New Year's Feast

Information
Name	New Year's Feast
Categories	Extra Holiday
Player species	Fire ant
Player units	Fire ant worker Wood ant shooter (mortar) Leafcutter ant major (taunt) Trap-jaw ant soldier Army ant major Big-headed ant supersoldier
Surface	Yes
Features	Unlockables Firecrackers Uber creatures Circadian rhythm Destructible barriers

It’s almost time for Lunar New Year, and the fire ant queen is making her famous New Year's Eve hotpot for her family and friends. Help them find the correct spices in time for dinner, whilst making liberal use of festive firecrackers to clear enemies and shorten your path.

Objectives

• Gather all ingredients before New Year's Eve.

• Gather 50 Szechuan peppercorns.

• Gather 25 fennel seeds.

• Gather 15 chilli flakes.

• Gather 10 star anises.

• Gather 1 cinamon stick.

• Eliminate the Nian beast.

Settings

A fire ant colony must gather all ingredients for the hotpot in time and defeat the Nian beast. The queen is located next to a hotpot.

The level starts during the day. New Year's Eve is on the 3rd night.

You can find magnolia saplings across the map. Milkweed seeds frequently land on the map and disappear after 90 seconds.

Ingredients are distributed randomly among 5 areas. They are yellow on the minimaps. Ingredients can be gathered even when food storage is full and are put directly in the hotpot. You gain the corresponding effect after you have completely gathered an ingredient. The final effect you receive only lasts for 25% of the intended duration. Guests aren't affected before they are successfully rescued.

• Szechuan peppercorns: Your ants doesn't take damage for 120 seconds.

• Fennel seeds: Your ants speed up for 120 seconds.

• Chilli flakes: You ants inflict more damage for 120 seconds.

• Star anises: You can spawn ants without requiring food for 200 seconds.

• Cinamon stick: Gathered food is double in food amount for 180 seconds.

You only have access to fire ant workers. You start with 3 worker brood tiles. The queen chamber only has 6 tiles.

You gain access to mortar wood ant shooters, taunt leafcutter ant majors, trap-jaw ant soldiers, army ant majors and big-headed ant supersoldiers by rescuing the respective guests. You can build some brood tiles for free after each succesful rescue.

Guests are distributed randomly among 5 areas. They will move toward the queen when you are close to them and attack any enemies on the way. They stay around and protect the queen for the rest of the level. They are uncontrollable.

You can only play this level by clicking on the lantern in the main menu, which appears from January 8th to February 28th.

Firecrackers

Firecrackers can only be found underground. Ants automatically carry nearby firecrackers. They can't attack enemies or gather food in the process.

You can disable firecracker gathering to prevent your ants from picking up firecrackers. You can only remove carried firecrackers by detonation.

Firecrackers are lit when the carrying ants encounter enemies and explode 5 seconds afterward. You can disable attacking to prevent detonation.

Firecrackers can knock any creatures in the air. Each firecracker deals 2500 damage to the Nian beast and 200 damage to other enemies. Firecrackers don't damage your ants. You can turn an indestructible wall into soil by using a firecracker on easy, medium and hard, or 2 firecrackers on extreme and impossible.

A secret underground cavern is excavated next to your queen after the Nian beast has appeared. It generates 15 super firecrackers 5 seconds after each depletion. Each super firecrackers deals 5000 damage to the Nian beast and 400 damage to other enemies.

Firecrackers are purple on the minimaps.

Notable enemies

Enemies in different territories are hostile to each other. The Nian beast, the uber beach wolf spider and the uber velvet worm are on one side and are hostile to everything else.

Green rove beetles, blue rove beetles, devil's coach horse beetles, mole crickets, beach wolf spiders, checkered beetles, small whip spiders, small velvet worms, bombardier beetles, false bombardier beetles, narrow-mouthed toads and dwarf salamanders live in your nest.

An uber beach wolf spider and an uber mole cricket live in your nest only on impossible.

The puzzle to the northwest of your queen has 4 paths. Guests gather at the end of the correct path. Tiny sand bear wolf spiders only appear when you dig into the wrong paths and aren't counted toward underground enemies.

Roaming enemies in the central area don't invade your nest.

Woodworms gather in crevices on the surface. Larval rove beetles and harvestmen roam the forest floor all day.

Jumping spiders, magnolia green jumpers, leaf-mimic praying mantises, red velvet ants and checkered beetles only appear on the surface during the day.

Velvet worms, bombardier beetles, false bombardier beetles and dwarf salamanders only appear on the surface at night.

Destructible barriers are placed to the northwest of your nest. You can destroy each using a single firecracker. Pine wood tree frogs come from the other side of the stream when you approach. They move away permanently when all barriers are destroyed.

An uber velvet worm circles around the western hill.

Beach tiger beetles, six-spotted tiger beetles and larval northern dune tiger beetles only gather in the southwestern basin and increase in number each day.

The extremely long pathway to the east of your nest doesn't have enemies. You can use firecrackers against the woodworms to the east of the basin to launch your ants onto the ridge and skip half of the journey. You must keep the remaining ants from departing through the pathway entrance until an ejected ant reaches the top to get the respective achievement.

Green rove beetles appear on either of the eastern hills when you approach. They only swarm on a single hill which you have set foot upon first and leave entirely when they can't find any enemies to fight.

The Nian beast is a cosplaying juvenile eastern newt, which has modified health. After you have gathered all ingredients, it appears on the northern hill and invades your nest.

Achievements

Achievements
Icons	Name	Requirements
	New Year's Feast	Beat the level on designated difficulty.
	Don't Tickle Its Bottom	Rescue the guests the west of the nest without engaging the uber velvet worm then beat the level. (medium)
	Rocket Jump	Use a firecracker to skip the northeastern maze then beat the level. (hard)
	Spring Cleaning	Eliminate all underground enemies then beat the level. (extreme)
	Full House	Rescue all guests and keep them alive until you beat the level. (impossible)

Trivia

• This is the only level narrated entirely in Chinese. It is also the only level in the game that has mid-game cutscene.

• During the middle cutscene, an army ant major climb to the top of the eastern hill to look for the source of the tremor. This event always happens even if you haven't rescued any army ants.

• Adult green rove beetles on the twin hills can be knocked back.

• Full house is a poker hand with three of a kind and a pair. The respective achievement involves unlocking 3 tank units and 2 melee/ ranged units.

Minimaps

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  Surface

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  Underground