[Give me honest criticism on my art]

I love the shape of your nichelings! Especially Kutu, they look so cute!

I think you've really nailed the shape and look of the body and something to work on could be the integration of the head with the body. Especially with the first pencil sketch, I just have no idea where their jaw is. If you sort of break down each piece of the anatomy, you can sketch that in and then just go over it again pressing a little harder to make a more solid outline, it helps the viewer distinguish each part of the nicheling from the pattern and details.

I also find it can be really helpful to look at photos of creatures that have similar features as the nicheling I'm trying to draw, even if they themselves look nothing like the nicheling. So for big eared nichelings, I look at photos of fennec foxes to see where and how their ears join their head and for antlers or ram horns, I look at not just pictures of actual animals with antlers, but also how other people have drawn antlers and use that to form my own mental image of how I want those antlers to look. 

I hope that helps! 

[Help make my art better?]

I love the colours you use for your lineart! It makes them all look so cute! You have a really clear style as well!  

I think the thing that throws me off a bit, is that you have the structure of the eyes and face as if the nicheling is facing straight towards the viewer, but with the way you've drawn the muzzle, many of your nichelings look like they've maybe had a broken jaw at some point and I think it's primarily based on how long the bottom line of the muzzle is.

The third picture you included, with the closed eyed yellow nicheling is the one I personally like the best, because the muzzle lines are close to the same length, as well as more centred and it feels more like I'm looking at a cute creature straight on

Something to try would be adjusting the angle of the entire head, so that the muzzle flows as an extension of the head, rather than an add on, if that makes sense? For nichelings looking directly straight forward, keeping those muzzle lines roughly the same length and for nichelings that are looking to the side trying to visualise and convey that they've moved their entire head slightly in the direction they're looking 

I hope that helps!

 

 

 

[I also want critisism]

I love your colours and outlines! I wonder if some of the issue is the elbows and wrists? That's definitely what stands out the most for me as glaringly wrong if that makes sense? It almost looks like they have human elbows. If you look at photos of cats and dogs, you can see how their elbow looks kind of high up their leg and then you have the wrist and paw?

Especially with felines (which is what I think of with the general body shape of nichelings) the front leg joints have an element of roundness to them like this cat stepping forward (hopefully that link works)  and if you look at this cat about to take a bat at the plastic frog you can see how the elbow is held in quite close to the body and it's the wrist and the paw doing most of the work?

If you can, I've found it really helpful for my drawing to watch how my cat moves and think about the joints and muscles that go into that kind of movement. You can also watch videos of foxes or wolves or dogs, whatever base you most think of when it comes to nichelings.

I hope that helps some!

[You as a nicheling!]

15 minutes ago, heyitsgeorgie said:

I think the dentist said like 5 years ago my only hope is for him to randomly take some teeth out, put braces on me, and hope they just magically arrange themselves back into place so that's great for me

That is so rough, jeeze  Teeth are the absolute worst when it comes to preventative health care

[You as a nicheling!]

I had to have eight years of orthodontics (because both my teeth and my jaw were rubbish) and both my front teeth are half fake cos I got slammed into a pool floor and they had to be rebuilt (fun times - especially since I'd only had my adult teeth for like a year at that point)

Braces might be a pain but they are also a gift - just remember whatever you do, brush your teeth, no one wants to be the person who gets their braces off and then has fourteen cavities since they didn't brush well enough (a real thing that happened to a friend of mine)

[You as a nicheling!]

Here's my nicheling! Big body because I'm tall, pale fur because I have blonde hair, claw and nimble fingers to represent strength and creativity, cracker jaw because as much as it's one of my least favourite snouts, it's definitely the one that best represents my face, delicate I am not. Finally, scorpion tail because I'm Australian and it amuses me that we have venomous everything BUT scorpions (we do have scorpions, they're just not particularly dangerous)

[You as a nicheling!]

7 hours ago, Basil said:

lol really beat myself up on this one. spit snout because my teeth are absolutely horrid (i have braces dw), short sighted eyes because i have glasses, and one crippled paw because my left arm is incredibly weak. Also im kinda plain and basic so here I am haha
rest is kinda self explanatory I guess 

I think your nicheling is super cute!

[Niche next steps (Mobile? Consoles?)]

I love both of these ideas so much!

Back in the very early days of 'smart' phones, there was a game I loved that was just about breeding different animals to get cute other animals. I don't remember what it was called or any details, but I know that I haven't been able to find anything even remotely similar. Niche would definitely fill that niche (:P) for me

As for a switch version, I would love that so so much. When I go and visit my family, the laptop I take can't run Niche, so being able to take it with me on the Switch would be amazing. And then I could also take it to play on the train to work and ahhhh it would just be incredible

(Oh and that concept art is sooooooooooooooooo cute too!)

