Empires of the Undergrowth

Empires of the Undergrowth is a real-time-strategy game developed and published by Slug Disco Studios. The game was fully released on Jun 7th 2024.

Overview

Empires of the Undergrowth is a colony management game in a fast-paced real-time-strategy style. Ants claim territory, gather resources, overwhelm fearsome enemies and clash with other colonies on the surface. They excavate and construct chambers to store resources and raise brood underground. Nest design, colony size, army composition and attack timing are keys to victory.

The primary content is the narrative-driven story mode. You follow the progress of a lab experiment centered around a fictional gene-thief ant colony. You gain resources through a series of documentary missions that explore various ant species in their natural habitats.

You can test your story-mode colony against non-player colonies or the increasingly hostile environment in custom game mode. You can also enjoy over 20 unrelated extra missions or set creatures against each other in arcade mode.

History

The original developer team consists of John Connor, Liam Comerford and Matthew Kent. They had been friends for a long time. They wanted to make a game about ants together because they were fans of BBC documentaries and Matt used to keep ants as pets.

Slug Disco Studios was formed in 2014. Empires of the Undergrowth was planned to be a tug-of-war mobile game. The team didn't have the necessary fund to make the game at first so they opted for a kickstarter campaign.

The first kickstarter campaign started on November 17th 2015. It failed but the game gained 300 backers and was greenlit to be on Steam. The developers decided to make the game for PC using Unreal Engine 4 because building their own engine proved to be too time consuming and constricting.

The second kickstarter campaign started on April 20th 2016, along with the release of the first demo. They reached the goal in just a week and the kickstarter ended at 180%.

The developers changed their approach for the game, focusing on quality over quantity. Only species that offered the most unique gameplay mechanics or combat abilities were chosen for the game. Basic mechanics were built upon the original concepts, leaning more toward simulating ant behaviors in real life. The main story was changed midway through early development to take place in a lab with the involvement of a mad scientist.

The game entered early access on December 1st 2017, after a lot of delays. Early version of custom game mode was released on July 2nd 2018 in response to popular demand. The developers left their original jobs to commit entirely on the game.

Leafcutter ant update was released on April 25th 2019. Fire ant update was released on July 27th 2022. Extra missions were added over the years to keep players occupied while waiting for new contents.

Hooded Horse became the new co-publisher for the game from March 2023 onward. The game went through major aesthetic changes after new artists joined the development.

The game was fully released on June 7th 2024. The receptions were overwhelmingly positive, which secured the future of the project. The developers have stated that they will keep working on the game in 2025.

The game is currently available to be purchased on Steam, Epic, GOG and Itch. The lastest version is 1.0.

Trivia

The developers didn't know about Sim Ant until they did some market research for the game.

The basic mechanics were inspired by Dungeon Keeper and Starcraft while the narrations were inspired by Andy Serkis from Empire of the Desert Ants.

The 3 main developers used to live together in Liverpool. One day, they tucked themselves in sleeping bags and hosted a small party in the living room. Someone commented that it looked like a slug disco, which became the name of the team later on.