Ants are industrious, organised and hungry - as anyone who’s seen one of the multitude of documentaries following their exploits will tell you. They also show a huge variety of adaptations and bizarre traits - qualities that make them seemingly ideal for this form of strategy game.

Above ground, players need to send their ants on long missions, far from the nest to secure and defend lucrative resources. The mechanics are more accessible than your typical RTS; control of your ants is achieved by placing pheromone markers, and gives the colony a more realistic, natural feeling.

The leafcutter update features an all-new rain forest environment with new critters of all sizes, two new levels which will see you face off against fully-fledged colonies, a new Formicarium Challenge where the dastardly scientists have something special planned for you, oh and of course, leafcutter ants!

The game went into Early Access on Steam in December 2017 and was very well received. So much so that we (a development team of three) were able to switch from it being a hobby project to a full time endeavour.  The plan was to finish the full game within 18 months from this point, but it soon became clear that the rush into early access had taken its toll on some of the game’s inner-workings and a lot of it needed to be pulled apart and fitted together again for things to continue smoothly. We put out a few small updates in that time to keep things fresh, but this is the first time we have released new environments, species, and fully narrated campaign scenarios since the launch.

To mark the launch of the leafcutter update, we have also produced a new playable demo of the game.  It’s a pretty chunky demo, featuring four remastered scenarios from the original demo, as well as a brand new mission for the player to test out leafcutter ants.

Headline Features

New Formicarium Tier Added

• New playable species - The Leafcutters
  
  • Featuring 4 sizes of ant (minims, minors, media and major) which can walk under / over one another
  • Major leafcutters are tank units with very high health and come in two forms:
    
    • Stun majors stun targets for 4s and at level 3 will slow them to a crawl for a further 4s
    • Taunt majors force targets to attack them for 4s and at level 3 at 50% health will reduce all incoming damage by 80% for 4s
  • Unique resource management
    
    • Leafcutters need leaves to cultivate a special fungus which is their only source of food!
    • Leaves can be gathered on the surface from various climbable plants
    • Once gathered leaves are taken to a leaf drop-off chamber
    • Each nursery built spawns a free minim ant (tiny leafcutter)
    • The minims take the leaves from the leaf drop-off to nurseries where it is cultivated into fungus that can be spent
    • Once fungus is spent, its remains will need to be taken to a refuse chamber where it can safely decompose
    • The distance between nurseries, leaf drop off chambers and refuse chambers affects the efficient processing of leaves leading to some careful colony design decisions.
• Two new levels in the rainforests of Ecuador
  
  • Two very different levels with unique challenges and threats with carefully designed difficulty settings to suit you level of play!
  • The new environments offer a host of new fauna and flora and have a very different feel to them from previous levels
• A new formicarium challenge - What has the evil scientist got planned this time?
  
  • Do you think you could hate the evil scientist any more? We think you might after you see what he has in store!
• Add the mighty leafcutter major to your formicarium!
  
  • 4 unique upgrade options
    
    • Sharp - This aura causes attackers of the major and any nearby friendly creatures to reflect an amount of damage back to themselves
    • Resilient - This aura causes the major and any nearby friendly creatures to take less damage each hit
    • Durable - All incoming damage to the major is reduced by a set amount
    • Shockproof - Limits damage to the major in any single hit
  • 4 improvement upgrades to spend that extra jelly on!
• More than double the enemy creatures!
  
  • Variety is the spice of life and the rainforest is the king of variety! Each of the new creatures comes with its own stats and abilities and will require their own approach to take down

Other changes and improvements

• Creatures sizes mean you can get more to the front line
• Minimap now displays food that can be collected
• Quantity held by all food types is now displayed when showing tile info
• New enemy creatures have made there way into the battle arena and freeplay
• Freeplay setup dialogue changed to use more screen space for options
• Pheromone marker assignment panel now displays the living ants from chambers

Balance changes

• Queens have been given 50% resistance to slow their deaths
• Queen Second Wind invulnerability duration increased to 30s (up from 20)

 

Playable 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 laboratory 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.

Empires of the Undergrowth is available through Steam Early Access for $19.99