This is going to be a long one – I suggest you grab a snack or something.
I have included footnotes for those of you who care to hear my thoughts or those who are information hungry (*a). * followed by a letter in brackets is how I indicate footnotes. You can find them at the bottom of the guide, where feet should be.
The story behind all of this is I got bored, so I decided to pretend to be a scientist and calculate some big numbers. I wanted to know how many possible nicheling combinations there are, but first I needed to know the mechanics of the toxic body to decide whether it was a factor or not. At the time I was uncertain whether the game chose the colours randomly or not. This bothered me so much I decided to do something about it.
Commence the testing.
Then one thing lead to the next and I found out how the toxic body works, a rough estimate for the chance for twins when nichelings share the highest fertility, the upper limit of how many unique offspring a pair could produce, how many names the game can generate, then I HAD to throw Punnett squares in because what is genetics without Punnett squares?
I also put things I learnt about genetics in school in this guide. I have a college level education in biology and I thought people who play this game would probably like to learn a little bit more about genetics, so what’s the harm in putting a bit of that in too? Got to make some use of that information. The learny educatey bit is towards the middle to the end if you’re interested.
Yeah, I definitely had fun with this.
PLEASE NOTE: This is WIP, I’m working on Chapter 5, I’ll be sure to put all my genetics knowledge into this guide ASAP.
1. My Findings
This is a quick summary for any of you who haven’t got the time to read everything.
Please take these results with a pinch of salt, they were calculated in a day. I haven’t done any statistical tests (*b) and all variables may not have been accounted for, plus I have no idea how to data mine to confirm my suspicions when it comes to the behaviour of the toxic body.
This is relevant to Niche v1.2.4.
– When spawning into a new sandbox, toxic body colour appears to be predetermined by the code, possibly something to do with the coordinates of the ports the nichelings spawn on
– Toxic body colour appears to be selected randomly at birth, it has nothing to do with genes or the parents colouration or the s*x of the nicheling, though from my tests yellow appears to be rarer (could be due to chance)
– The chance for non-identical twins seems to be around 4-5% and my guess from experience is that the chance for identical twins is about 1% because they’re that rare
– The total possible nicheling combinations is approximately 108,008,050,900,000,000,000 (*c)
– The total possible variations within offspring from a single pair of nichelings is approximately 4,398,046,511,000 – it is most likely less than that as most nichelings will share some of the same genes as the other which reduces the possible combinations
– The total names the game can generate for nichelings is 3744, 1872 for males and 1872 for females, assuming that there are no impossible syllable combinations.
2a. Toxic Body Colours in Sandbox
Here is the test I did to figure out how toxic body colours are assigned to nichelings at the start of a sandbox game, this is mostly unedited from the file I copied it from and contains my thoughts during testing. The edits I made where to translate it from short note form to long note form to make it easier to understand.
In each test:
9 nichelings at the start of sandbox, exact same genome, allowed them to be randomly male or female (<— could be problematic as it’s an extra variable that could interfere with results).
Genome:
Medium Ears x2
No Horns x2
Normal Eyes x2
Short Snout x2
Toxic Body x2
Runner Leg x2
Normal Hind Legs x2
Normal Tail x2
No Albinism x2
No Melanism x2
White Fur x2
Black Eyes x2
White Horns x2
White Pattern x2
Pattern Shape A x2
Pattern Size Medium x2
Pattern Density Medium x2
Normal Blood Clotting x2 OR Normal Blood Clotting and Y Chromosome *
High Fertility x2
Immunity A and Immunity B
* A small variation between males and females that could affect results.
R – Red
Y – Yellow
G – Green
B – Blue
P – Purple
Tiny Green:
Test 1:
Males – 2R, 1Y, 2G, 1B, 1P
Females – 2G
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes:
Test 2:
Males – 2G
Females – 2R, 1Y, 2G, 1B, 1P
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes:
Test 3:
Males – 2G, 1B, 1P
Females – 2R, 1Y, 2G
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes: So far the colour the nicheling is seems to correspond to the tile it spawns on, needs more testing, could be due to chance, gender doesn’t seems to affect it so far as seen males and females of every colour.
