Progeny

[OathinBlood]

Progeny

Introduction
Progeny is a forum game based on evolution. The game takes place on another planet, with conditions extremely similar to early Earth. Multicellular carbon-based life-forms have been around long enough for relatively simple creatures to appear in the plankton-rich oceans around the equator. Life on the so-far unnamed planet is similar to the early Cambrian on Earth and is constantly evolving, which is where you come in.

Rules
Evolution is measured in genes. The simplest creatures have at least three genes, one of which is the ability to obtain nutrients of some kind. You may create a brand new creature with three genes, or add two genes onto an existing creature to make it evolve. Each organism has rudimentary senses like the ability to sense light and dark and some kind of slow reproduction, which don't have to be represented by genes. Still, each organism will REQUIRE A GENE FOR OBTAINING NUTRIENTS, such as scavenging, or eating flesh and/or plant matter. Movement will require another gene. Organisms can and often will have multiple genes of the same type, which represent the ability of the organism to 'do' that gene. For example, the 'Flesh Eating' gene by itself only allows the animal to digest the softest flesh of an animal, like that of mollusks or soft-bodied invertebrates. Multiple 'Flesh Eating' genes will allow the animal to digest thick muscle and sinew. Though digesting is still another matter from obtaining, as having the ability to digest flesh will be useless if the organism has no ability to obtain it. YOU MAY MAKE UP GENES AS YOU NEED THEM. I will deem if they are appropriate or not.

To recap, you may either evolve an existing creature by adding two genes, or make a new creature starting with three genes. All creatures are multicellular - we are not evolving protists and unicellular organisms in Progeny. Also, you may remove up to two genes from a creature when evolving it, in addition to adding two. This is optional. Either way, you must follow the following template when evolving a creature.
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New Species Template
Name <- Put the name of the organism here. I'm hesitant about actually naming the creatures, since there are no sapient life-forms to name them. I prefer combinations of words, like 'Redfan' or 'Barrowslug' describing the creature and its habits, though go ahead and make a name if you'd like. If I like it, I'll keep it.
Creator: Obviously, write your user name here.
Genes: You may start with three, one of which MUST be a way to obtain/digest nutrients.
Description: Write a short description of your creature here. Write how and why it evolved, how it gets its energy, and what niche it operates in its environment. This may be as long or as short as you want, but you will get rewarded for good descriptions. (See below.)

Evolution Template
Name <- Put the name of the organism here. See above for my naming conventions.
Ancestor: Write the name of the creature's ancestor here.
Genes Added: Write the genes that you've added here. Remember, you can add two.
Genes Removed: Write the genes that you've removed here, if any. You can remove up to two. If you haven't removed any, write 'N/A'.
Description: Write a short description of your creature here. Write how and why it evolved, how it gets its energy, and what niche it operates in its environment. This may be as long or as short as you want, but you will get rewarded for good descriptions. (See below.)

Please keep the bolded and underlined formatting. It makes it look a lot nicer, and read a lot easier for me and you.
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So, after you evolve or create a new organism, that's it. You don't have to draw anything, that's up to me. You don't have to commit to the game either - you can evolve something once and leave, or you can keep evolving a particular generation or whatever you'd like. I will decide each update which creatures have gone extinct, which live, and will draw and colour each new creature. Every time the ecosystems change a relatively large amount, I will draw dioramas of the various ecosystems.

And remember, ONE ORGANISM PER PERSON PER UPDATE.

Awards
Awards will be rewarded every update for things like innovative creatures, great descriptions, and creatures, plants, and fungi that flourish the best in the ecosystem. The awards will award the user with extra genes for the next update. You can create a creature with four genes, or add three onto an existing one.

Goal
There really is none for this particular game. Like Sagan 4, it's just for the fun of creating virtual ecosystems and worlds. Perhaps a sapient organism will arise one day, perhaps not. At this point, that really is too far away to decide. In any case, it's not a goal. The point is to evolve a NEW and UNIQUE world. Not Earth, not Sagan 4, not Darwin IV, not Snaiad, not anything that's been done before. I'm not saying that our creatures need to have wheels instead of legs and eyes on their undersides - in fact, the very opposite. I am a fan of hard science-fiction, and will enforce it on this game. Things can be realistic within the boundaries of speculative biology that we know and still very unique. Look at Snaiad. Darwin IV. Remember, REALISM is key. UNIQUENESS is also key. The two can co-exist.

