Niche 2?? Brainstorming time

[Ju5t_Ch4lv1n]

Also to add maybe more immunity genes? bc i thought so it's harder to maintain a specific letter/shape but your nicheling don't sick often (also to have 9 starters NOT share the same immunity letters! again this is just an idea, I wonder if that in general would be easy or hard)

[Ju5t_Ch4lv1n]

What about more patterns? like marbled, patches and possibly more than just the colors we have like more fur colors, horn colors pattern colors, potentially have fur length too! like short > medium > long?

[Stranger]

More diseases or genetic defects would be interesting, and also sicknesses that can be caused by environment or health status (as in how many days they have taken off their life due to damage) 

[Andromeda_]

8 hours ago, Ju5t_Ch4lv1n said:

What about more patterns? like marbled, patches and possibly more than just the colors we have like more fur colors, horn colors pattern colors, potentially have fur length too! like short > medium > long?

I WOULD DIE FOR ROSETTES ON NICHELINGS 

[Loxfeaf]

4 minutes ago, Andromeda_ said:

I WOULD DIE FOR ROSETTES ON NICHELINGS 

PLEASE DON’T DIE

[Andromeda_]

4 minutes ago, Loxfeaf said:

PLEASE DON’T DIE

i won't :3

 

 

 

 

i think

[Ju5t_Ch4lv1n]

2 hours ago, Stranger said:

More diseases or genetic defects would be interesting, and also sicknesses that can be caused by environment or health status (as in how many days they have taken off their life due to damage) 

Cool

[BirbMonster]

Idea that I'm not sure if someone suggested:

Underwater biomes! Like some areas of water could be coral reefs, some could be deep and barren, some could be kelp forests, ect! Plus more plants and creatures in each. It would add more motivation for players to evolve water genes (which I very rareley do. And when it happens it's just because the wanderer I let in happened to have water body)

[Modiano Urania]

If there were underwater biomes, I think they should have special ports which are underwater so that you can't accidentally travel to one with unprepared nicheling's

 

We could also have born blind nichelings' eyes looking the same as 'normal' eyes like in real life since the cloudy white only happens if it's been damaged (maybe there could be a chance for a nicheling to be wounded in the eye by a predator and get a debuff to eyesight)

[BirbMonster]

41 minutes ago, Merrydiano said:

If there were underwater biomes, I think they should have special ports which are underwater so that you can't accidentally travel to one with unprepared nicheling's

 

We could also have born blind nichelings' eyes looking the same as 'normal' eyes like in real life since the cloudy white only happens if it's been damaged (maybe there could be a chance for a nicheling to be wounded in the eye by a predator and get a debuff to eyesight)

I mainly meant section of the water within one island (like how one island might have both grasslands and swamps)

[MT26 - A Nicheling]

On 1/24/2024 at 12:14 AM, bostonlobstah said:

oh wait—what about neutral or enemy tribes of wanderers! Kind of like Adam’s family but stick together more. And if you befriend the tribe enough you can merge tribes, or if you attack them or steal their resources, members or territory they become hostile so you have to be careful. Maybe different tribes will act more or less hostile regardless.

Was about to suggest something like it! Had the idea going on in my mind for a very long time.

*stretches hands*

There could probably be a random chance that whenever you travel to an island, there is already a tribe settled there. (Maybe it would be more likely as island difficulty increases)

The tribes would probably act something similar to Adam’s Tribe but they will “reproduce” so that they don’t die out after 25 days. (Always found that kinda sad) They would hunt, gather berries, and such.

The idea I had for this to work is that on “settled islands” (gonna call that the islands with npc tribes in them) there would be a new landform called “Nicheling den” which would spawn an NPC tribe 2 gem Nicheling once in a while (spawn rate could depend on difficulty and such to maintain a certain tribe size, would work similar to the rabbit burrow in that sense) 

I imagine each settled biome would spawn nichelings roughly adapted to their biome (like all Home Island guys have stripes, runner legs, big body, poison fangs and so on) each biome would have their own rough appearance of the Nichelings.

The tribe size would depend on how many nicheling dens are spawned when the island first loads. (I imagine there would be a random chance for 1-5 dens to spawn on the island, which would also be determined by island size) 

The nichelings would be neutral for the most part, tho they will pick up any food the stumble into or take berries from bushes and such. Tho they would turn hostile if you attack them or you attack a Nicheling den. (The Nicheling dens are destroyable)

The dens would spawn NPCs at a regular rate (tho I imagine spawn rate would lower in dry times and increase when there’s rain) to maintain the tribe size. If you want to get rid of the tribe completely, you would need to destroy their dens. But this will turn all of them hostile.

