May 6, 2023

Empires of the Undergrowth - Mike

We've had the last of our extra levels in the 'sequel season', so it's time to re-evaluate the road ahead with an updated map. The compressed parts of the previous one are fast approaching, so we can 'zoom in' on that part of it, as it were, to give a bit more detail. Most of this newsletter will deal with breaking down what'll be arriving in the near future.

A bombardier beetle attacks fire ants from NappyB on our Discord

We also have some business news - we've joined with indie publishers Hooded Horse to publish Empires of the Undergrowth! There are also some real-world events we'll be attending soon. More on that later - first and foremost, let's get the new roadmap up and talk through it in order.

New Roadmap

Here's the updated roadmap. Please note that the exact order in which things will happen, as well as the timings, are very approximate - sometimes things take more time than expected, and sometimes they take less. Some of the updates may be clumped together, whilst others may be more spread out.

Graphic design is my passion (click to see full size)

The End of Sequel Season

Starting on the right-hand side in the top corner, we've just had the last of the 'sequel season' of extra levels. The Culling 2 was released on May 1, and it represents the last of the extra levels we had stocked up for you lovely people to play whilst we work on the big stuff. Rather than panic and quickly develop a bunch more of them, we thought we'd wait a while and just concentrate on getting to a point where we've released our planned changes to the existing campaign levels and freeplay mode.

Sequel season was a really neat opportunity to revisit some of the older extra level ideas, and give them a new spin in the context of the content that has been added to the game in the meantime. Undoubtedly there will be more extra levels (represented towards the centre of the roadmap, after all of the near-future updates are released) but for the meantime we're quite happy with the reception given to the four in this set.

Campaign Balance Pass & Level Changes

The upcoming balance changes to the campaign levels will be arriving sooner rather than later. They shouldn't be thought of as blanket changes - each level has been reworked to accommodate the changed food values (in general less food from dead enemies and more from other sources, except in tier 4 where food from creatures has increased), and in the case of the beach levels some larger changes are being made.

Beach Creature Changes

A new size class of hermit crab has been added which will patrol the beach at night, and aphids will continue to produce honeydew after dark (making them a much more valuable commodity to look after). There's also some stuff that will make use of some previously unused narrator dialogue, making the overall changes to the beach levels far more interesting than a simple food rebalance.

What doesn't kill you, usually succeeds in the second attempt

Apart from the new crab size class, 'beach creature changes' also refers to the changes to the wolf spider and tiger beetle that were detailed in the previous newsletter and vlog - the link here has the right timecode for that moment (at 3:36). These are art-only changes (apart from the food rebalance) to firmly establish the location of the beach levels as coastal Europe.

UI & Quality-of-Life Changes

A host of changes are coming to the menu system and user interface - more menus will be full screen-sized rather than floating boxes, making the visuals less cluttered when navigating them. The old and unhelpfully-named option called ‘realistic mode’ has been broken down into its component pieces (hiding pheromone markers, trails, and buried food and creature outlines) and added to a new tab on the updated menu, which also includes options for disabling seasonal hats on the queen if you so wish - not everyone wants to look at a Santa hat in December.

Updated level selection menu

The most eye-catchingly obvious of these changes is probably the level launch menu, which looks much cleaner and has some fancy live-rendered ants in it now. You can see this in motion in last month’s vlog (at 4:41 seconds).

The whole interface itself will soon have an option to set its scale, which is a long-requested feature for both accessibility and display format reasons. Apart from being a must for players with visual perception or eyesight issues, people who want to play on the Steam Deck or to use a controller whilst looking at a TV on the opposite side of the room will soon find text and menus across the game a much more readable experience.

Art Asset Changes

We’ve been working since the new year on updating the beach assets to bring them up to scratch with the precedent set for the swamp and rotting log environments. This was detailed more in the previous newsletter - so go and check that out for more extensive details (the same goes for the new black ant queen model).

WIP beach (ignore unfinished nest entrances, etc)

Freeplay AI

We've been hard at work plugging in all the sprockets and widgets to bring the improved AI systems to freeplay. In this quick demonstration video, you can see an AI colony respond directly to a threat near their nest entrance and engage its harassment module to fight off the intruders.

When it realises the odds are not in its favour, it makes the independent decision to make a tactical retreat before it loses all of its ants. This form of reactive AI was much simpler in its previous implementation for freeplay colonies, and it’s satisfying to see this coming together now. The work to make this more intelligent AI system saveable in freeplay mode has recently neared completion, so we’re fairly confident in putting this in the ‘more imminent’ section of the roadmap. Freeplay games that include AI colonies should be significantly more engaging and more tactically diverse.

New Freeplay Landmarks & Options

The new landmarks that are coming include large creatures (currently bullfrogs, dragonflies and whip spiders) and relocatable aphids on milkweed plants. The new options include the ability to drop some of the early game randomness of the landmarks, making the placement of them more intelligently fair, at least at the start of a freeplay run to allow the player time to build up before the difficulty ramps.

