The Bestial Stage is the third main gameplay stage in Evo-Life, succeeding the Oceanic Stage and preceding the Primitive Stage, the main goal of the Bestial Stage is to gain enough DNA points to grow your creature's brain, eventually culminating in them gaining sentience, similar to Spore's Creature Stage, but with an improved gameplay loop, more depth and consequences to your actions, and a more "alive" feeling world.
Overview[]
Gameplay[]
The Bestial Stage is played in a third-person open world environment, similar to the Oceanic Stage, but now that the player's creature is on land, there's more variety in the world around it, the player's main goal in this stage is to collect DNA points, which not only contribute to the total progression in the stage, but can also be spent on new parts in the creature editor, as well as unlockable skills in a skill tree accessible from the editor (such as guarding, dodging, and parrying in combat, the ability to add befriended creatures outside of your own species to your pack, the ability to fish near water, ETC.). DNA points can be earned by killing or befriending creatures, marking territory, and discovering new biomes, combat in Evo-Life's Bestial Stage is more action-oriented than it was in Spore's Creature Stage, with the player being able to lock on to creatures and attack them from there, with the parts on your creature influencing the way it attacks, and the aforementioned unlockable combat skills in the skill tree becoming available the more you fight other creatures, befriending creatures on the other hand, is more akin to a rhythm minigame, with the player having to press the right buttons as the show up, which causes their creature to perform several friendly actions to earn the trust of the other creature, that when befriended, will be able to join the player's pack (if you unlock the skill in the skill tree that lets you do so) and assist them both in combat and befriending creatures. Killing creatures also affects your relationship with their species, timid creatures will cower in fear and run away from your creature when you approach them, whereas more aggressive creatures will be willing to attack you on sight if you kill other members of their species in large numbers, every species has a "population meter" that goes down when you kill a member of that species, and slowly replenishes if you leave them alone, overhunting creatures and completely depleting their population meter will result in that species going extinct, permanently preventing them from spawning ever again. The population meter also applies to the player's creature, but works a little differently, acting as the "lives" system for the Bestial Stage (as well as the Microbe and Oceanic Stages), if you die too many times in a row, your species will go extinct, and time will rewind, rolling you back to a previous evolution.
In addition to hunting and/or socializing, the Bestial Stage also focuses on survival and managing your creatures needs, such as hunger, thirst, and stamina. Hunger can be replenished by eating various types of food based on your creature's diet (meat, fish, and insects for carnivores, fruit, plants, and mushrooms for herbivores, all of the above for omnivores), thirst can be replenished by drinking water, and stamina can be replenished by resting, neglecting your creatures needs will result in negative consequences, such as slower movement speed when your stamina is low, or slowly losing health when your hunger/thirst is empty. Different diets also have different ways of managing food, carnivores can learn to drag dead creatures (or pick them up if they're small enough) and bring the body to a safe spot to eat, whereas herbivores can learn how to store fruit and mushrooms in holes.
Creature Editor[]
Evo-Life's Creature Editor is functionally similar to Spore's Creature Editor, with the player being able to shape and mold a creature to their liking and add several parts to it, with the creature's build and parts influencing how it moves, attacks, socializes, eats, ETC. However, there are also new part categories such as tails, which can either be used in combat or socializing depending on the type of tail used, different hide types (such as fur, which doesn't provide much defense during combat, but protects your creature from the cold, or scales, that provides your creature with more defense during combat, but doesn't protect your creature from the cold), wings & gliders, which can be put onto your creature to give them the ability to fly (which controls similarly to the Wing Cap in Mario 64 or Elytra in Minecraft, but also consumes stamina) or glide (which controls similarly to the Web Wings in Spider-Man 2, gliding is slightly slower than flying, but it consumes less stamina), and different teeth (such as pointier teeth to increase your creature's bite force, flat teeth to make dragging and carrying things easier for quadruped creatures, serrated teeth to more easily tear into other creatures, and fangs that have a chance of injecting another creature with venom when bitten) and tongues (such as a forked tongue to increase your creature's smelling ability, and a long tongue to grab food from a distance), though teeth and tongue upgrades aren't compatible for certain mouths (such as teeth upgrades not being compatible with bird-like mouths and tongue upgrades not being compatible with insect-like mouths). In addition to the new part categories, there are also a few more customization features, such as the aforementioned skill tree, the ability to change your creature's behavior (which is mostly used when they appear as an NPC in other people's playthroughs), the ability to change the color of individual creature parts, and the ability to change your creature's blood color. There's also a "Test Drive" mode similar to Spore's Creature Editor, where you can control your creature in a small environment and see how they move, as well as mess around with various animations, you can also spawn combat dummies to see how your creature fights.
