Me-tested, Darwin-approved.
Aaaaaa! |
The tutorial sets up its main ideas: Explore the island by destroying foliage and moving around. Reach a port (a patch of flowers with a big rock by the sea) with your tribe to move to the next island. Find wild animals, add them to your tribe, and expend the tribe through mating. Do remember to have enough food for everyone on each turn, too. When a baby is created, it will share some of the traits of its parents, and you can pre-set genetic traits you want the two parents pass onto a baby. Now, whether or not it’ll happen, that’s another question. You can tip the odds, but can rarely force them to go exactly the way you want. Lots and lots of variables have to be taken into account, as one can’t tell ahead of time which traits will be passed on, so one must be careful. It’s also important to take into account the family tree as babies born from incest will be weaker then others, having poorer immune systems and resistane to the elements. And it’s not like these creatures have a very high life expectancy from the start either.
Let's try to not turn this family tree into a Gordian knot. |
It would have been nice to have some berry trees that weren't poisoned! |
My first run was interrupted when my tribe was infected by poison berries that they had to keep eating, because I struggled to find a safe berry tree anywhere – and healing berries came in too late on the map. Not that it matters since a predator killed my last animal. My second run went well for a while, but new animals that could join the tribe spawned very rarely, and as a result my last creature died alone on a huge island. It really makes you realize just how ruthless natural selection is, and how badass most of the animal kingdom is, or at least had to be, in order for so many species to survive to this day. Also makes you empathize with all the species that have gone extinct on our pale blue dot.
The basics are simple, but in order to get anywhere you’ll need to delve into the finer details of the system, and it can get very, very complex. The graphics are gorgeous, and while I can’t guarantee they’ll all end up looking pretty, many of your creatures will nonetheless wind up pretty cute. I mean, with an ancestor like Adam, you can’t go wrong!
I want a plushie of him.
Let's explore! ...And hopefully we won't die too quickly. |
Niche – a genetics survival game is available for 17.99$.
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