Test 4:
Males – 2R, 2G, 1B
Females – 1Y, 2G, 1P
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes: Same case again with the tiles, exact same pattern.
Test 5:
Males – 2R, 1Y, 1G, 1P
Females – 3G, 1B
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes: Ports appeared in a different formation but the colour proportions are still the
same.
Test 6:
Males – 1R, 3G
Females – 1R, 1Y, 1G, 1B, 1P
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes: Normal formation again, same colour pattern.
Test 7:
Males – 1R, 2G, 1B, 1P
Females – 1R, 1Y, 2G
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes: Same pattern.
Test 8:
Males – 2R, 1Y, 2G
Females – 2G, 1B, 1P
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes: Same pattern.
Test 9:
Males – 1G, 1B
Females – 2R, 1Y, 3G, 1P
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes: Same pattern.
Test 10:
Males – 1Y, 1B, 1P
Females – 2R, 4G
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes: Same pattern.
This is the pattern that kept appearing on Tiny Green:
So is this pattern affected by island then?
I then did 5 tests each on two random islands, picked by a random number generator.
2. islands – 1 island (Tiny Green) = 20
randint(1,20) =
2 – grass adventure
1. – home island
I’m ignoring whether male or female affects it now, it seems truly random.
Grass Adventure:
Test 1:
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes: Same pattern as Tiny Green, looking like it may be the same for every island.
Test 2:
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes: Same pattern.
Test 3:
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes: Same colours, different pattern but ports spawned differently.
Test 4:
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes: Same pattern as Tiny Green.
Test 5:
Total – 2R, 1Y, 4G, 1B, 1P
Notes: Same pattern.
Home Island:
Test 1:
Total – 2R, 1Y, 3G, 0B, 3P
Notes: Different results, is it linked to difficulty or biome? Is it consistent?
Test 2:
Total – 2R, 1Y, 3G, 0B, 3P
Notes: Same colours, different pattern due to ports spawning differently.
Test 3:
Total – 3R, 1Y, 2G, 1B, 2P
Notes: Different colours from other home island tests, maybe it has something to do with
co-ordinates? Ports spawned differently.
Test 4:
Total – 3R, 0Y, 2G, 2B, 2P
Notes: Different colours from other tests, ports spawned differently again.
Test 5:
Total – 3R, 0Y, 1G, 3B, 3P
Notes: Different colours, ports spawned differently.
Conclusion – The colours selected for toxic bodied creatures that are spawned on ports are probably determined by the co-ordinates of the port (*d), not by other genes (otherwise they would all be the same colour as they are genetically identical) or if the nicheling is male or female (otherwise certain colours would be exclusive to a particular s*x).
2b. Toxic Body Colours in Newborns and Chances for Twins
Are newborn toxic body colours due to chance?
I started with 2 identical nichelings with the same genome as before, except the male is AB and the female CD. The male turned out to be green and the female blue. I set the age settings to 1 day Baby, 1 day Child, 1 day Teen, 100 days Adult. The male and female’s ages were set to 10 days. I bred them until they died.
I realised this test may also help determine how rare twins are though it may be hard to identify identical twins due to super similar parents when the twin’s immunities are identical. The parents had the highest fertility possible.