Biomes[]
- Plains: Your standard run-of-the mill grasslands biome, with tons of plants, trees, water, and many different creatures roaming about.
- Marshlands: A swampy biome with lots of water and tall grass, making it a good place for more stealth-inclined creatures, though there is a slightly higher chance of contracting diseases in this biome.
- Jungle: A tropical biome with tons of unique fruit and plant life, it's usually populated with a wide variety of creatures.
- Desert: A hot, sandy biome where water is scarce, but burrowing creatures are a lot more frequent.
- Tundra: A biome where it's constantly snowing, and plant life is scarce, you'll usually find creatures with thick furry hides in this biome.
- Mountain: A rocky biome taking place on top of a mountain, flying and gliding creatures can often be seen in this biome, but water and plant life is scarce.
- Underground: An underground cavernous biome with very little plant life or water, but lots of creatures that are able to use echolocation, it also has stalactites that can occasionally fall and damage creatures.
- Inferno: A hostile environment filled with fire, lava, and volcanoes, it's also a hotspot for extremely hostile predators, so this biome is only for the most dedicated of creatures!
- Mushroom Valley: A biome filled with giant mushrooms that the player can bounce on, as well as smaller mushrooms that herbivores and omnivores can eat, with creatures of these diets being the most common ones encountered in this biome, but there are also a few carnivorous creatures that are willing to take advantage of the increased herbivore population in it.
Seasons[]
- Spring
- Summer
- Fall
- Winter
Events and Disasters[]
Events[]
- Eclipse: During an eclipse, the area the player is in will temporarily be shrouded in darkness, decreasing visibility, but benefitting more stealthy creatures.
- Meteor Shower: During a meteor shower, the night sky will be lit up by a bunch of meteors, unlike eclipses, meteor showers don't really affect gameplay and are mostly just for spectacle.
- Aurora: During an aurora, the night sky will be lit up with all sorts of pretty colors, once again, this doesn't really serve any gameplay purpose and is just there for spectacle.
- Migration: During certain seasons, certain creatures will start to migrate elsewhere, and can typically be seen in large numbers during this period, if the player's creature is a carnivore, this can be a good opportunity for a feast, whereas if the player's creature is more social, it's a good opportunity to make some new friends.
- Alien Visit: On rare occasions, a random alien ship (from the Galactic Compendium) will visit the player's planet and survey the area and occasionally abduct other creatures (but not the player's creature), before leaving the planet shortly after. NPC creatures also have different reactions to the ship, some creatures will be fearful and run away from the ship, some will just look at it curiously, and more aggressive creatures will growl at the ship.
- Blood Moon: During this very rare event, the moon will temporarily start glowing an ominous blood red color, which causes predators to run rampant and start frenzying, often resulting in large battles that usually end with large numbers of carcasses laying around (which can be beneficial if the player's creature is a carnivore or omnivore).
Disasters[]
- Asteroid: Sometimes, an asteroid will crash onto the player's planet, causing an explosion that creates a crater wherever it landed, as well as incinerating any poor creature that happens to be within the vicinity of it, in addition to causing small meteorites to fall from the sky, damaging any creatures that they hit.
- Earthquake: During an earthquake, the ground will start shaking, causing nearby creatures to panic, as well as occasionally causing fissures that the player and NPC creatures can fall in if they're not careful.
- Tsunami: During a tsunami, large waves will start submerging nearby land in water, forcing non-amphibious creatures to hightail it out of there if they don't want to drown.
- Tornado: When a tornado forms, it will start sucking up anything that's unfortunate enough to be close enough in its vicinity, such as plants and creatures (including the player's own, if they're not careful).
- Wildfire: Wildfires can occasionally happen when lightning strikes an area with dense plant-life, making it so that creatures who live in that area (including your own) migrate somewhere else so that they don't burn to a crisp.
- Eruption: In locations that have volcanoes in them, there's a rare chance for said volcano to erupt, shooting out molten rocks and creating a large flood of lava in the area, burning both creatures and flora alike.
- Sandstorm: In desert areas, there's a chance for a sandstorm to occur, which decreases your creature's visibility and also comes with the risk of giving it a respiratory infection, which temporarily cuts its stamina in half.
- Blizzard: During winter, or in tundra areas, there's a chance for a blizzard to occur, coating the entire area with large blankets of snow and ice, while also making it freezing cold, if any creature in the area (including your own) doesn't have any form of protection against the cold (like fur or shelter), they'll start to slowly lose health, eventually freezing to death.