Version 1.0.0 RC1 Released

ANTBOUND has reached an important milestone: Version 1.0.0 Release Candidate 1 is now ready for testing.

After many development, balancing, bug-fixing and automated QA passes, the game has reached the point where the core feature set is frozen. From here on, the focus is stability, real-device testing and fixing any remaining release blockers.

What is ANTBOUND?

ANTBOUND is a colony progression game where you gather resources, expand your ant colony, raise specialized ants, research new technologies, build underground infrastructure, create pheromone logistics routes, fight enemies and bosses, and eventually explore deeper underground systems.

The progression now runs from a completely fresh colony all the way to a persistent CAMPAIGN COMPLETE state.

Full Campaign Progression

The current campaign contains:

• 156 Field Notes
• five major surface zones
• surface bosses
• Deep Stratum progression
• colony research
• ant castes and traits
• brood and lineage systems
• pheromone logistics
• nest construction
• resource storage and transport
• Deep Sieges
• specialization paths
• Tier 7 research
• achievements
• post-campaign colony play

Finishing the campaign now requires completing the Field Note chain, defeating the major surface bosses and Deep Siege variants, progressing into Tier 7 research and meeting the final campaign requirements.

Major QA Systems

ANTBOUND now includes several internal automated test systems that can independently verify large portions of the game.

Human QA Pilot

Automatically plays through movement, gathering, combat, nest interaction, UI systems, routes and other common gameplay situations.

Latest certification result:

100 / 100 score 1,198 actions 0 warnings 0 errors

Fresh Colony AI

Starts from a clean colony with no stockpiled resources and verifies the early progression path all the way to Deep Stratum D1.

Deep Progression AI

Continues through the underground economy, shafts, logistics, Deep Sieges and Tier 7 progression.

Campaign Completion AI

Verifies the entire campaign structure through all 156 Field Notes and the final CAMPAIGN COMPLETE state.

Final Certification

RC1 adds a new top-level certification test that combines the major release gates into one final check.

It verifies:

• browser capability requirements
• release-candidate regression tests
• fresh colony progression
• campaign completion
• save encoding and corruption rejection
• portable save round-tripping
• clean-install state
• playability checks
• 100 / 250 / 500 ant stress tests

The current build completed:

10 / 10 full certification runs successfully.

Save System Improvements

ANTBOUND now uses Save Schema v32.

A final RC1 issue was discovered where importing a current portable save could incorrectly mark it as an older save version. This could cause unnecessary migrations after importing.

This has been fixed.

Portable saves now preserve their correct schema version through:

Export → Import → Reload

The game also contains save journaling, recovery snapshots and validation designed to protect colonies from damaged saves.

Exploit and Economy Hardening

Previous development passes also addressed several economy and progression exploits.

Examples include:

• preventing unlimited Cargo Pouch upgrades
• preventing unlimited Trail Boots upgrades
• refunding over-levelled upgrades from older saves
• preventing resource duplication after player knockout
• preventing Nest Raid save-scumming
• fixing Deep Shaft logistics deadlocks
• preventing repeated reward claims
• verifying research upgrades actually provide their advertised effects

The current economy has been intentionally frozen for RC1.

Accessibility and Input Improvements

The game now also includes:

• Reduced Motion
• High Contrast mode
• keyboard focus indicators
• improved dialog semantics
• screen-reader-friendly status notifications
• consistent ESC navigation
• stricter separation between menu input and gameplay input

A bug where keyboard interaction with UI controls could also trigger gameplay actions behind the menu was fixed before RC1.

Mobile Testing

Automated layout and touch checks currently cover:

• 320×568
• 375×667
• 390×844
• 430×932

All tested layouts currently report:

0 touch-layout failures 0 horizontal overflow

Important interactive controls maintain a minimum touch height of approximately 40 px.

Performance Testing

The simulation has also passed automated stress checks with:

• 100 ants
• 250 ants
• 500 ants

These tests are used to detect runaway simulation costs and regressions in larger colonies.

What’s Next?

RC1 means feature development is temporarily frozen.

The next stage is focused on real-world testing:

• iPhone Safari
• Android Chrome
• desktop Chrome
• Firefox
• Edge
• itch.io hosted build behavior
• real browser save persistence
• audio behavior on physical devices
• full human playthrough from a fresh colony to CAMPAIGN COMPLETE

If no major issues appear during this phase, the next build may become ANTBOUND v1.0 Final.

If problems are found, they will be addressed in RC2 before release.

Thanks for testing ANTBOUND and helping push the colony toward 1.0.

The colony is almost ready to leave the nest.