The True ‘Interim Update’

‘Interim Update’ is the unofficial term we’ve been using for the large sets of changes coming between the fire ant and final campaign updates, taking the name from a convention we used in an earlier update cycle. Since a good chunk of what was considered part of this update will be ready sooner (and is therefore earlier on the roadmap), we’ll keep the name for everything else that is likely to come a bit later. At that point, we’ll do a dedicated video covering all the changes.

Fishing spider spies you with all eight eyes

The 4th tier challenge mode (featuring the six-spotted fishing spider, Dolomedes triton) and the new freeplay map ‘Wetlands’ that prominently features fire ant bridge building make up the most anticipated part of this update, but the new uber creatures are sure to be a welcome addition as well. The game will get its full complement of achievements at this point, too (with the exception of some that will come with full release).

Version 1.0 - New Game Plus

The new addition for this part of the roadmap that needs a little more clarification is New Game Plus mode. It was detailed very thoroughly in last month’s vlog (5:58), so for a full rundown that’s the definitive source. For convenience’s sake here’s a brief summary:

Upon completing the campaign, you’ll have the option of converting a save to New Game Plus
That process will be similar to rehousing the colony in the campaign in terms of lost resources and gained royal jelly
All levels will be significantly harder
All ants will be unlockable from the start with your stash of jelly, including the bonus species (bullet ants)
Queen upgrades, species-specific upgrade and minor improvements will all be active in documentary campaign missions in New Game Plus mode to counteract the increased difficulty
The mode can be completed again, in New Game Mode +2, 3, etc to an as-yet undefined limit

Note that this change is unlikely to come until we leave early access, but plenty of people have been asking if it’s going to be a feature so we wanted to confirm that and get some of the details out nice and early.

That covers the updated roadmap - please feel free to join us on our Discord, or discussion forums, if you have any questions! We will endeavour to update this roadmap every 6 months or so going forward, until the project is finished. It’s likely that everything up until the ‘Interim Update’ part of it will be ticked off in relatively short order.

Hooded Horse

A short while ago, we got to know the lovely people from Hooded Horse - an indie publishing company that has been making some waves for the past few years with its strategy, sim and RPG games. Empires of the Undergrowth seemed like a good fit for them!

We’ve partnered up with them to get the word out about Empires of the Undergrowth to more people. Whilst we maintain complete creative control of the project and management of our own resources, Hooded Horse can bring their more extensive business acumen and experience to the party when it comes to promotion and marketing. This can only be a good thing for EotU - it should mean more eyes on the game, more feedback for us, and ultimately a more successful project. If you see some changes around the EotU store pages in the near future, then that's the work of their wise hands.

The jumping spider-eyed amongst you may have noticed that EotU is part of publisher bundles by Hooded Horse for the time being, and we’re very happy to be counted alongside games such as Against the Storm and Clanfolk!

ANTCON & Gamescom

There’s an event in Wales on 13th May called ANTCON, in Carmarthen, Wales. It’s a small event for ant enthusiasts, focusing on their keeping and care. We’ve been invited to attend and give a talk, so a few of us from the team will be visiting and director / developer Liam will likely be doing that short presentation - and I’ll make sure it’s recorded! I’ll be documenting the whole event and editing a highlight video for our YouTube channel, so make sure you’re subscribed to us (why aren’t you already? We put some really good stuff up there!) so that you can see that as soon as it goes up.

Later in the year there is a very good chance we’ll be attending Gamescom 2023 in Cologne, Germany, in some form - our new publishers Hooded Horse will be there also. That’s in August, so if you’d like to meet some of the team (and play a whole bunch of awesome indie games whilst you’re at it) then there’s plenty of time to get tickets!

Screenshot Central

If you’d like to submit a screenshot for this section of the newsletter, by far the easiest way is to join our Discord and post in the appropriate dedicated screenshot channel. It’s a very friendly community and aesthetically pleasing screenshots are always well-received. This time, though, I've gone through the Steam Community screenshot posts since I've been neglecting those for the past few newsletters.

To get a better angle on your screenies, hit shift whilst you press the photo mode button (F9 by default) for a camera that is uncoupled from the ground for maximum freedom!

A wasp mantidfly perches on a pitcher plant in this shot from Philippe Echtebaise

An aesthetically pleasant ultrawide shot of the rotting log from matrixmod

Not even the froglings survived - it's a massacre in the swamp from TheeGamerTv

May 6, 2023

Community Update #1

Ash of Gods: The Way - bijou

Hey Challengers!

It’s been a week since the release, and we would like to thank all of you for reporting bugs and sharing your ideas with us. You’ve been a great help, and this update is based on your popular requests.

For those, who just discovered the game, please, keep in mind, you are always welcome to share your feedback. We are carefully reading everything and doing our best to answer any questions you might have.

