer receive decals

This will be the last newsletter of 2023, with one more vlog to come in December. 2023 has been a formative year for Empires of the Undergrowth with the freeplay / custom game mode being brought much closer to its final form, and the bulk of the systems and level work on the final stages of the game being done.


Fire ants in the swamp from Solstitium on our Discord

The end is, finally, in sight – but there’s still a stretch to go. To that end, the main feature of this newsletter is an updated roadmap that might take us all the way to release (we’ll have to see how things go!). We’ll spend the majority of our word allowance going over that.


The Empires of the Undergrowth roadmap gets updated every six months, with the optimistic thought that one of them may unexpectedly be the last one we have to do. Is this that one? We don’t know – probably not, but hope springs eternal as they say. Feast your arthropod-hungry eyes on this beauty, as we then go through each step in turn:


Now I am become roadmap, destroyer of deadlines

A couple of changes from the last one include using year quarters to refer to time instead of seasons to help our friends in the southern hemisphere, and giving a slightly longer explanation at each station. If there’s no ballpark date on a step then that’s because we’re not comfortable putting one there just yet, although we are aiming to get everything done as swiftly as we can. The ordering and timing is, as always, subject to change.


First up is achievements. These have been thoroughly detailed in both the previous newsletter and the most recent vlog, so I’ll keep this section brief. In short, more than 100 new achievements are being added for all of the existing campaign and seasonal levels. We still intend to run an optional beta on Steam to test out some of these, and with any luck we’ll have some news on this very soon – keep your face orbs unshrouded.


A while back we held a contest to design a custom game / freeplay map for Empires of the Undergrowth, picking one winner from YouTube / Discord entries and another from Bilibili. We had a good time going over the finalists (in a pre-recorded video for the Bilibili one and a fun livestream for the YouTube one) and ultimately settled on our winners – Strawclutch, and Imprisoned.



We have already very nearly completed work on bringing these designs to the game – our level designer John has built them, and our environment artist DanC has decorated them. So, let’s talk about each one in turn.


Strawclutch (designed by Noctazar) will, at least in its skirmish form, be a fast-paced map with short overall playtime. The four colony spaces are in close proximity to each other, and in the very middle of the map is a large growth of aphid-bearing milkweed plants. These act as the main food source when played as a skirmish game, and there will be early and repeated quarrels as the colonies vie for control of this territory.


Clutching at straws in the middle of the winning map design by Noctazar


Our Bilibili winner is called Imprisoned (designed by 鶴轟), and it features a locking mechanism that will put colonies in direct conflict with each other only periodically, as the water level changes. This had to be adapted somewhat from the original concept to work without fire ant bridges (see later in the roadmap for more information about that) but the basic premise remains the same – for most of the time in this map, colonies can only get to each other via a long road, but with the change of the water level there will be fighting.


A lot going on in Imprisoned by 鶴轟

It was a lot of fun running this contest and there’s a very strong possibility of us doing more stuff like this in the future, perhaps post-release as part of ongoing content after we reach version 1.0.

There is one more custom game map coming along at the time of this update: Sand Spit, which is designed for 3v1 setups. We detailed this map more back in the July newsletter – so have a look back there for some more detailed information (and some pictures). All 3 of these maps will be coming simultaneously, and with any luck will be part of the upcoming beta test that focuses on the achievements as well.

For anyone wondering about other work-in-progress custom game maps that we’ve shown glimpses of, such as Archipelago and Wetlands – they are dependent on fire ant bridging being completed for custom games and we’ll discuss more about this later on.


The New Year’s Feast event level will be returning in January and February to coincide with Chinese New Year – with a whole bunch of achievements attached. This time around we’ll be making a bit more of an event of it, too – with some new cosmetic updates to make the map a bit more thematically pleasing, as well as a much-needed balance pass to bring the map up to speed with the food rebalancing that happened back with the 0.31 update.



For those of you who haven’t played it yet – it’s a whimsical themed level based around fire ants collecting ingredients for a hotpot, with an explosive twist and a fantastical ending. Check out the trailer above for a preview – the level will reappear on January 8th, marking its return with a lantern in the main menu.


Version 0.31 of the game introduced some sweeping changes to the way AI colonies worked in a freeplay / custom game. Whilst they’ve been successful in lots of ways, it’s clear that there are some further things we can do to make it more effective without too much cheating.


In the UE4 Editor, AI colonies look like this for reasons that no-one but Liam knows

One of the issues we’ve had recently is quite simply just playtime – taking time to play the mode exhaustively ourselves outside of the context of just having it working or fixing it. We spend all of our time developing and playing in chunks – we listen to a lot of external feedback from testers and players, and implement it based on general consensus. However, this is often lacking the personal context of lots of time just spent playing for the sake of playing.

Our devs have gained good momentum on tier 5 right now and we don’t want to disrupt that – so we’ve put aside several days in the new year to do nothing but play custom games and take notes. Rather than immediately run off and fix every issue we come across, as is usually the case with development work, we will absorb the experience in its entirety. We hope this will give us some sounder knowledge for what we should prioritise in making the mode work better.


This is another thing that we’ve spoken about extensively before, so I’ll be brief – right now tier 4 challenge mode is waiting for the aforementioned tier 5 momentum wave to crest. Once that spike of activity reaches its zenith and dies back down again, the six-spotted fishing spider will finally make its long-awaited appearance, wearing its pirate hat if you want it to.


Yarrr!


Fire ant bridging in custom levels is tricky for several reasons. How do we handle multiple colonies competing for the bridging spot, for the most obvious example – these problems have been mostly solved, but the more time-consuming issue of allowing fire ant bridges to be save-able in a custom game has not. Once it has been, fire ant bridging will be introduced to appropriate maps.


We will inevitably hit a period of time where we’re getting everything finalised and ready, ramping up the marketing effort and preparing for the very scary task of bringing our first project to full release for the entire world. How long this ends up being is complete guesswork right now, but it is likely that at this time there will be enough of a gap to squeeze in an extra level / custom game map or two.

John (level designer) told me recently that he’s had some ideas that he’s itching to try out, but he’s being very good and concentrating on getting the game to 1.0 right now. This period of time is when he might have a few spare hours to bring these to fruition.


Archipelago – on hold for the time being

It might be here that custom game maps Archipelago and Wetlands make their appearance – they both have some aspects to them that will require input from all 3 of the devs to work, though, so we’ll have to see how we do with the implementation of fire ant bridging in custom games.


Finally, after years of work, we will be here – and this is now a real horizon-loomer. Final release will feature the last 3 story / campaign levels (the fifth tier will have 3 levels, instead of 2 like the others) and the ultimate formicarium challenge that the scientist has been preparing your colony for. I hope you’re all ready.


Time for some pretty Empires of the Undergrowth screenies! If you’d like to be featured in this section at some point in the future, the easiest way is to join our Discord and post on the screenshot channel there. Other than that, I’ll occasionally trawl through the community tab on Steam to see what’s been going on there. By default, press F9 to enter photo mode (hiding the UI) – hold down shift while you do that to uncouple the camera from the floor for some neater angles.


The big-headed ants overlooking an uber beach wolf spider from Dolly on our Discord


A pleasingly picturesque view of 4.2 A Bridge Too Far by Orion (Dilphy) on our Discord


The army is on the march in the formicarium from GoldenUngy on our Discord