Empires of the Undergrowth is in Early Access on Steam!
Store.steampowered.com


"Your queen has set up home beneath a rotting log. She is fat, and vulnerable. Her first brood will need to move quickly if the colony is to survive. Their priority now is to find food, and there is plenty around; but there are other hungry creatures in the undergrowth. The workers will need to be vigilant."

The Nest


Empires of the Undergrowth is an ant colony management game, in a fast-paced real-time strategy style. The player excavates their nest underground, constructing tunnels and chambers to store food and raise brood. On the surface, the ants claim territory, gather resources, overwhelm fearsome arachnids and clash with other colonies. Nest design, army size, composition and attack timing are key to securing victory.

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Missions are narrated from the perspective of a documentary film maker studying the ants, who offers intelligent insight into the goings-on of the colony and the undergrowth beyond. The primary game mode in early access is Formicarium, where you take ownership of a home colony of unique DNA-harvesting ants as they work to assimilate the desirable traits of their foes. You can upgrade them by playing one-off missions, sometimes with your home colony and sometimes with other ant species.

  • Carve out and construct your underground nest to suit your strategy
  • Engage in fast-paced colony versus colony combat above ground
  • Play as different ant species and explore their unique traits and weaknesses
  • Encounter and overpower dangerous beetles, arachnids and other awesome arthropods
  • Grow your pet formicarium over time by completing missions

Official Website: Eotugame.com

YouTube Channel: Youtube.com

Stomt Page: Stomt.com

Dev Blog: Slugdisco.com

Facebook Page: Facebook.com

Twitter: @slugdisco

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The major changes as well as the significant improvements and quality of life alterations are detailed below, but this release is much too big to fit everything into a reasonably-sized post! After the changes, read on to see our updated roadmap, showing where we intend to take the game now it has reached version 1.0.

If you're interested, you can read more about how we got to this point here Imgur.com

Headline Features

Main Game Modes

  • The story of Empires of the Undergrowth reaches a cataclysmic conclusion, now playable in its entirety with a fully narrated documentary-style campaign inspired by real world scenarios, and shocking challenges in an adjacent sci-fi setting
  • Battle for survival in the wild, then bring the spoils of war back to your formicarium and unlock ugradeable ant species to meet the challenges set by the evil scientist
  • Play endlessly customisable missions in skirmishes and freeplay games against environmental creatures, AI colonies, or both!
  • Take on the Arcade with a multitude of inventive extra levels, both nature-inspired and more fanciful, and the Battle Arena to watch the chaos unfold
  • The campaign is repeatable with end-game rewards and New Game Plus

Final Campaign Tier 5

  • Enter the heat of the African savannah with the Matabele ants
    • Obligate termite eaters, they must raid nearby nests as their only long-term viable food source
    • Mighty titans of the undergrowth threaten the very existence of the Matabeles at night
    • Driver ants and African stink ants give fierce competition to the Matabele ants
    • The Matabele will nurse their wounded back to health - a near-unique trait among invertebrates
  • Play a special campaign level as the termites!
    • Play a scenario as one of 3 termite colonies under threat of the Matabele, stink ants and other hungry predators
    • Farm for fungus by collecting decaying plant matter from the surface, but beware the midday sun!
  • Return to the formicarium for the REAL final experiment, where the plans of the scientist are finally laid bare and the ultimate battle must be won
  • Beat the campaign to add the end-game reward of mighty bullet ants to your colony, as well as several other units!
  • Take your enhanced colony into custom games, or repeat your colony’s journey with tougher challenges in New Game Plus - but this time you can take your formicarium upgrades into the mission with you!

New Challenge Modes

  • Take on the fire ant missions with an added twist; the six-spotted fishing spider has joined the fray, causing havoc at pontoon construction sites
  • The sinister assassin bugs prowl the savannah in the Matabele ant missions, taking victims and disguising themselves with the dead bodies of their prey

Custom Games

  • Matabele ants and termites are now selectable as separate colonies in custom games!
    • Matabele colonies must search out termites to eat
    • Termite colonies must find patches of lignocellulose to grow into fungus
  • New savannah creatures will now spawn in custom games when activated - take on alligator back scorpions, earwigs, centipedes and more!