R – Red
Y – Yellow
G – Green
B – Blue
P – Purple
M – Male
F – Female
Immu. – Immunities
IDENT – Identical Twins
N.IDENT – Non-Identical Twins
Litters:
1 – G M
2 – G F
3 – R M
4 – P F
5 – G F
6 – R M
7 – Y F
8 – B M
9 – G M
1. – G M
1. – B F
1. – R M
1. – G F
1. – P F
1. – P M
1. – R M
1. – P M
1. – P M
1. – Y F
2. – G M
2. – R F
2. – P M
2. – G M
2. – P M
2. – R M
2. – R F
2. – P F
2. – R M
2. – B M
3. – R M
3. – Y F (Immu. CA) / B F (Immu. DB) N.IDENT – Different Immunities
3. – R F
3. – P M
3. – B F
3. – P F
3. – P M (Immu. CA) / R F (Immu. DA) N.IDENT – Different Immunites
3. – P M
3. – G F
3. – Y F
4. – P M
4. – R F
4. – R M
4. – P F
4. – G F
4. – B M (Immu. CB) / G F (Immu. CB) N.IDENT – Male and Female
4. – R F
4. – R F (Immu. DB) / B F (Immu. CA) N.IDENT – Different Immunities
4. – P F
4. – B M
5. – B M
5. – R M
5. – G F
5. – P F
5. – R F
5. – B M
5. – B M
5. – P F
5. – R M
5. – Y M
6. – Y M
6. – B M
6. – P M
6. – R M
6. – B M
6. – Y M
6. – B F
6. – B M
6. – R F
6. – B F
7. – G M
7. – G F
7. – B M
7. – R F
7. – Y F
7. – G M
7. – Y M
7. – B F
7. – B F
7. – G M
8. – G F
8. – G M
8. – G M
8. – Y F
8. – B F
8. – R M
8. – G F
8. – P F
8. – B F
8. – P M
9. – Y M
9. – G M
9. – P M
9. – G F
9. Children in Total
5. Males 52.6%
4. Females 47.4%
2. Red 22.7%
1. Yellow 11.3%
2. Green 22.7%
2. Blue 21.6%
2. Purple 21.6%
4.3. twin births, all non-identical
Conclusion – Toxic body colour appears to be random at birth, it has nothing to do with genes, the parents’ colour or the s*x of the nicheling, though yellow appears to be rarer (this may be due to chance). Twin births appear to have a 4-5% chance but only for non-identical twins, there were no identical twins born in this test but my guess is around 0.5-1% based on game experience as they seem to be very rare.
3a. All Genes in the Game as of v1.2.4
This will help me work out all the possible combinations for nichelings in the game.
1. Ears – Big, Medium, Round, Bearyena = 4
2. Horns – No Horns, Ram, Antlers, Megaloceras Horns, Savanna, Antennae = 6
3. Eyes – Normal, Short Sighted, Blind = 3
4. Head – Short Snout, Big Nose, Cracker Jaw, Poison Fangs, Derp Snout, Purr Snout, Bird Beak, Platypus Beak, Bat Head, Gills, Sticky Tongue, Bearyena Snout, Sabertooth Fangs, Digging Trunk = 14
5. Body – Medium, Big , Lean, Spiky, Toxic (Red, Yellow, Green, Blue , Purple), Heat, Water, Armoured = 12
6. Front Legs – Deformed, Runner, Digging, Velvet, Claw, Webbed, Nimble Fingers, Bearyena, Mammut, Feathered Wing, Bat Wing = 11
7. Hind Legs – Normal, Webbed, Bearyena = 3
8. Tail – Normal, Stinky, Swimming, Fishing, Peacock, Tailfin, Hammer, Scorpion = 8
9. Albinism – Yes, No = 2
10. Melanism – Yes, No = 2
11. Fur Colour – Red, Yellow, Red Brown, Chestnut Brown, Moss Brown, White, Black, Beige = 8
12. Eye Colour – Black, Blue, Brown, Green, Yellow, Orange, Violet = 7
13. Horn Colour – Black, Brown, White, Red = 4
14. Pattern Colour – Black, Brown, Beige, Red, White = 5
15. Pattern Type – None, Dots, Stripes, Mask = 4
16. Pattern Shape – A, B, C, D = 4
17. Pattern Size – Tiny, Small, Medium, Big, Huge = 5
18. Pattern Density – Very Thin, Thin, Medium, Thick, Very Thick = 5
19. X/Y Chromosomes and Blood Clotting – Normal Blood Clotting, Haemophilia, No Gene *e = 3
20. Fertility – High Fertility, Normal Fertility, Low Fertility, Infertile = 4
21. Immunity – A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, Home Island = 12
3b. Total Possible Nicheling Combinations
Hold onto your deoxyribose nucleic acid, it’s about to get mathsy in here.
