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Niche free for schools and teachers!


Philo

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Dear pack

We have exciting news today ^^

Many teachers reached out to us about buying an educational licence for Niche.
In order to say thank you for all the support we received along the way, we decided to give them the game for free instead :)

Niche is now available for schools and teachers free of any charge! Please help us to spread the work by sharing these posts:
On Facebook
On Twitter
On Imgur

Do you know any teachers?
They can get in touch with us through this link :)

https://niche-game.com/for-schools/
 

Also, say hi to Cala our mascot for the educational version :D

Niche_Educational4.thumb.png.fce94d8da2b46badc8de85aa4d3100ed.png

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18 minutes ago, MelonNicheling said:

That’s amazing!

I’m homeschooled, though. RIP.

Well you've been playing it at school all along.

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18 minutes ago, Condensed Milk said:

I’m about to start high school biology, though I don’t think they’d include this in their curriculum unfortunately XD

Well, at least people will be amazed when you get to genetics

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Guest SilverTheNicheling

Oooh this is so cool! I want this to be in my school so me and my future classmates can play Niche to learn about population genetics! ^^

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Guest SilverTheNicheling

Also, hi Cala! You remind me so much of Nicheling Silver with those Sabertooth Fangs, Antlers, and mask pattern! ^^

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This would be awesome if I could play this at school and actually talk to my friends about it.. I’m the only person I know irl who plays niche ._.

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Also just a side note I'd love to see a developer playthrough of Niche. I it never hurts to play your own game. (Maybe you can teach us even more about genetics, certain strategies, and why you added certain features as you do it :3)

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That's awesome! Too bad my school is suuuuper small, and has like 5 laptops that we use for Yearbook (we get to name them though, last year aka my first year of yearbook I named mine Anders ;))... I suppose if we could use them all we could put some peoples together on one computer (my class is SUPER small, last year it was 8 people, and that was 7th and 8th grades TOGETHER. We probably won't even have any seniors this coming school year because the only eleventh grader couldn't come for her last year)... eh, we'll see.

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  • Philo pinned this topic
  • 2 weeks later...

As a former teacher and after a couple times playing, I see potential for its use in schools.

A few things limit this though:

1. Lack of integrated curriculum (lesson plans) or built in learning modules

2. It needs a genetics/breeding only mode without the survival aspect for genetics units in schools 

3. Along with the genetics only mode, difficulty toggles to automatically exclude certain genes, or to make the genes behave differently with more limited options (example, only two snout options on easy mode with strict dominant/recessive)

I have more thoughts too, but these are just my initial opinions.

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16 minutes ago, Philo said:

@Mr. McG
2. Is more or less already implemented in the new sandbox mode ^^

You should create another default sandbox Setting called “school mode” that could give unlimited nesting material and food, and turns off things such as leeches and bears and bluebirds. Though bearyenas could help demonstrate camouflage and survival of the fittest.

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24 minutes ago, Philo said:

@Mr. McG
2. Is more or less already implemented in the new sandbox mode ^^

Unless I missed it, that is a lot of potential boxes to uncheck in the settings menu, and not a whole lot of guidance for a teacher or student who has never played the game before. Teachers don’t have time to make sure each student unchecks the correct boxes. I don’t recall seeing a select/deselect all option either.

Is there a way to copy settings to a different computer quickly and easily? 

When I was teaching 9th grade science, it would literally take 10-15 minutes at a minimum to get all my students up and running on a simulation, let alone making sure they selected or deselected the proper options. 

As cool as Niche could be for teachers and students, setting up a simulation for testing the dominance/recessive qualities of a gene is a lot, especially without guidance.

I have several things I’m working on, but I’m hoping to throw something together that can be helpful for teachers and students trying to use this in the classroom.

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I firmly believe games have a place in schools and learning. I applaud Niche being made free for schools too. There is lots of potential for it, but this was designed as a game/simulator first and foremost, which require a different kind of commitment and time investment than an educational tool.

I used a lot of personal time to figure out how to do that kind of thing as a teacher. Other teachers wanted to do the same stuff but weren’t able to without guidance or training.

Principals and parents will want to see how this game relates to curriculum standards, or they may not want it played at school. Most school computers block the software installation without a network administrator approving and installing it for obvious safety concerns of malicious software.

I’m loving the game and hope schools approve it to take advantage of your generosity. I just know there are some hurdles that have to be crossed to make this a reality.

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7 minutes ago, Magnolia said:

I've made a few sandbox settings that might be similar to a default setting for schools. Along with some other fixes/improvements to make a School version unique, I think that Niche could be an excellent game for a school curriculum. 

Schools Genetics Mode.sandbox 640 B · 0 downloads Evolution schools mode.sandbox 605 B · 0 downloads

I’ll check it out this weekend. Is there a tutorial on how to copy these settings into my game?

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19 minutes ago, Mr. McG said:

I’ll check it out this weekend. Is there a tutorial on how to copy these settings into my game?

It's a little complicated as there's a folder path you have to follow, but for Windows it's Windows (C : ) \ Users \ [username] \ AppData \ LocalLow \ Team Niche \ Niche - A genetics survival game \ SandboxSettings. Then you paste my above settings into the folder. I think you also have to check a box at the top that says "show hidden folders" for AppData to pop up. But once you get there, I like to create a shortcut so it's easier to get there in the future.  This topic might also help you out:

In the sandbox settings I gave the starters specific genes but I guess it doesn't matter too much which genes they are, especially in the Genetics mode. 

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