New Extra Level - Tug of War 3

  • Tug of War 3: battle with new units, including the enormous bullet ants and Matabele, in this continuation of the tug-of-war style of extra levels we’ve added previously

Other Major Changes

  • New main menu, loading screens and buttons
  • Expanded arachnophobia mode (you can just have the hat to be visible)
  • Increased rewards across the board for first-time level playthroughs
  • New music in 5.1 & 5.2, as well as in the final formicarium
  • New Battle Arena (surface) and new options for creatures
  • New decorations and underground looks for the formicariums

Quality of Life Changes

  • New Inspect tool (right-side of the pheromone panel) to show creature stats; stats will also now show in tooltips
  • Clearer display of challenge mode and its rewards
  • Important notifications should now be more obvious
  • Numerous small quality of life changes

Fixes

  • Fixed an issue preventing fire ant’s ‘Last Stand’ ability from triggering
  • Improvements applied to swamp and beach environments
  • Several issues with minor improvements fixed
  • Numerous small fixes

The Future

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, we’re not done yet. A few days after release there will be a newsletter going through this more closely, but we wanted to put the post-1.0 roadmap out a little early with the launch, so people can see what the immediate plan for the months ahead is.

Roadmap

Now, off to the savannah with you! And if this is your first time playing Empires of the Undergrowth, welcome. If it’s been on your radar for a while, we hope it’s been worth the wait! It’d be odd not to get slightly emotional at the end of a huge project like this one, and indeed I'm close to bawling my eyes out writing this out now. Thank you so much to everyone who has supported us through the years. We love you all, and we literally couldn’t have done it without you.

We’ll see you in the Undergrowth,
The Slug Disco Team

Empires of the Undergrowth Demo Update!

Empires of the Undergrowth Demo Update!

News

We've made some updates to the free demo - if you've not taken the plunge yet then now's a great time to try out the demo, and if you like it, the game...

Fire Ant Update Release Today - Demo Updated!

Fire Ant Update Release Today - Demo Updated!

News 1 comment

The long-awaited Fire Ant update releases today for our ant colony management game, Empires of the Undergrowth. To celebrate we've updated our demo to...

Fire Ant Update Coming July 27th - Trailer

Fire Ant Update Coming July 27th - Trailer

News

A new formicarium tier, featuring fire ants, is arriving on July 27th! Watch the updated trailer now!

May 2021 Newsletter

May 2021 Newsletter

News

Good lord, it’s May already. This newsletter will spotlight some more enemies coming for the fire ant update, with a particular focus on nature’s...

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Empires of the Undergrowth Win64 Demo - V0.302

Empires of the Undergrowth Win64 Demo - V0.302

Demo 6 comments

In addition to the previous 6 demo levels this update includes the tutorial level to help those new to the game get up to speed. Also included is an updated...

Empires of the Undergrowth Mac Demo - V0.302

Empires of the Undergrowth Mac Demo - V0.302

Demo 1 comment

In addition to the previous 6 demo levels this update includes the tutorial level to help those new to the game get up to speed. Also included is an updated...

Empires of the Undergrowth Linux Demo - V0.302

Empires of the Undergrowth Linux Demo - V0.302

Demo

In addition to the previous 6 demo levels this update includes the tutorial level to help those new to the game get up to speed. Also included is an updated...

Empires of the Undergrowth Win64 Demo - V0.30103

Empires of the Undergrowth Win64 Demo - V0.30103

Demo 11 comments

This demo includes the opportunity to play as the tenacious fire ants in a new level. Excavate your nest, form floating pontoons to reach valuable resources...

Empires of the Undergrowth Win64 Demo - V0.2314

Empires of the Undergrowth Win64 Demo - V0.2314

Demo 6 comments

It's Gamescom and we are here (digitally) as part of the Indie Arena Booth! To celebrate we are giving players the opportunity to try out fire ants for...

Empires of the Undergrowth Linux Demo - V0.202

Empires of the Undergrowth Linux Demo - V0.202

Demo 4 comments

THIS IS THE LINUX VERSION OF THE DEMO. This demo includes 4 underground levels and a new level, The Crucible! Take control of the new leafcutter ants...

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how do i play empires of the undergrowth

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SlugDisco Creator
SlugDisco - - 153 comments

You can buy the game on Steam, Itch.io, GOG or EGS - there's also a free demo too!

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Guest - - 695,271 comments

Hi everyone

My son is really excited to be able to play this game. I am getting too old and can’t figure out how to get the Empire of the Undergrowth game for him to play. From what I can see it looks like a free download but wanted your help. My boy would be on cloud 9.

Many thanks

An out of touch Dad

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SlugDisco Creator
SlugDisco - - 153 comments

Hi, sorry that we have only just seen this - the game is available on Steam here: Store.steampowered.com

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frenchiveruti
frenchiveruti - - 372 comments

So, SimAnts for 2020?

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SlugDisco Creator
SlugDisco - - 153 comments

Our game isn't a simulation like Sim Ant, this is more akin to Dungeon Keeper :)

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