The Cool Uncle
Larva
Were there any fish that popped up in your games that had any odd features, habits, strategies, or movement systems?
There was one predator I saw that managed to dominate the environment in a way that could work around the spotty AI. It had a white body shaped like a long pipe. Instead of going for larger prey, it would beeline to nurseries and gobble up the little, dumber fish inside. Its long body would rotate towards the prey instead of swimming to them, allowing it to save a ton of time and avoid needing complex neural networks to get to them. I also noticed that it was eating fish that I couldn’t actually see. Like it was eating eggs or something.
There was also a forager species, hilariously named the “sadfish”, that managed to remain at a steady 8-12 population for hours, as other species boomed and collapsed around them. They looked like a binder full of papers learned how to swim, with tons of flat fins stacked on a tiny torso. Their movement was also painfully inefficient. They spasmed their way over to their food sources. So how did they survive? If you were to look at the log, they seemed to be the only ones eating. And they ate a *ton.* Not only that, but they managed to avoid becoming a naturally-occurring “school” because of how non-streamlined their movement was. They couldn’t keep a cohesive group. Other fish, with similar AI and mobility options, would naturally group together. The ones at the front would eat, while the others would starve. Although the Sadfish never dominated in numbers, their influence drastically lowered the food supply and made one of the most interesting games I ever played.
There was one predator I saw that managed to dominate the environment in a way that could work around the spotty AI. It had a white body shaped like a long pipe. Instead of going for larger prey, it would beeline to nurseries and gobble up the little, dumber fish inside. Its long body would rotate towards the prey instead of swimming to them, allowing it to save a ton of time and avoid needing complex neural networks to get to them. I also noticed that it was eating fish that I couldn’t actually see. Like it was eating eggs or something.
There was also a forager species, hilariously named the “sadfish”, that managed to remain at a steady 8-12 population for hours, as other species boomed and collapsed around them. They looked like a binder full of papers learned how to swim, with tons of flat fins stacked on a tiny torso. Their movement was also painfully inefficient. They spasmed their way over to their food sources. So how did they survive? If you were to look at the log, they seemed to be the only ones eating. And they ate a *ton.* Not only that, but they managed to avoid becoming a naturally-occurring “school” because of how non-streamlined their movement was. They couldn’t keep a cohesive group. Other fish, with similar AI and mobility options, would naturally group together. The ones at the front would eat, while the others would starve. Although the Sadfish never dominated in numbers, their influence drastically lowered the food supply and made one of the most interesting games I ever played.