So, create/evolve an organism as soon as you can. I'll update when I can - this may be weekly, or it may be semi-daily. Do not complain and spam this thread with posts asking me to update. It won't make me go faster.

Credits
To give credit where it's due, this game is a modified version of Daftpanzer's brilliant NESLife which can be found on the CivFanatics forums. Thank you for the inspiration, Daftpanzer.
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I posted this on the Sagan 4 forums instead of the Gaming Steve forums because I like this community better. It's smaller, which helps me update faster and with more quality. The people here are already interested in speculative biology and usually have a better-than-average knowledge of biology. Most importantly, this forum has no noobs. No seas of noobs in the Spore section, no hordes of spam-a-rific members spamming threads while the host tries to update the game, and no people trying to make illogical creatures. Thanks, guys. I hope this game will provide an attractive place for your organisms which just don't fit into the ecosystems of Sagan 4.

[OathinBlood]

Early Era One

Early Era One marked the first appearance of relatively complex multicellular organisms, such as filter-feeding crinoids and sponges. The planet, at this point, had extremely unstable climates, due to the still-forming atmospheres and mass shifting of tectonic plates. The only organisms on land were simple fungi which grew off of the decomposing remains of fungi before them, in an eternal circle. Life in the warmer areas of the sea thrived around reefs of filter-feeding sponges, with taller crinoids growing amongst them. Brown and green algae appeared here, though the green algae thrived more in the warm seas. Tube-swimming organisms fed on the soft flesh of barnacle-like filter-feeders, while slug-like detritivores fed on their waste.

The Progenitors of Life


Filtersponges filtered plankton from the water and built large reefs. They had no predators, and the only thing that prevented their mass spreading were their sensitivity to colder waters and their slow reproduction method.

Redbranches, with their bright red filter-strands, grew high above the sponge reefs, filtering plankton out of the water. Their slow reproduction assured that only a handful of them existed in any large sponge reef.

Green Algae was the predominant photosynthetic organism, able to reproduce fast and form colonies, dense green carpets of thick algae.

Brown Algae was rare in warmer waters where it was outcompeted by the Green Algae, but was the only organism that could survive the frigid waters of the far northern and southern seas. It also had small papillae, which it used to increase its surface area and effectively increasing its ability to photosynthesize.

Barnacle-like Filtershells often grew together in large clumps near sponge reefs. They had a porous tentacle which they used to filter plankton and silicon out of the water. They used the silicon they digested to build tough shells which housed the majority of their body. Their only predator were the Vacuummouths.

The Vacuummouths were the only predators at the time. These strange creatures had a tubular body with a wide mouth at one end and a small hole at the other. They sucked in water forcefully and forced it throughout their tube-like body to swim. They used their vacuum-like mouths to forcefully suck Filtershells out of their shells.

Barrowslugs were tentacled detritivores, who used their stubby tentacles to sift through the silt of the ocean floor, eating waste from the Vacuummouths or finding other nutrients in the dirt. They were fairly common on the sea floor.

Deadstalks were the only organisms on the barren wastelands of land, thriving in massive colonies off of the rotting remnants of other colonies. They were the first fungi to exist, and have durable spores which allow them to colonize virtually all of the landmass.

Mid-Hemisphere Warm Oceans


Far Northern & Southern Frigid Oceans


Barren Land

[OathinBlood]

Extant Species
Redbranch
Creator: N/A
Genes: Filter Feeding x1, Filter Hair x1, Thick Stalk x1,
Description: Redbranches are filter-feeding crinoids with fine red filter-hairs which stream from their branch-like arms. They use this fine hair to filter out plankton from the water. When their hairs are saturated with collected plankton, they curl them backwards into their 'mouth', depositing the plankton in a simplistic 'stomach' to digest them. They are hermaphrodites that reproduce by budding, though the process takes almost a full year.

Filtersponge
Creator: N/A
Genes: Filter Feeding x1, Fast Growing x1, Porous Body x1
Description: Filtersponges were simple animals which built large communal reefs. They had a porous body which trapped plankton as they swept by on water currents. Despite the long amount of time which they took to bud, once the bud was shedded, it grew rapidly. The filtersponges form dense sponge reefs in warmer oceans.

Filtershell
Creator: N/A
Genes: Hard Shell x1, Filter Feeding x1, Porous Tentacle x1
Description: Filtershells are barnacle-like organisms which build thick shells out of minerals filtered in the water. They have a porous tentacle which they use to trap plankton, and can withdraw their tentacle when danger approaches.