Also, if you face any issue, please, do not hesitate to contact us via Discord. This way you can easily share some files to help us solve the problem ASAP. The folder you need is this one:

C:\Users\{USER NAME}\AppData\LocalLow\AurumDust LLC\Ash of Gods The Way

But let’s move to the changes we actually managed to deliver today.

CHANGELOG

The very first thing we wanted to improve is your experience with the story and dialogues. This is especially important in the third tournament because the consequences are based on the way you talk to the Chieftain.

From now on, you can see what Finn is actually going to say by hovering the cursor over the button. This way it will be much easier to choose what you actually want to say, especially when you talk to Hargell.

Later, we will do our best to make this window more neat but for now we just wanted to make sure that there is enough space for lines in German and French which are usually quite long.

Another important thing, Chieftain Hargell now reacts to your answers. This way you can easily understand if he likes or dislikes what you say, and can use that knowledge to understand the character.

Keep in mind that Hargell may not react to some of your answers, which simply means that you failed to insult him or to earn his respect.

When that happens a lot or if you have mixed reactions, the Chieftain will more likely stay neutral towards you, and this will end the tournament in a certain way. But we actually reworked this part, and now you will get another option which some of you may find more attractive (and it has its benefits!).

That’s it with the big changes so far for the story and dialogue. Let’s move to gameplay.

There were a few cases when the game couldn’t transfer the turn and the only thing you could do is to surrender. We fixed everything we found but also added a simple workaround for those who might experience that issue again. Now, if the issue happens, the game should forcibly transfer the turn in 40 seconds.

We also fixed a few other critical things but if you managed to find anything to block your progress, please, contact us, we will fix your save in no time.

Other changes are relatively small. There are fixes for voice over and localizations and some changes for UI. For example, now you will see a proper tutorial window if you play with keyboard and mouse even if your controller is active.

And the last thing to mention is a lot of fixes for achievements. Now all of them should work as intended. Also, achievements shouldn’t spam anymore with constant notifications about progress.

WHAT’S NEXT?

We aim to deliver the next update approximately at the end of the month. It will include a few important features that you, our community, requested.

First of all, we are working on a system to significantly improve your user experience with deck management. It will make constant deck changes and card upgrades less tiresome.

Second, we are going to release some kind of New Game Plus kind of thing for those who would like to continue playing after the end. All the fights in the game will be unlocked and upgraded to the level of the last tournament, its conditions will be reset. This way you will be able to replay any fight with the deck of your choice — for example, try to beat the first tournament with a Gellian deck.

Last thing you asked us to add is the ability to replay a tournament for those who are not very fond of the outcome. We will do that.

If you have any other requests, feel free to share them in the comments. Meanwhile, we will take a week off to get some proper sleep because God knows we really haven’t for quite a while.

If you want to support us, please, leave an honest review about the game and spread the word. And once again, thank you very much for your feedback.

A.

May 6, 2023

Medals | Demo V0.5

The Rewind Factory - Waterknaller

Hi everyone,

With the previous update and this update, I am trying to make the game a bit more enjoyable to play by polishing it! This update brings medals to the game, to give you a clear goal and indication of how good you are doing in a certain test chamber.

Patch notes

The timer will now count up, instead of down and it doesn't have a limit anymore.
Added medals. There are currently 3 medals, each with their own color. You can get medals based on the time it took you to complete the test chamber.
The end screen has been redesigned to make place for the medals.
Medals will now also display in the Time Per Level window in the menu.
With speedrun mode enabled you can now see how much time you have left to still get the best possible medal.
The time will be invisible when you play a test chamber for the first time. The time will be visible once you've completed the test chamber at least once. You can also choose to enable an option to always show the time. This option can be found in the Options menu under Accessibility.
Water has been reworked. It currently kills you within a few seconds, instead of instantly. This gives you the opportunity to rewind out of the water.
Health will now also rewind. This means when you get hit and lose health and then rewind, your health will be restored to the previous value.
The health bar will now smoothly update, instead of snapping to your current health value.
When you have low health, a red border will appear around the edges of the screen. The HUD will also have some glitch effects depending on how low your health is.
You will now fall of a wall when you are wall running and press the key opposite to the wall's direction. For example: you are wall running on the left side of a wall and you press D to go right. With this change you will now fall off the wall (only works when Advanced Wall running is turned off).
You should now lose less momentum when rewinding, especially vertical momentum.
Bullets now have a sound when flying. This means you should be able to hear them going past you.
Removed the extra time feature, as there is currently no time limit anymore, so it was useless.
The top 3 players in a leaderboard will now have a small UI effect applied around their position number.
Fixed a bug where you could not view the leaderboards from the tutorial and practice chamber

That's everything in this update. If you'd like to see the devlog about this update, here is the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlruJ0xevIQ