I imagine that on the other side, you can give food to them (maybe whenever you are in a settled island there would be a bar on top or side of the screen showing “NPC tribe perception” towards your tribe)

Giving them food (would work similar to the current “invite” option you get when interacting with a wanderer, but it will just give them food) would increase their perception a small bit, hitting any of them would lower it by a lot, attacking a den would make them instantly hostile.

I imagine based on the island difficulty it would be harder to “befriend” them, like giving them food would increase their perception only a tiny bit in a killer island but would make them a lot happier in an easy island. 
 

Whenever you first arrive to an settled island, the bar would be at neutral and as you interact with them it would change. (Maybe on more difficult islands the bar would start closer to hostile) 

If they turn hostile, they would attack you at any chance they have, like Home Island Nichelings. In neutral they would generally avoid you but steal any food. 

If you manage to get them up to friendly perception you can start inviting them to your tribe! (Their genes are roughly adapted to their biome so it could be helpful in some cases) Tho I imagine it would require significantly more food to invite them than to invite a random wanderer. 

Tho the NPC nichelings will always be competing with you for food; so in islands with scarce food, you might instead want to get rid of them. Up to the player since either choice will have its benefits and difficulties.

An NPC tribe is eliminated once all their dens are destroyed, they stop spawning more and they would gradually die out like current Home nichelings. I imagine once this happens, the perception bar disappears and any survivors would turn into regular wanderers.

 

(you can see I had this idea on my mind for a long time lol)

[Lilytuft]

On 1/25/2024 at 2:33 AM, Ju5t_Ch4lv1n said:

 

like 1-100 days for baby & child, 1-125 days(maybe 150 max) for teen, 1-275 for adults and 35-450 for elders and maybe more?

Because not only you can have your little critters live longer but you can also have them be a baby longer (who wants to have a baby nicheling for 4x longer than adulthood? lol) and another age level, Elder; this can be used for like an extension to your nichelings otherwise "Normal lifespan", as long the nicheling doesn't have too much damage where that level is removed basically it could for like an extra 35 days to an already 200 day-old nicheling, there could be an option where either can be a breed-able age level (cats) or not (like humans for an example), sorry if this sounds confusing.

This is fine as an option, but I personally stuggle with life spans any longer than 40 days

[Peanutpup77]

Would seasons be possible to code? Maybe the season would change every 10 days on normal islands, but on islands like the mountains a certain season would last longer (in this case winter). You could also have cold snaps in winter months. Prey could also spawn less and berry bushes would stop producing as much fruit. Also predators would spawn more as they are food is more scarce. In fall, wanderers would compete with you for food more, and more nuts would fall from trees. In spring, it would rain a lot more and prey would be very easy to find. In summer their could be heatwaves that could start fires, and maybe their would be more aggressive storms.  You could also have more varieties of plants spawn in spring and summer. Creatures fertility could also go up in accordance to the seasons. For example, it would be much easier to breed two creatures in spring and summer than in fall and winter.

[Lilytuft]

Ok, here are some of my old suggestions that I still think could be fun

Bevare of cringe formatting, old art and severe grammar mistakes!

Quote

 

(Maybe a less intense and mobile-gamey version of this? Just unlocking new genes through evolving old ones)

(This one would be painful but personally I would still love to be tormented by birds)

(I'm aware that Niche 2 might have completely different UI, but)

(I still really love this ice concept)

(Throwback to the time I accidentally invented sugar gliders. And also a throwback to when the forums would autmatically covert XD into )

(Also these guys would need to be nerfed a bit or they'd become way too big of a nuisance)

(This one already made its way into Breed and Evolve but I will not hesitate to plug it again. Also ignore the stats, we don't need them)

(Feeling kind of iffy about this last one, but I guess I wouldn't mind it being added)

 

 

[Stranger]

8 hours ago, Lilytuft said:

Ok, here are some of my old suggestions that I still think could be fun

Bevare of cringe formatting, old art and severe grammar mistakes!

 

I think the learning skills could be cool! Maybe in younger nichelings they have bad skills in general, but the more they attempt to collect food and so on, the more proficiency they get, leading them to having better stats as an adult? 

[Loxfeaf]

9 hours ago, Lilytuft said:

Bevare

Why did I think that said beaver?

[Ju5t_Ch4lv1n]

Maybe we could do limp hind legs like Briar light had?

it wouldn't give speed, which would be a problem and more hind leg genes too!