I can’t just claim these big numbers are correct so here is my working out. Feel free to SCRUTINISE.
Total Possible Nichelings as of v1.2.4:
4 Ears, 6 Horns, 3 Eyes, 14 Heads, 12* Bodies, 11 Front Paws, 3 Back Paws, 8 Tails, 2 Albinism, 2 Melanism, 8 Fur Colours, 7 Eye Colours, 4 Horn Colours, 5 Pattern Colours, 4 Pattern Types, 4 Pattern Shapes, 5 Pattern Sizes , 5 Densities, 3 Blood Clotting/XY Genes, 4 Fertility Genes, 12 Immunities
*I’m counting toxic body colour variants except black and white (*f)
x2 for all of these genes because the nichelings have two copies of each gene
8. 12, 6, 28, 24, 22, 6, 16, 4, 4, 14, 8, 10, 8, 8, 10, 10, 6, 8, 24
Okay, time to times these bad boys up to get all those wonderful combinations ^v^ .
8 x 12 x 6 x 28 x 24 x 22 x 6 x 16 x 4 x 4 x 14 x 8 x 10 x 8 x 8 x 10 x 10 x 6 x 8 x 24
= 108,008,050,900,000,000,000 combinations approx.
Nice.
3c. Total Possible Variations within Offspring from a Pair of Nichelings
I hope you love Punnett squares because yaaaay you’re going to have to do 21 one of them (not obsessed not obsessed). For those of you who have not experienced the miracle of Punnett squares, there is a wonderful example in the Chapter 5 of this guide – please come back here once you have finished admiring the exquisite form that is the lovely Punnett square.
Nichelings have 21 different genes (*g) with two copies of each. This means they have 42 genes/chromosomes with one gene on it (*h).
A nicheling baby inherits 21 genes from it’s mum and 21 genes from it’s dad to get the full number of 42. Both it’s mum and dad have 42 genes each too, so both parents contribute a half to make a whole, a beautiful little nicheling child. With this reasoning we need to do 21 Punnett squares for each different gene to work out all the possible combinations for the child.
If we focus on one type of gene, for example, ears, the mum has 2 copies of the ear gene and the father also has 2 copies of the ear gene. The child inherits one from it’s mother and one from it’s father so there are 4 possible outcomes the child could have, 2 from mum x 2 from dad = 4 possible outcomes.
So 4 outcomes for each different gene, which there are 21 of. So we do 4 times itself 21 times.
4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4.
Or you could just write 4 to the power of 21 (written as a 4 with a tiny 21 floating next to it).
Plug that into a calculator because you haven’t got your whole life to sit there and work it out.
4 to the power of 21 = 4,398,046,511,000
Brilliant.
4a. Syllables for Male and Female Names as of v1.2.4
I’ll need this to work out how many names the game can generate.
Names are made up of 2-3 syllables.
Female Syllables:
Ana
El
Is
Ko
La
Len
Me
Mi
Ra
Re
Si
Ta
= 12
Male Syllables:
Don
Duk
Kir
Ku
Lu
Lur
No
Nu
Pri
Ro
Ta
Van
= 12
4b. Total Number of Generated Names for Nichelings
Okay, now I’m starting to get carried away with all these big numbers. I’ll excuse myself, as a creative individual all these possibilities are very exciting to me.
So if names can have 2-3 syllables and the syllables can be reused in names eg. Roro, Meme, Nuvannu, Talala. I’ll have to do n to the power of 2 and n to the power of 3 and then add them, where n = number of different syllables.
For males:
There are 12 different syllables.
2 syllable names 12 x 12 = 144
3 syllable names 12 x 12 x 12 = 1728
14. + 1728 = 1872 possible male names.
For females:
They also have 12 different syllables so I can copy the working out I did for males.
1. x 12 = 144
1. x 12 x 12 = 1728
14. + 1728 = 1872 possible female names.
Now I can total up all the names.
187. + 1872 = 3744 total names the game can generate for nichelings.
Realistically you could write out all these names, though it would probably take hours. I make the assumption that there are no impossible syllable combinations in the game – I doubt there is any. This explains why you may occasionally have 2 nichelings with the same name in your tribe if you allow the game to name them for you (*i).