Vacuummouth
Creator: N/A
Genes: Tube Swimming x1, Flesh Eating x1, Vacuum Mouth x1
Description: The Vacuummouth is a simplistic creature which both swims and hunts by sucking in large amounts of water and forcing it out its rear end. It preys on Filtershells, which it forcefully sucks out of their protective shells. They have male and female genders and reproduce by expelling sperm and eggs into the water.

Barrowslug
Creator: N/A
Genes: Digging Tentacles x1, Detritus Eating x1, Legless Crawling x1
Description: Barrowslugs are slug-like creatures with soft, fleshy bodies. They have short, stubby tentacles which they use to burrow through silt on the ocean floor, looking for excrement or other sources of nutrition. They reproduce by parthenogenesis, so all barrowslugs are female. They get their name by the mounds of dirt, or barrows, that they tend to create when they dig.

Green Algae
Creator: N/A
Genes: Photosynthesis x1, Colony Masses x1, Fast Reproduction x1
Description: Green Algae is the most populous plant in the ocean so far, able to reproduce quickly and form large carpets of algae on any available surface, including rocks, Redbranch trunks, and Filtersponges.

Brown Algae
Creator: N/A
Genes: Photosynthesis, Papillae x1, Cold Resistance x1
Description: Brown Algae is less common than Green Algae, but it is the only organism that can survive in the frigid oceans in the far north and south. There, it clings on to rocks and uses its papillae to increase its total surface area, allowing for better photosynthesis.

Deadstalk
Creator: N/A
Genes: Decomposer x1, Mycelium Network x1, Hardy Spores x1
Description: Deadstalks are the first fungi to appear on the planet, and also the only organisms able to survive on the land. They are simple fungi which absorb nutrients from the dead bodies of other deadstalk colonies, spreading a mycelium network to help decompose the bodies further. Their spores are hardy and able to remain dormant for a short period of time if they land in less than ideal conditions.

[Hydromancerx]

I think you should use your creativity and make more creatures for Sagan 4. All of the things you made I could see evolving on sagan 4 if you pick the right creatures to evolve from.

Please do not start a side project on this forum. It just takes away from people working on Sagan 4.

[OathinBlood]

Alright. I thought I might get that. I'm gonna go open this on Gaming Steve though, because it's something I've wanted to do for a while. I have little bursts of extreme creature making, then I usually lay dormant for a bit.

[Hydromancerx]

Plz use it here. Your red branch could be a future version of the Trapinfilter. And the filterspong a crystal shrub without its outer layer. Filter shell could be a new version of the chameleon urchip. Oh and barrow slug could be an urchip without a shell! Or maybe one of the filtersquids. We already have green algae. And the vacuummouth could be a new version of the Flat Centifin.

See?!? So much you can do from what we already have! Please please use that creativity here!!

[OathinBlood]

If you'd really like me to, I can convert those creatures into Sagan 4 creatures like you described. I thought about that, but thought that you might feel kinda 'ripped off' because I'm reusing creatures from another project.

[Hydromancerx]

Actually I like assimilating creatures form other projects. Sagan 4 can be like "the borg" and take the best from other projects and make it our own

[Blarg]

Actually I like assimilating creatures form other projects. Sagan 4 can be like "the borg" and take the best from other projects and make it our own

Meh. It's your project, but I don't really like that sort of tactic. It's almost... bad. I dunno.

Anyway, great work! I don't know if I'll join, because Sagan will always be my home project, but it looks interesting. I may pop in to submit something every once in a while, though. Again, good work. 

[Bonosaber]

what is the plankton that they filter feeders eat?

[Flisch]

Don't let Hydro consume your soul! Do what you wanted to do and post it on GS.

[Neoskel]

Wow. A forum game on a forum game. What next?

Moving this to GS would probably be for the best because it would just get confusing if you left it here  .

[OathinBlood]

It's moved to GS. It isn't really a project - it's a forum game. Sagan 4 is a project. Anyways, it'll be on GS if you guys wanna pop in.

Also, I really just kinda hate the assimilation idea. IMO, it's cheap and somewhat just...not good. It's like stealing from the creativity of other world's fauna and flora. I'm somewhat okay with reusing some of these creatures for Sagan 4, just give me some time.

[Neoskel]

I think he meant similar creatures is all, not the same exact ones.

[Hydromancerx]

Don't let Hydro consume your soul! Do what you wanted to do and post it on GS.

Your one to talk with your side projects. You should be trying to help make more Sagan 4 things rather than your side projects which are doing the same thing practically. Why do you make the side project anyways?