You can breed cute animals (or ugly ones if you prefer),
while also learning a bit about biology.
The game is a turn based strategy game, where you manage your own clan of cute little creatures.
The basics are quite easy to understand, however, the "crafting system" (creating new breeds) is quite deep.
There is a story mode (which kind of doubles as a tutorial) which is good for beginners and there are several different islands to conquer in the sandbox mode.
With the randomly generated islands, and the huge number of genetic combinations, the replay value is quite big. So you can get quite a lot out of your money.
It is a great game for different kinds of people:
You can play the easy islands to relax.
You can try to bread your favorite animal.
Play the hardest islands for a real challenge.
Or study all the genes and find the best combinations.
I originally bought Niche not really knowing what to expect - it looked like a cute time waster.
Immediately impressed with the graphics and overall aesthetic. The interface is minimal, the better to appreciate all the unique critters. Controls are simple and straightforward, although controller support would be nice. I've been running Niche at 4K (3140 x 2160), and the graphics and menus are sharp and readable.
On to the gameplay - this was the most surprising aspect for me. I was expecting something along the lines of a cellphone clicker, but there's a lot of depth. Even after 10+ hours I'm still picking up new things. Niche is turn based, which allows for a more deliberate playstyle. At its core, gameplay centers around managing a randomly generated group of creatures by directing them to forage for food and nesting material. Each creature has physical attributes that give bonuses or penalties. Some are good at hunting/fighting, some can harvest nuts, roots, and/or berries, some have disease resistance, some can move/see/hear/smell further, and so on. Environmental hazards like poisonous food, predators, disease, and temperature extremes round things out nicely.
Resource management is only a portion of the gameplay, however. You'll also need to weigh the pros and cons of your creatures' abilities when directing their breeding. It might be necessary to accept a weakness (like lowered immunity or blindness) in exchange for some perk. You can use "mutations" to drastically increase the likelihood of manifesting certain traits, which is helpful if you breed yourself into a corner. The game will also occasionally generate random creatures which you can invite to join your "tribe". New mutations unlock over the course of the game, generally by repeating X action Y number of times.
Overall, Niche is a pleasant surprise, with a ton of depth and replay value. Under the cute exterior lies a pleasantly demanding yet still approachable rougelike experience. Recommended!
I really want to like this game ...
+ cute critters - check
+ nice graphics - check
+ good sound - check
+ unlockable genes with lots of possible combinations - check
BUT
- animation - NO REAL MOVEMENT (the animals will turn their heads after the mouse, but they have no action animation and they just appear on a different tile if they are moved).
- Likely to create expectations that currently can't be met.
Only the last 10 seconds of the taser thriller show the ACTUAL gameplay. The rest of the presentation material makes you think the animals will at least move around, but they don't.
- too basic
* Genes are unlocked by repeating actions, e.g. make 30 swim moves = webbed feet.
- Too repetitive
Move around, occasionally unlock a gene, get attacked by enemies that seem to just show up almost out of thin air, create cubs, keep them alive. Repeat.
- Missing some lifeblood features
* If there isn't much to play with at least give me the option to create.
An editor of some kind to let me goof around creating different animals just for the sake of envisioning that perfect gene combination or making an incredibly cute (or hideous) critter.
* A CLEAR tutorial with all the information to a "t".
Point 1: Make it crystal clear where the tutorial REALLY ends.
I started with the story mode, got to a point where Adam and Eve have their first cub, then the tutorial SEEMINGLY ends.
If there is more to the tutorial tell me so!
The way it is now, I was certain the game was telling me to move on to the sandbox mode.
Point 2: There aren't enough details in the tutorial.
I've read through it, but I still have no clue how to change the animals' fur.
If there is a feature tell me it's there and especially how to use it, leaving you to stumble in the dark is the worst thing a tutorial can do.
P.S. I've no idea what the developers will do with the game.
I sincerely hope they improve it, but ATM (21st December 2018) any meaningful updates seem unlikely.
This game scratches a ten year old itch, and scratches it beautifully. The premise of the game is simple, you control a group of animals, all with a distinct set of genes, and it's your responsibility to keep the population fed and growing healthily throughout the generations. These genes are incredibly diverse and interact in complex ways, with dominant and recessive traits, and genes that interact with each other to affect your animal on the whole, for instance, your nichlings fur pattern genes will do didly squat for camouflage if they have the wrong fur colour genes. All this information is shown in a way that's simple, and easy to understand without compromising on it's depth and intricacy which is very impressive. On this merit alone it serves as an excellent educational tool, showing how populations can change over time, and diverge to form new species, all in a way that's natural and intuitive. You can start with a pair of terrestrial, flat footed like herbivore and selectivly breed your way to a race of amphibious, duck-billed, shellfish eaters if you want to.
Over all this was incredibly fun, with astounding depth, beautiful visuals, and a clean interface, however, while the games content was incredibly deep, it's all just presented to you in one big lump, without giving you any real direction. There's a short story mode, but it's more of a tutorial, really, only lasting half an hour before it lets go of your hand. I had fun with the sandbox mode for a while, trying to set myself new goals, but found myself finding one particular "niche" and found myself stuck in it, only experiencing a fraction of the games content, which is a real shame. This game is in desperate need of a challenge or scenario mode of some kind. Just giving us the option of having concrete goals to aspire to, or some kind of handicap, like environments that change under you, would really help to give the game broader appeal, and more lasting replay value.
So here you are, you start out (depending on) with one or two of these little guys and you mainly have a single mission, which is to keep them alive until you either breed enough more or capture others to keep your tribe going. Along the way you're attempting to breed for various skills and genetics, trying to manipulate mutant genes by choosing what you want to happen. There are other oddities in the genetics too, like just out of the blue one will be born with something I've never seen before, nor shows up in their genes and certainly isn't available in the mutations.
In keeping them alive they have to eat (this is where skills are helpful) and there's a variety of food sources, and certain of them can be easier to obtain using a little strategy. You'll encounter hazards and potential illnesses that can shorten their lifespan (don't leave one sitting under a coconut tree because dropping coconuts will potentially daze them and take a day from their life), or your poor females get bred by a rogue male (which, from what I've seen always have the Derp nose), or they might get parasites, etc., etc.
On the surface all that stuff sounds pretty interesting, doesn't it? And it is, but here's the rub. Your animals are like game pieces. Each one can make exactly three moves per turn on their game board which is made up of hexagon-shaped spaces. You will spend the majority of your time clearing out grass because you can't move through it well, and the other largest part collecting food (basically you end up needing dedicated food gatherers and pity anyone who gets two starters with high fishing skill but no other skill because they will likely starve to death).
Ultimately it's not a bad game but it does get extremely repetitive in fairly short order.
