2021 Darwin Game—River
The River contains lots of every foragable food. The River is like the Human Garbage Dump except:
It has 5x as many resources.
Both air-breathing and water-breathing species can survive in the River.
Organisms may not start in the River. They must wander in.
| Name | Carrion | Leaves | Grass | Seeds | Detritus | Coconuts | Algae | Lichen |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| River | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 | 500 |
Generation 0
At first, there are no animals and the foragables accumulate.
Generations 1-100
| Species | Original Biome | Venom? | Weapons | Armor | Speed | Forage? | Creator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leafy Luncheoner | Temperate Forest | Neither | 0 | 0 | 1 | Leaves | Sean Hyer |
| Mooshroom | Grassland | Neither | 0 | 0 | 5 | Grass;Seeds | Vanessa |
| slow vulture | Desert | Antivenom only | 0 | 10 | 10 | Carrion | eat (Allows survival in the Desert),Corm |
| mediocre 1-2-s | Grassland | Neither | 1 | 0 | 2 | Seeds | Corm |
| Very Lesser Forest Dragon | Rainforest | Neither | 2 | 0 | 2 | Persephone 0461 |
The same pattern repeats for each foragable. First the foragable accomulates. Then a species which can consume the foragable appears. Its population explodes until it has eaten the accumulated foragable. Finally, its population reverts to carrying capacity.
Persephone 0461′s Very Lesser Forest Dragon wandered in. It thrived until another predator appeared which hunted it to extinction.
Generations 100-9000
Species appear. Species Disappear. Life is always in flux.
This is where all the Ocean’s Soonbegons were coming from. Until they didn’t anymore.
Winners
| Name | Native Biome | Venom? | Attack | Armor | Speed | Forage? | Temperature Adaptation? | Creator | Social Media |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Booyahs | Desert | Neither | 2 | 0 | 10 | Carrion | Heat (Allows survival in the Desert) | CK | None |
| Snark | Temperate Forest | Neither | 0 | 0 | 10 | Leaves | Vanessa | None | |
| Venomoth | Rainforest | Venom + Antivenom | 0 | 0 | 3 | Grass | aphyer | None | |
| Locust Eater Eater | Temperate Forest | Neither | 2 | 0 | 2 | Seeds | Multicore | None | |
| Hopsplitter | Grassland | Neither | 0 | 0 | 10 | Grass;Seeds | Nem | None |
Now it’s the time to admit I created species without any thought for strategy, but solely by the principle of thinking of cool names and then assigning attributes which seemed suitable (yes, it did lead to me to submit a bunch of species with weapons + armor > 10). The fact one of my own survived anyway confirms what I suspected, namely that the game is so complicated that few people could find reliably successful strategies (or maybe it’s just the random?) I guess it also helped that I submitted 10 species and most players submitted much less.
I submitted the exact same 10 speed leaf eater that you did, I just started it in the Temperate Forest. Luck of the draw that yours got here first, I guess.
What do you mean, you just started it in the Temperate Forest? The Snark comes from the Temperate Forest.
Ah, I read the wrong line. So yeah, we submitted the exact same creature.
There were definitely reliably BAD creatures, and certainly some reliably good ones, but a lot of variance based on the overall makeup of the population. I certainly didn’t expect so many total creatures to be submitted; there was a lot more variability in results with 500-creature populations. In 5000-creature populations, basically the only thing that ever survived was invincibles.
With this size population, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that your minimal invincible survived—and certainly wasn’t just luck that you arrived at its design. Give yourself SOME credit. :)
I think this is exacerbated in the River and Shore where “what species arrives first” has extra high random variance.
Well, the Snark also survived in the Human Garbage Dump. [EDIT: And in the Temperate Forest and the Rainforest]
Did a sentence or two get left out between these two paragraphs?
That was indeed missing words. Fixed. Thanks.