[Ju5t_Ch4lv1n]

On 1/25/2024 at 7:07 AM, Ju5t_Ch4lv1n said:

Also to add maybe more immunity genes? bc i thought so it's harder to maintain a specific letter/shape but your nicheling don't sick often (also to have 9 starters NOT share the same immunity letters! again this is just an idea, I wonder if that in general would be easy or hard)

why does it look like a 1st grader's stuff

[The Mad Katter]

I would love to see more depth to the genetics system! 

That was always my favorite part of Niche, but its gotten a bit repetitive and I'd love to have a little more randomness and variety

 

On 1/21/2024 at 8:06 AM, Stranger said:

NICHE TWO WOULD BE SUCH A COOL IDEA! 

1. I know whatever is came up with I will love no matter what, so I don't have much suggestions, but I think multiplayer would definitely be cool, and maybe new genes (from suggestions maybe). 

2. Also I think it would be amazing to have (I don't know the word for it, defective?) genes where, for instance, a nicheling born with antlers has a small chance of having stubby antlers instead of normal ones. It would impact the stats too. 

3. Like Tako said, some small animations would be cool! 

4. And last of all, some new npc animals maybe? So far nichelings can only breed with friendly bearyena, but it would be cool to expand on that. 

Ok that's it I know it's a lot but these are just some ideas :). 

Non-inheritable traits:

I love the idea of traits that can't be bred for/can't be inherited by offspring and just happen rarely to some nichelings (which is what I think Stranger was saying here about defective traits? Otherwise it feels too similar to traits like deformed paw). Some nichelings could just have abnormalities happen during their development in the womb, but aren't caused by their genetics and therefore can't be passed on. Chimerism would be so cool, maybe the genetics that are displayed in the genetics tab are the ones that get passed on, but half of the nicheling is a different set of genetics (like Venus the cat!) that just affects the nicheling visually (maybe only affects fur color/pattern).

 

Sex-Linked traits:

I also would love for more sex-linked traits to be added besides just blood clotting! Like how orange fur in cats is sex-linked, so orange cats are more likely to be male than female. Or how calico coloration requires two X chromosomes so all calico cats are female (unless a male cat has XXY chromosomes, but that's probably getting too detailed).

 

Genetic sliding scale for some traits:

What I would REALLY love would be traits that aren't a perfect "you either have it or you don't", and are more of a sliding scale. Maybe instead of having to find a "big body gene" for example, you could instead breed bigger nichelings together until eventually they've evolved to have the big body gene with all the perks. Like maybe there's a number system 1-5 with body size, 1 being lean body and 5 being big body and everything else in between being a variation of "normal body". If you breed two nichelings with a "2" on the scale together, they would most likely have a "2" sized baby, but they have a chance of having a "1" or "3" sized baby, with the "1" size having a special name called "lean body" with all the perks of lean body in the OG Niche game. I would imagine you it would be more likely to get a change in body size than you would a typical random mutation, since in real life its not necessarily a mutation to be taller than your parents, but maybe it would be more rare for two lean body parents to have a size "2" child so that its easier to keep the special sizes in the family.

I like that with this different form of inheritance you have different routes of getting to these traits (either explore and find a nicheling that already has the trait you're looking for or take generations to selectively breed until you get the size you want), with both of them feeling like you have more agency than just hoping for a completely random mutation of the gene you want. This would also mean that this trait could stack with something like spiky body, which would stay a "you either have it or you don't" trait. 

 

Nocturnal and Diurnal traits:

I saw it mentioned a couple times, but having something like a nocturnal gene would be SO COOL!! Diurnal nichelings would be able to use their action points when the sun is out and nocturnal nichelings would use them at night. There could be special prey that are only out at night or you are able to attack predators while they are sleeping. Maybe a nicheling could have the option to use an extra action point in the wrong time of day for them (so they could choose to use an additional action point instead of sleeping, but this would have consequences (maybe a "tired" status affliction that takes action points away the next day, and if repeated more could take away health). Maybe whether a nicheling is nocturnal or diurnal could be linked to a physical trait like eye pupil shape (vertical for nocturnal and round for diurnal)

 

 

 

[Asmadeus]

This'll be verrry long however Maybe introduce:

-enemy/ wandering tribes that are on any island and can help late-stage gameplay from incest or more genetic makeup. Maybe even a challenge for who gets to stay on the island. Have a passive vs aggressive native tribe on any island where passive tribes are more likely to breed with your tribe and allow you to gather resources easily until you go to another island or disrespect them (hurting members). These tribes are typically on fertile lands which cause less competition. Aggressive tribes, however, are in lands with less resources than the passive tribes.  Aggressive/Defensive tribes will be less likely to breed with your tribe and run away when close to them(similar to how rogues males act around male tribe members or Adam's original tribe) however if you ' steal'  enough resources like food or nesting material they will get aggressive and start attacking your tribe.  Hurting a member will cause their nichlings to scream and alert the tribe that you're acting aggressively and will cause them to attack. The only way an aggressive tribe can trust your tribe is if you have enough members integrated into their tribe.