5a. Key Words in Genetics [WIP]
5b. Punnett Squares [WIP]
In genetics, Punnett squares are your best friend. Here is an example they commonly use in schools, drew it up myself in MS Paint :D.
Isn’t it just so lovely to look at? It’s a quick and easy way to see what combinations you can end up with.
6. Conclusion
I hope you found some information of value here. I love playing Niche, just check my hours @^@, so naturally I would go out of my way to run some experiments and then write a lengthy guide about my findings to share with the world. I originally wanted to make this a discussion but then I realised there was so much information I had to share that I was better off making this a guide. It’s more digestible that way and people are more likely to come across it.
Please remember that my experiments don’t definitively prove anything, they aren’t perfect and I am open to the idea my conclusions could be wrong.
I tried to put everything in a clear format that’s accessible to everyone, knowing that Niche has quite a lot of young people in the audience. I really want to encourage younger players to pursue knowledge surrounding the things that they love so I hope that I’ve taught someone something. If you find any errors or incorrect information in this guide, please let me know, and if you have any feedback please feel free to tell me. Just remember to be polite! Also let me know if there’s anything you’ve discovered or want me to investigate when it comes to the game.
Thank you for reading and have a terrific day! 😀
– fullmoonwolf15
7. Footnotes
*a If you’re just regular hungry, I did tell you to get a snack U^U .
*b For any of you lucky sods who haven’t witnessed the horror of statistical tests (beware, beware the numbers!), it is a test to check if the results are due to chance or not. There are several different statistical tests, the ones I’ve been taught are:
– Student T-Test
– Chi-squared
– Correlation coefficient
Look them up if you want to know more (but beware, beware the numbers! Deadly formulas that will warp your brain into a mushy paste of despair – oh beware beware!). If the test ends up with a number that is less than P = 0.05 or 5% if you prefer, that means the results are highly unlikely to be just down to chance and you can say, yep, there’s certainly something going on here.
*c Aww, our little nichelings are all so unique :3 . Be sure to treasure them while they’re still alive… O^O … X^X
It really does something to your head, when you realise how simplistic these creatures are and there are roughly that many combinations. Just wow… Then you realise how on a human’s 46 chromosomes instead of just one gene there are around 2000 per chromosome, it really makes you go aaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. Every individual truly is unique, even identical twins aren’t truly identical in the real world. Excuse me while I go appreciate the beauty of the universe YvY .
*d It honestly freaked me out when I first started seeing this pattern. I’m kind of disappointed things work this way, I love things to be truly random and surprise me. However, this can allow players to almost choose what colour their toxic nichelings are, as long as you can get them to spawn on the correct port and the ports aren’t prone to spawning in different locations, which may be the case for some islands like Home Island.
*e This is actually the small Y Chromosome that makes a nicheling male, it isn’t large enough to fit the blood clotting gene on it. They probably called it No Gene because nichelings only have one gene per chromosome and this chromosome is so tiny it can’t even fit one gene on it so there is effectively no gene there.
*f I’m excluding white and black variants because they are due to albinism and melanism. Albinism and melanism overwrite genes that produce colour – this is called epistasis if you want to get all fANcY. I’m making the assumption that the game picks the neon colour for the creature first then overwrites it to be white or black, so underneath they are colourful, it’s just masked.
*g Technically they have 21 different chromosomes with only one gene per chromosome, unlike humans which have an average of 2000 genes per chromosome and multiple genes tend to determine characteristics such as your head shape or eye colour.
*h Ah, 42 – the meaning of life. How perfect for a game all about being born, living, having kids and dying.
*i Or you’re just lazy like me .^.
8. Guide Changelog
v1.0: April 7th 2021 – created and shared guide, chapter 5 needs finishing but other sections are good enough to share
Hope you enjoy the post for Niche – a genetics survival game Total Possible Nicheling Combinations and Other Interesting Things, If you think we should update the post or something is wrong please let us know via comment and we will fix it how fast as possible! Thank you and have a great day!
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