Kickstarter Concept

This page shows the early concepts of **Empires of the Undergrowth** from 2015 to 2017. Most of these concepts have been removed or changed to work as a PC game.

## **History**

**Empires of the Undergrowth** was planned to be a tug-of-war game on mobile phone. The developers tried to create the game using their own homemade engine.

The original story of the game involved a scientist who followed an *Formica ereptor* queen on its migration. The story was meant to be based on an island with a variety of environment and ant species that shouldn't exist in the same place. The gene-thief ant colony expanded through the island, killing rival ant colonies and gaining their desirable traits. The missions would be narrated in a documentary style.

The first kickstarter campaign failed. Most backers were more interested in playing the game on PC. Building their own engine for mobile also proved to be too time consuming and constricting. Therefore, the developers changed the game into a real-time-strategy PC game and built it using Unreal Engine 4.

## **Mechanics**

The mechanics for digging, building, spawning, gathering and attacking were generally the same as the current ones. Tapping anywhere on the screen made the building tabs pop up. Digging had to be selected from the building tabs.

Pheromone groups didn't actually exist. Tapping on a brood chamber, then tapping on the designated targets made the selected group of ants do its tasks. Workers could only harvest. You could only assign tasks within your territory.

Ants move toward the enemy nest when they are assigned to battle. If you disable attacking, they retreat back to the queen. Soldiers could both harvest and combat.

The game was strictly about two colonies fighting against eachother and control territories. The maps could be split into many zones. Sending your soldiers to patrol certain zones let you take control of it. The more soldiers you had, the faster it got. When your territory and enemy territory collided, you can set your soldiers to attack enemy colony. You could claim enemy territories the more you advanced. If you prevented your ants from attacking, they gathered in your nest.

Titans guarded some territory zones. They had to be killed for you to take control of the areas. Titan beetles, emperor scorpions and huge hermit crabs were planned to be in the game.

There were hills and elevation on the surface. Ants could climb up cliffs.

There was a plan for map editor.

## **Playable units**

You could only play as gene-thief ants for half of the game. You gained access to more units as you continued with the story. You should lose all resources and most of your ants when you moved to a new area.

You had to play as the local ant species first when you got to a new area to learn about them. Another gene-thief ant colony would be your rival in these segments. 12 species were planned to be in the game, although most of them stayed only as concept arts.

* Trap-jaw ants (*Odontomachus chelifer*) could occasionally stun enemies. They could fling themselves out of battle at low health to heal or they could fling enemies away, dealing extra damage.

* Black garden ants (*Lasius niger*) could harvest honeydew from aphids more efficiently. They could be upgraded to cost less.

* African driver ants (*Dorylus molestus*) were slow but strong. They could knock multiple enemies back at once or they could charge through the enemies, reshaping the frontline.

* Leafcutter ants (*Atta cephalotes*) could harvest leaves more efficiently. They had high health and could attract attention of enemies. They could either have higher physical resistance or higher venom resistance.

* Fire ants (*Solenopsis invicta*) could be summoned on command and disappear after a short time. They could be either frail but strong or tanky but weak.

* Honeypot ants (*Camponotus inflatus*) can revive dead ants or increase attack speed of nearby allies.

* Carpenter ants (*Camponotus saundersi*) can explode and deal massive damage.

* Slave-maker ants (*Polyergus lucidus*) can steal enemy larvae.

## **Concept arts**

Mysterious island*Formica ereptor**Lasius niger**Polyergus lucidus**Formica rufa**Atta cephalotes**Odontomachus chelifer**Solenopsis invicta**Dorylus molestus**Myrmecia gulosa**Cataglyphis bombycina**Cephalotes rohweri**Harpegnathos saltator**Camponotus inflatus**Nylanderia fulva**Camponotus saundersi*

## **Trailers**

Empires of the Undergrowth Kickstarter Video-2Kickstrater trailer

## **References**

1. ↑ https://www.slugdisco.com/i-htm/
2. ↑ https://www.slugdisco.com/the-move-to-unreal-4/
3. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/slugdisco/videos/1067411816611482/
4. ↑ https://www.twitter.com/LiamSlugDisco/status/647105783512072192
5. ↑ https://www.twitter.com/LiamSlugDisco/status/647053734804094977
6. ↑ https://www.indiedb.com/games/empires-of-the-undergrowth/features/designing-a-single-player-campaign-story-for-ants
7. ↑ https://www.slugdisco.com/teaser-video-website-updates-and-kickstarter-date/
8. ↑ https://www.slugdisco.com/trap-jaw-game-mechanics/
9. ↑ https://www.slugdisco.com/black-garden-ant-gameplay/
10. ↑ https://www.slugdisco.com/african-driver-ant-gameplay/
11. ↑ https://www.slugdisco.com/leaf-cutter-gameplay/
12. ↑ https://www.slugdisco.com/fire-ant-gameplay/