- beachy biome with volcanoes and beachy-themed genes (and desert biomes)/ more islands

-deformities that are random (derp snout, body paw etc)which can give your niching weakness and more susceptible to being endangered or sick. They have less strength than normal nichlings and are typically hunted first along with babies elderly, and immune double niching. 

-Age strength regression. The elderly are not as quick, strong, or able-bodied to hunt or fight. Their immune system will cause them to get sick way quicker than normal.

-more patterns and scars. 

- more storms like floods, twisters, sandstorms,  earthquakes, and volcanic activities. Depending on the island, your nichelings would have to go on higher ground and wait a couple of days to go back to ground level during floods.  Food sources like bushes and prey (other than birds) will be gone for a couple of days until the storm passes. Plants will have to regenerate however you will receive plentiful nesting materials from broken shrubs and trees. Swimming, calling and flying genes will be strong during floods as those who are able can get fish who swam upshore from the storm. If your nichling got caught in the flood, depending on their swimming genes, they will float or drown.  Sandstorms will be an elongated drought with no food for a couple of days other than bugs. So those who have heat resistance and insect genes will prevail. Twisters and earthquakes only cause damage to shrubs and plants which will only decrease food/nesting material, with earthquakes making the map possibly shake up and you'll lose some members if you're unlucky. Volcanoes will burn the ground and cause smoke clouds to form (possibly rain clouds). The ground will be black and infertile for some days and if the volcano erupts and hits plant plots or your nichling they will not regenerate/ lose members.

 

- bigger islands for bigger tribes. The bigger the tribe will give you the option to implement roles and a den for a permanent home( as seen below). However the bigger the tribe does not mean it's better as you'll have more chances of diseases spread, incest, and bug infestation. 

- add more roles into the tribes. Have leaders and possible gender roles like how lions act in the wild or even wolves. Alphas get more food and more mating opportunities but are responsible for the hunts, the welfare of the tribe, and those who enter. Only a small fraction of your tribe can be an alpha. Have the strongest and most desirable(desirability option can change from default game mode in sandbox mode to change up who will be alpha in your game save file) nichelings be the alphas. They will protect the tribe and with enough nesting material, can build a 'den' for the tribe if you're making a permanent home on an island. The den can house 5 baby nichelings when things are bad and even house 1 adult. The den cannot be moved so be wise where you put it depending on the location, it can be flooded or susceptible to diseases and storms. Alphas can banish, injure, or challenge other alphas/ tribe members to be leaders. There will be only 2-10 leaders in a tribe (male and female). Leaders are not banished at all and can give their role to offspring (depending on the male or female only offspring or equal opportunity). Alphas can lose rank if they lose a challenge from a lower-ranking member or do not protect members effectively and have enough food. Betas hunt and gather most of the food are loyal to the pack and seldom banished or leave. They get decent mating opportunities(not the best of the best genes) and are still fed. They can challenge alphas for rank and lose rank if they are challenged and lose, banished, or leave the tribe. Omegas are the children(unless they're the leader's offspring), new tribe members, the elderly, the sickly, and those who are not strong and desirable. They get the scrapings of food or none at all depending on the situation. Like betas, they can be banished or injured by the higher ranks to assert dominance or get rid of some nichelings and they can ascend the ranks as well. Omegas have a higher chance of leaving the tribe and being a rogue male/female(they can mate with other members even if a rouge) and even try to revolt(rare) if they're not getting basic needs like protection, shelter, and food. Omegas who are born from rogue parents and tribe-born parents have a harder time ascending the social ladder. Players have to focus on tribal happiness(happy tribe, nobody leaves, unhappy tribe, many revolts, and wandering members). Males are likely to protect the females and children from wandering members/rogues, and predators while females typically protect their young from aggressive rogues who'll try to harm newborns to mate.

-more enemies, food sources, and sicknesses.

-Add seasons. Seasons can change the probability of food/prey dropping and storm occurrences. 

-mods please modss

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The Mad Katter]

Tribes

I love Asmadeus's idea of other passive or aggressive nicheling tribes! I think that could add a fun new gameplay element, having to manage your relationship with another neighboring tribe.

