Empires of the Undergrowth Demo

Ants may not be the prettiest insects out there, but they are certainly capable of many great things. Hence, their hive instincts and coordination are so good that they are practically communicating through telepathy, or at least that’s how it seems. Now, you have the chance to control your very own colony and see whether you can do a better job.

Empires of the Undergrowth is a top-down strategy game in which your goal is to take care of an ant colony, expand it and provide the queen with enough room and food to create more ants. It’s a pretty basic idea in theory, but it’s a lot harder to make something enjoyable out of it. Thankfully, the developers have managed to create a pretty engaging experience, especially if you enjoy simulators and RTS games.

You start with a queen and a few worker ants, and the goal is to expand as quickly as possible and find necessary food to place more structures. The expansion can be done by simply digging in the desired direction, although not every type of ground is suitable for this. Thankfully, the game displays the locations containing food before you reach them, which makes your job a lot easier.

On the other hand, it doesn’t display dangerous enemies on the map, so you’re pretty much digging blindly, which is bad news if you do not have the required protection. You can always stumble into another colony, spiders, or various other insects. Warrior ants are good at dealing with intruders, and it shouldn’t matter too much of you lose workers, because the queen is constantly producing eggs.

The buildings are basically used for food storage and various hatcheries for different types of ants, although more of them are planned for the final version of the game. More diverse maps are planned as well, and not all of them take place underground, which should be a nice change of pace. The graphics are quite pleasant, even if the current level design is not that detailed.

In the end, Empires of the Undergrowth is a pretty neat idea, especially if you enjoy strategy games and ants. Moreover, the gameplay mechanics seem quite sturdy and versatile, which should encourage replayability. Thus, you can support the developers by participating in the game’s Kickstarter campaign.