Slug Disco Studios

This page shows the current developer team.

## **History**

**Empires of the Undergrowth** is an indie game developed, published and distributed by Slug Disco Studios. Most of the members are in the United Kingdom.

The team originally consists of 3 developers: John Connor, Liam Comerford and Matthew Kent, who had been friends for over 15 years. They wanted to make a mobile game focusing on ants because they were fans of BBC documentaries and Matt used to keep ants as pets.

Slug Disco Studios was formed in 2014. Official website and social media accounts were set up later in 2015.

The team didn't have the necessary fund to make the game at first. Therefore, they decided to run a kickstarter campaign.

The first kickstarter campaign started on November 17th 2015. Although it failed, the game gained 300 backers and was greenlit to be on Steam. They decided to make the game for PC using Unreal Engine 4. Paul Culkin joined and helped the team get used to the new engine only for a few months.

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%. Mike Connor, John's older brother, joined as the main community manager in the same year.

The game entered early access on December 1st 2017, after a lot of delays. Matt was the only person who worked full time on the game from the start. John and Liam only quitted their jobs and focused entirely on the game from 2018. The 3 developers shared their workload, although each person has his own specialty.

John began livestreaming his working process on Twitch in 2017. This was put on hold indefinitely in 2021, after Liam accidentally leaked future contents in his stream.

Slug Disco Studios also helped other indie developers publish their games: **Beetle Uprising** (2019), **Ecosystem** (2021), **Adapt** (2022), **Horticular** (2023) and **Green Again** (2024).

Dan Postlethwaite joined as marketing manager in 2020.

Dan Coates joined as environmental artist in 2022.

Beth Howard also joined as 2D artist in 2022 but only stayed for 6 months.

Kaidi Guo and Lin Li joined as Chinese community managers in 2023.

## **Trivia**

* 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.

* Liam has a PhD degree on aerospace engineering from the University of Liverpool.

* Mike was a visual effect artist for various movies: **Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2**, **Thor: The Dark World**, **Rush**, **Fast & Furious 6**.

## **References**

1. ↑ http:///www.steamcommunity.com/app/463530/discussions/0/2906376154333187602/
2. ↑ http:///www.steamcommunity.com/app/463530/discussions/0/1500126447381134770/
3. ↑ http://www.slugdisco.com/twitter-and-facebook/
4. ↑ http://www.slugdisco.com/why-are-we-going-to-kickstarter/
5. ↑ http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/eotu/empires-of-the-undergrowth/posts/1446380
6. ↑ http://www.slugdisco.com/2016-first-two-weeks/
7. ↑ http://www.slugdisco.com/kickstarter-ends-at-180-funded/
8. ↑ Confirmed by Mike on Discord (7/10/2022).
9. ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGM7nx3NfwA
10. ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqlLliviJYI
11. ↑ Confirmed by Mike on Discord (6/9/2022).
12. ↑ Confirmed by Mike on Discord (11/9/2022).
13. ↑ Confirmed by Mike on Discord (17/5/2021).