I think it would be fun to have different approaches your tribe could take to these tribe relations that could relate to the genes you have, like you could try and disgust them so that they avoid interacting with you entirely, you could scare them into giving up territory and food, you could befriend them so that they will breed with you and fight predators with you (but might have disadvantages like they'll be more comfortable being around you and taking up food in the area). Maybe if you take Asmadeus's idea of adding leadership, the requirements to befriend, scare, disgust, or remain neutral might relate to the traits of the leaders and therefore will change as leadership changes.

 

Dens

I also like the idea of dens that can house more babies and offer protection without needing an adult nicheling on a tile directly next to them at all times. Maybe you need digging paw to build one, or maybe you need to find one already on the island, forcing you to explore. 

 

More Turns

Another thing that I've thought of after returning to nicheling for the first time in years is that I'd like the nichelings to have more turns in a day. I think this could really make it feel like a new game instead of the og niche with a new update. The game would have to be balanced differently to account for having longer turns, but I think it would be fun to be able to send a group hunting in the early morning and have them return with their haul by nightfall to feed their babies. I like the fact that niche isn't on a timer though and the speed of a day is completely up to you, so if there was going to be different times of day I would prefer the speed to still be determined by the player. Something like each nicheling having a certain number of actions they can do each time of day.

It could be cool for different actions to take different amounts of time for individual nichelings depending on their traits. Some actions that are locked behind certain traits, like digging for roots, would instead just take up more of a nichelings day if they don't have digging paw. Maybe some actions, like building a den, can take all day or even multiple days, but a nicheling with digging paw can do it faster. 

 

Complex feeding system

Speaking of which, having a more detailed feeding system might be cool too. Nichelings could also use the dens as food storage, and they have to be within a certain radius of it at night in order to automatically feed from it between days. I cant decide if it would be too tedious for each of these dens to have a different inventory that would have to be filled up, or if it should all just be connected to the same inventory. Nichelings would have their own inventory and would have to return to the den radius in order to drop off food for the rest of the nichelings to automatically feed from. Nichelings could also have their own radius, and act as a "den" in the sense they will share food with other nichelings between days.

 

Pack Traits

I would LOVE it if there were pack traits that you could work towards that all of your nichelings would then learn and be able to teach their young. Maybe you start out the game only being able to build nests which don't offer protection or stealth, but you can learn how to build a den that gives protection from the baby-stealing birds or a tree nest that keeps babies out of the reach of bearyenas.

You could just keep it simple and make it an unlockable skill for the whole tribe to use for the rest of your time playing that savefile, or you could make it more complex by making nichelings have to teach it to each other. Maybe there is a certain set of requirements for a nicheling to learn that skill (like how you have to swim a certain number of times to unlock gills), but only that one nicheling will learn that skill. The nicheling then needs to teach it to other nichelings. My idea for that would be that every night nicheings standing next to each other have the chance of passing on the skill to another nicheling (This could be influenced by an intelligence gene?). Maybe baby and children nichelings have a higher chance of learning said skills. 

You could also tie in the neighboring tribes idea and make it so that befriending a neighboring tribe (or destroying them) could teach you new skills, or a nicheling that is accepted into your pack from a neighboring tribe could come with a skill that can be taught to other nichelings

[Philo]

Oh wow, thanks for all the ideas folks
Lots of cool suggestions here!

[notgono]

((made a new account just for this used to be gono/c0ffeebeans. yes i know im pretty late)

 

sdsfkjhsdfksfa i've been hoping for this for ages

one suggestion i have is modding, there NEEDS to be modding imo. it let a lot to be desired from niche 1. i it would bring over a lot more sims and spore fans 

also, if there's a story mode, have it be an actual story. in the first game story mode was just a rehashed sandbox with a ONE cutscene, a small tutorial and two pretty disappointing endings considering how long and tedious it is to get to home island and have a good ending. having something to keep the player wanting to get to home island would help, since adam literally cannot live long enough to get back to home island, and dies very early in the game. so there is basically nothing for the player to latch on to so they want to continue the story. achievements don't help either since they barely work.

and a suggestion i made back in the trenches of quarantine which i still think is pretty cool idea  (tw: 2019 cringe):

 

[WeevilWood]

Ik I have barely been on this site but make killer bearenas drop more food. Just a small pet peve I have 

[Hehak]

One thing I thought would be cool was gendered or age related traits. A gene or setting to have antlers/horns develop in adulthood or adolescence. Maybe a setting for gendered traits in sandbox mode, for example, only a male creature could have antlers/certain colours or any trait really. I just think that would be a cool addition and add more dynamics to the game. 
It’s a totally cool game as is, but a Niche 2 sounds awesome as well because there’s so many ideas to work with! (Sorry if this is a really late reply)