It’s a little bit difficult to know where to start with this newsletter, given the massive kaleidoscope of experiences and emotions the last week has given us. Let’s just blurt out the immediately obvious stuff. The game launched on Steam. The game has been doing very well on Steam. The game has a very positive reaction on Steam.
To say that we’re grateful would be a comedic understatement. Whilst we’ve always been confident that we had a good idea when we went about designing Empires of the Undergrowth, we were never sure if other people would agree. I guess we should have picked up that other people thought so too when we had a successful Kickstarter, or when we had a bunch of YouTubers cover the game without us even asking, or when the demo was consistently in the top games of IndieDB, often topping it, and still is. But we’re a bit too thick apparently.
Enough of the humble bragging – the game is launched and it’s performing well. The most pressing question is what comes next? Well, we had a meeting.
Freeplay Mode
The first thing that we will be getting out now, after many requests and also ourselves getting antsy to work on it, is freeplay mode. Freeplay will be a much slower-paced, longer-form game mode where your colony will grow slower, taking on increasing threats in a saveable environment similar to the formicarium but separate from it.
John in an old development stream; expect these to be more frequent for freeplay
It’ll have a surface, a variety of starting options (including which species of ant you wish to play as, or if you want to import the properties of your formicarium colonies) and over time it’ll be added to with new creatures, artwork, level options and balance changes. The nature of this mode means that it can receive updates much more frequently than the formicarium story mode.
It’s John’s baby, and he’s really keen to get working on it as soon as he can (for now we’re still dealing with bug reports and fallout from the early access launch). He hopes that it’ll be much more of a community project than the formicarium mode, and he’ll be doing live streams that you can join in, watch him do some development, and suggest things / ask questions. These are likely to be irregular at first, but in the new year they could well become scheduled and regular.
As far as time scale goes – we really want to get this fast-evolving game mode out into the wild sooner rather than later, and we’ll be getting our closed beta testers on it as soon as we can. In a basic form, we may be able to get to that stage within a few weeks. After some closed testing (but highly unlikely to be as long as the early access beta period was), we’ll get it out to all of you guys. The thought of watching your colonies grow over a longer time period delights us.
New Levels
In the next stage of formicarium mode (3.1, 3.2 and Formicarium Challenge 3), we want to introduce some new ants. In real life, leaf cutter ants form long trails to gather cuttings from the surrounding foliage, which they take to underground chambers. Here, a fungus grows from the decaying plant matter which is very nutritious and provides the colony with much of its sustenance. We have some ideas for introducing this mechanic to the game and some great community suggestions. The mechanics tend to evolve as we develop them, so we can’t realistically talk about their final form just yet. But you know where we’re headed!
A video about leaf cutter ants
Time scales are more difficult for this – there’s a lot that needs to be prepared for a full-fledged level (as well as the design, there’s a ton of custom scripting, artwork, music, and voice acting that needs to be written and recorded). Whilst John does regular updates for freeplay mode, you can realistically expect the next set of levels to be a few months into the new year. Again, as we all know from past experience, to put exact dates on things like this is fatal – issues crop up, have to be overcome, and things change. I think practically every developer working on an ambitious project has experienced this, and we’ve had plenty of these issues already!
Steam
Those of us who followed our launch day will know it didn’t exactly go smoothly. At almost literally the eleventh hour, EotU was rejected for not meeting the standards Steam required in its file packaging. This was totally on us and our frantic race to get everything sorted for the deadline. We were sort of heartbroken but we tried to stay focused and transplant our launch day to itch.io.
The Empires of the Undergrowth Steam store page
The guys at Itch were terrific and accommodated us promptly and efficiently. We really can’t thank them enough for giving us a light in the darkness for what at that point we assumed was a missed Steam deadline and a dud launch. Launch day really can make or break a project, and at this point we thought we’d missed that opportunity. Seriously, to all those involved with Itch – thank you. You gave us hope when we were at our lowest. So we were able to launch, and several hundred people did indeed buy through Itch – which included a Steam key so when we were eventually approved (which we assumed would take a few days) they could activate the game there.
The Empires of the Undergrowth Itch store page
Then, just as we were getting used to that idea, the guys at Steam performed a miracle for us and approved the updated build. John says that he’s never made such a sound before when he read that confirmation – and he probably never will again. Finally able to tell people we WOULD be launching on Steam on December 1st after all, our mood improved hugely. We even managed to muster together the enthusiasm for a live stream leading up to launch! Watch it below. We highly recommend the Ereptini that Mike devised if you like slightly bitter, more herbal cocktails!
We’re not quite ready to talk about sales numbers just yet, but let’s just say – our pessimistic predictions did not line up with the actual sales. We’ve actually done really, really well – and we’ve been trending on Steam for quite some time. Thanks so much to the YouTubers and streamers who have given us a constant trickle of publicity – it is no doubt you guys who are the reason for the game’s wide reach. Over time we’ll be highlighting some of those people. Which leads us on to:
YouTuber Highlight: KatherineOfSky
KatherineOfSky plays her games in a logical, well-thought-out manner and keeps the viewer informed of the reasons behind her decision making process. In this respect her videos work very well as a tutorial guide for people new to EotU. Outside of that, she’s simply so entertaining to listen to that it’s entirely no wonder that she’s quickly become a dev favorite.
The whole of Formicarium on medium difficulty is now in her early access coverage, and she’s now returned to try hard mode!
Reviews
The game has been getting some great reviews on Steam! We’re loving reading ways you guys have been enjoying the game and what you think needs improving. If you’ve played the game and haven’t left us a review on Steam, please do – it really helps us out! We’re interested in your honest opinions, and we’d love to hear what you thought we did really well and where we can improve. Follow this link to the game’s Steam page to leave your review!
The Ereptini Recipe (after some post-stream adjustment)
For the Formica ereptor: Campari bitters
For the Formica fusca: Coffee Liqueur (Kahlua or Tia Maria)
For the Formica rufa: Lemon juice
For the future Leaf Cutters: A few sprigs of mint
To celebrate early access: Prosecco
For balance: Simple syrup (50/50 sugar water mix)
1) Take large glass and half fill it with ice. Add a couple of crushed mint leaves to the ice and shake for 5 seconds to release the mint flavor.
2) Add 50ml of Campari and 50ml of coffee liqueur
3) Add a few dashes of lemon juice
4) Add 50ml simple syrup
5) Top the glass up with prosecco
6) Stir the cocktail quite quickly for 20 seconds
7) Strain the cocktail into a tall, chilled glass with fresh ice
To the future!
Thanks for reading the newsletter, and thanks for joining us on our continued, danger-fraught journey into the Undergrowth. We feel safer stepping forward into the unknown knowing that you are there with us. No tiger beetle will turn our path; no wolf spider will poison our resolve. As we stride out into the Undergrowth – together – we know that we’re strong.
The Slug Disco team x
