saphirascale

Just the other day I was thinking about an advanced intelligence gene and giving nichelings the opportunity to plant berries and nuts.

I like the concept, not the name. Blubber is fatty, but it's not what's in a leopard gecko's tail. I would think that if nichelings can store fat like that, then a camel body would be in order. Also, if a nicheling's tail were to detach, it would still take damage. It just won't be able to store fat for a number of days, or as well. The predator would also be distracted by the tail for a time, giving the nicheling a chance to run, which is what it's for. The tail you drew looked like my own leopard gecko's, and her tail looked like that because someone at the pet store mishandled her and she dropped it. It really looks more like an alligator's tail when it hasn't been broken. Also, not all lizards with detachable tails store fat in them, leopard geckos specifically have that dual trait (so, they're tails are a bit too powerful!)

Where is its head???

Horns don't have to be very visible- antlers certainly look like twigs. When you see the animal they're very noticeable, but when the animal's camouflaged in a forest setting it's not so visible. I also think that a lot of the horns now would fit best for medium length. I would like to see bigger and smaller ram horn options most of all.

I like the idea of having a mountainous terrain that nichelings without flight ability won't be able to access. Although if that happened, people would start wanting mountain goat limbs too. It's be cool to see things like bluebirds resting on rock tips and taking care of their own nests.

But cheetahs can purr. And if you don't like the purr snout's ability...just don't use it?

I like this idea, but it's so different from the game itself that I think it'd be better for a sequel.

It's not like I haven't wanted this before, but I feel like the only reason I needed this as a gameplay mechanic was in emergency situations. So I would hope to have maybe 5 food remaining if I have 10 members and 10 food, but I couldn't manage that even with utilizing the omega ranks. The only reasons why someone wouldn't kick off the members of the group to save the rest (outside from just having imaginative fun) would be because of the resource stealing issue and wanting the whole of the family line to be preserved, which kicking out doesn't allow since it gets rewritten to exclude the kicked out member. As far as the former goes you can kill that nicheling off. I drown nichelings when I have to, or make them face a dangerous predator. Some people could banish them and then have a stronger member kill them off. That should be easy enough to do with babies. Not so helpful when they're sick, but if you have multiple sick individuals you can have them kill each other. Basically what I'm suggesting is to up your cruelness level- don't have them remain in your pack and starve, just banish them and murder them.

I too want calico nichelings.

The mutated virus that can infect humans arose from one bat and a pangolin. Add pangolins.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Are you talking about a situation like where she's surrounded by bushes and there's nichelings on the tiles surrounding the entrance to that clearing? I would say forcing the nichelings to move a space away. If she's on a tile surrounded by water, then the baby should just fall into the water. I feel like if she drops the baby into the water or next to a predator then it's just a factor of the game. The niches don't have that much artificial intelligence in the first place, and it's not like animal mothers don't sacrifice their children to save themselves. Alternatively, you could just allow a feature for "crowded" where she shares the same spot as her child, but they're uncomfortable. As others have said, make someone hurt by it. Maybe mom hurts her neck from the weight of her child, or the child is old enough that it fights its own mother to be let loose. It wouldn't be that different from having a baby nestled into its mother as you have when she gives birth, would it? Just make them share the same hexagon if it's that big of a deal and put a drawback to it if they share it overnight. You might want have her drop the cub overnight anyways. It's not like mothers hold their child for the entire day, it's really only for spurts. She grabs her cub next to her, carries it a few hexagons away, then drops that cub on a hexagon next to her in the same turn. She has one gem left for action. She couldn't have gotten into that spot without their being a viable path in the first place, so there will always be an available place for her cub to land. As far as bluebirds go, it should protect the child from predation. I also like the pouch idea, but I wonder if it will have a more realistic implementation (animal does not need to make a nest as it raises its baby in its pouch, and perhaps it wouldn't be allowed to swim with its baby) or if its just a special body that both males and females could have, as per the kangaroo fantasy on TV.

So does having a night feature look like this? I have as many turns in a day according to the amount of nichelings I have, as per normal. When I hit the space bar, instead of officially ending the day, it turns to night. My nichelings who've spent their energy during the day are now in a sleeping pose, restoring their energy. The ones with energy left over may move around during the night. This is where special features such as night vision come into play. So when I hit the button to have my nicheling use his vision, hexagons from farther away light up, and I can now see a stagmole I couldn't see during the day with him. When I use up all of my nichelings remaining points, I hit the spacebar again. The day has officially ended. It's the start of a new day. My nichelings that I had used yester-day are now awake and at 3 points. But the nichelings I had used in the night are now sleeping. Does this sound like what you'd hope to implement?

