Quick Review: Niche - a genetics survival game

Me-tested, Darwin-approved.

Aaaaaa!

Made by Stray Fawn Studio and released on September 15th, 2016, Niche – a genetics survival game (yes, mostly lowercase) is a game about a little mammal who gets snatched by a flying predator and claws its way out of its talons, only to land on a deserted island. Your task is to make the correct decisions so this creature can survive the wilderness, reproduce and share its genes, evolve, and perhaps its descendants will find their way to their ancestor's home.

This kitty needs a hug.

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.

There’s a strong element of strategy as your creatures have a very limited number of moves each turn: From one as a child, to three when adult. Combat is a possibility as you can fight the wild crabs, bears, rabbits and moles, but I personally avoided it as my creatures just weren’t very good at battling. I prioritized stats increases over cosmetic changes because I hoped it would make my creatures a lot more capable at the whole surviving gig. There’s an additional option in which you can change the view of the game map to reflect what your creatures see, hear, or smell – so they can detect enemies, food, and fellow creatures that can be added to the pack.

It would have been nice to have some berry trees
that weren't poisoned!

Most of the game is randomized – the islands are procedurally generated, and so are the fellow animals you can have joining your tribe (with one exception; the first animal, Adam, has a few traits that never change). In theory, it means there’s an infinite number of maps and you can never tell what’s coming next, which is nice and refreshing for gameplay. The downside is that, past the first few tutorial maps, you aren’t told about several of the minute details involving genes and field elements. You’re left to discover a lot of that stuff on your own, when a helping hand would have been appreciated at times.

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!

He is the OG Cute.

I want a plushie of him.

Let's explore! ...And hopefully we won't die too quickly.

The game offers a Story Mode and a Survival Mode. Its combination of strategy, simulation and roguelike might not be for everyone, and if you’re hoping to just pick up something easy, this isn’t it – however, if you put in the effort to learn the system, it can be very rewarding. Perhaps you’ll be better at it than I was, to the point where you could customize your creatures’ appearance without fear of them dying in these hostile environments. I didn't get there, but I will certainy try again eventually, and maybe I'll beat the Story Mode someday. This is a very good game, I recommend it.

Niche – a genetics survival game is available for 17.99$.