[The Sacred Blood Challenge]

Ooooooooooooooooooooooh I love this!! And I know exactly what gene is going to be my sacred gene *happy dance* 

EDIT: I'm restarting cos I made it too easy on myself by putting the trait in the recessives of my other starter

[My Niche Pantheon]

The Goddess of Salvation, Rose

[My Niche Pantheon]

Justice and Finn, the Gods of Sickness and Misfortune, a sorely needed pair of twins with all the genes I desperately needed...born sick:

Stardin, the God of Beauty and Vanity, a gorgeous nicheling whose family line died out, because he could never find a worthy mate:

[My Niche Pantheon]

So I'm only just starting to do more story based playthroughs, but thought it might be fun to keep a record of the gods and goddesses that come into being throughout the different playthroughs  

First up is the Goddesses of Wanderers, these two were found one after the other and it was clear they must have been sisters. Both had the albinism trait and the one with the claw was blind:

(sadly I don't remember their names, which is why these days I try and remember to take a screenshot with both of them selected)

Next up the Gods of the Winter, these two were born in the mountains, side by side on the same day, Boreas was the first of the tribe to have the antenna and he used his gift to warn the trip when the weather was going to worsen so they knew to huddle together. His mate Beira was the one who would carry his message to the tribe and between them they kept the tribe warm and fed:

 

Jasmine is my newest goddess, the Goddess of Perseverance and Determination, she was born blind into a tribe barely holding together and wanted nothing more than to adventure out beyond the clearing she was trapped in. Despite her lack of insect collecting skills, she is skilled at scooping up bug swarms, managing anything she sets her mind to:

[Bird Not Bothered by Peaceful Bear]

I had a baby just snatched from the nest right next to a peaceful bear, which had just been given some nesting material. Do peaceful bears not work on the birds?

[Why I love Blind Gene Mode]

Because of things like this:

That little albino bird is the child of the two cracker jawed nichelings and I had absolutely no idea 

 

[Invisible Peaceful Bear]

5 minutes ago, Philo said:

Thanks, we finally figures the bug out thanks to your save file ❤️
Will be fixed in the next version ^^

Yay! I'm so glad I could help!

[` + ` Why I love Platypus beak ` + ` A Poem ` + `]

I love the platypus beak, except for one tiny thing......platypus don't have beaks, they have a bill

Many a time my tribes have been saved from extinction by the worms dug up with the platypus beak

[Invisible Peaceful Bear]

This should be the save (in the moment) of an invisible peaceful bear. I'll just add any more saves where I have this glitch occur to this thread

Slot3.nichesave

[Issue with Frozen Creatures?]

I'm not sure if this is a glitch or not, but it seems like ever since the testing branch rolled out, ancient creatures found in glaciers seem to be sick more often than not? 

[Invisible Bunnies]

21 minutes ago, MadMax said:

Hi @ValkyrieWolff
Thanks for providing your save file. Unfortunately the rabbit has already moved so we couldn't reproduce the bug. If this happens in the future could you go to the main menu (this will save this moment) immediately. Hopefully this allows us to reproduce this bug.

-Max

Hi Max! I haven't been able to replicate this glitch with the rabbit, but I do have an in the moment save of the same glitch with a peaceful bear if that would be helpful?

[Ugly to Beauty but it's in Niche challenge]

I have got to give this a go!

[Take my precious savefile so it may experience something interesting]

So, I started off by taking four of your creatures, and jumping straight over to the jungle on the right, in the hopes of spawning a fair number of wanderers. Two to three generations later, the group that left to go to the Jungle Gate, looked like this

Some highlights from the journey so far:

A very annoyed ape taking a swing at these newcomers to his jungle

Meeting Rocky, one of the prettiest wanderers I've ever seen

The birth of Justice, who is my current favourite nicheling

And the surprise cat twins! (with a Justice staring at them over their mother's tail while still in the nest)

[Take my precious savefile so it may experience something interesting]

*rubs hands together* mwahahahahahahahahaha, this will be fun

[The Lost Daughters of Adam]

In memory of the save file lost to the cruel digital world, I would like to share with you, the daughters of Adam

Adam and Eve had only daughters, and the peacock male was the only wanderer on the island. Only the youngest was born without the poison fangs

[Disappearing Save Files]

Last night I was playing Niche and all of the save slots were full. This morning I opened Niche and two of the five were gone, including a challenge I'd been playing and the new play through I was doing of story mode. In the save folder, there are only three files, save slots zero, one and four. Unfortunately, I don't have any backups of the saves that disappeared (which is particularly annoying since I was almost through archipelago in story mode, which is my least favourite part)

I had used the console once in the challenge, but I immediately exited the game and reloaded after that and everything was fine. 

[Little Wanderer Family]

Judging by their age and genes (or what I can see of them since blind gene mode), I've determined that River is Isaelene's birth father, and that Suael's sister acted as their surrogate