I've been thinking of this ever since I got this game. I'd really like to see that. Maybe something like... -1 Speed if their original speed was 2 or more -1 Swimming if their original speed was 2 or more -1 Strength -1 Cold resistence +1 Distasteful Appearence Low fertility or infertile Or we could just make them low fertile and take out a gem and call it even.

YO. That is hilarious.

What? Nichelings are all of these, and obviously so. The only issue you'd have with these is if you're doubting whether a nichling with a gills or a bird beak count as mammals or not because we know that the real-world animals they derive from aren't mammals. Other then that, I don't see how this is relevant to the game. There are no endothermic vs ectothermic genes or vertebrae vs non-vertabrae genes. We assume that nichelings are mammals because by default a majority of the genes available to them reflect that of mammals. Truth of the matter is, nichelings don't fit into that mold anyways because they're video game creatures. They don't nurse, they can have feathers, they can have gills, their ability to move is affected by outside temperature (not necessarily in a reptilian way, but it feels like that sometimes), etc. I know that you want an educational feature to this game, but if it's going to include those things it should include more advanced information as well. Niche is very much a game more suitable for teaching middle schoolers and up, and the information you suggested is elementary school. If you want to teach elementary school kids these things, I'd actually recommend not using this game for that. I'm just imagining fourth graders going "yeah, it has a shark head, but sharks aren't mammals, so it's a fish." "No, it's not a fish! It has fur, and mammals have fur!" "No, it's a fish! It's a fish with fur!" And so on. They'll settle it after a fight and decide whether it's a mammal with a fish head or a fish with a mammal body. It just doesn't seem like the right game for teaching kids about these sort of things.

I like it.

Bobcats also have short tails, and they sometimes live in non-snowy areas. Where did you get your information?

Is there a difference between the old pic and the new one? I'm not seeing it.

There must be some reason why they weren't implented. We already have big ears and medium ears, and that infers that they thought of small ears too, but they rejected them. If we don't know why they rejected them, then we can't figure out a design that will please them into making small ears real.

I think that it would have to go with some sort of insect face. The question is, which bug? Without the availability for pollination, it would have to be a predator, right?

I really like your whole post, it's well thought out. I wish people didn't have to feel afraid of making thought out posts anymore.I think that when we consider the huge diversity of skulls, limbs, and everything else that nichelings have, we can also allow viviparity and oviparity. As a matter of fact, snakes and sharks lay eggs inside their body and when they hatch, they give birth. This would allow the difference between the two in nichelings. If we say that nichelings who give birth just form eggs in their bodies anyways, then that gives them the ability to have both. As far as playpus and echidna go, they are ancient forms of mammals back when proto-mammals laid eggs. What makes a mammal a mammal is fur, regulating one's own internal body temperature, and the ability to nurse, which nichelings don't actually do (since a mother can die after giving birth and the baby survives). I agree that being oviparous doesn't make sense without the ability to move around. This is easily solved by making the nest into a mound. Basically, a buried nest. But people seem to have an almost instinctual thirst for looking at bird's eggs, which would defeat the point of getting to look at an egg, which is what these people really want. I also think that having to brood upon them also defeats the point of looking at an egg. We could make her oviparous and move her off of the eggs until overnight; which would feed that thirst and gives her a chance to do something quick, like berry collecting from a nearby tree. But in the end it boils down to being able to see the eggs and being able to leave those eggs. Otherwise, what's the point?

Definitely agree with adding gathering to the bat wing. I also think there should be large flowers implemented for nichelings to have a nectar collecting ability. This could be added to the bat face. I agree that the hearing ability should be amped up. I'm also wondering why there are no echolocation features. There's no chance of a nicheling with blind eyes being able to move, is there? I also wonder if a blood licking ability could be implemented- a bit cannibalistic, but what if licking a wounded nicheling adds to the food pile?

I feel like if we have giant ants then at least one species shouldn't be neutral. I went to Oklahoma once and let me tell you, those ants deliberately crawl on people trying to eat them. They were all over my bags, my food, I didn't do anything wrong. They were just super-aggresive. If bullet ants are going to eat rogue males, they're going to eat pack nichelings too.

I really like the tiny body, but I think the scentless part has to go. Just because you're tiny doesn't mean you're not stinky. Nichelings can already smell smaller things like roots underneath the ground. I am all for them going into burrows and collecting cacti. I wonder if they would actually be too small for the bluebirds? Especially the babies. I like the giant body, too. I think this should be a bearyena gene. But then I'd expect bearyenas to start holding their offspring in their mouths, and that would make for a different battle.

Are you suggesting that Nichelings only eat one food a day, or collect one food a day? I thought that nichelings only ate one food a day. When starving you can toggle their ranks to keep them from eating extra, so making a nicheling an omega one day and an alpha the next day.