Organism ideas

[PliantWalkJojo]

Seeing that Grounded has already included some cool and less well known creatures makes me really happy. The game is a perfect place to introduce fascinating non-vertebrate animals. Here are some ideas I got so far:

• Animals

1. Hydras. They are basically tiny anemone that grow in freshwater. Their tentacles have special cells that shoot poisonous harpoons when triggered. It's possible to craft ropes that can stick to tadpoles out of these.
2. Millipedes. While not aggressive themselves, when threatened, they can secrete cyanide to protect themselves. Imagine dosing a decoy with such poison to kill a wolf spider!
3. Fleas. Mentioned in a previous post about the sandbox biome. I want to add that, since fleas have these tiny gears on their legs for synchronizing jumping, you can craft some gear-powered(?) system if you harvest enough of them.
4. Planarians. The land planarian is pretty disturbing. They wrap around their prey and pull out their stomach and digest the prey alive. You can exaggerate their regenerative ability, and make it so that if you slash one with an axe it would split into many smaller bug, up to 273 pieces.
5. Velvet worm. (
    Honestly this might overlap with the web-shooting orb weavers. But they look so weird and cool, and they're of their own animal phylum!
6. Earthworms that create tunnels you can explore.
7. Leeches
8. Snails and slugs
9. Horsehair worms. When the heavily asked mantis prayer is added, these parasites could be a welcomed surprise to come out of the ravenous insect you're fighting with.

 

• Plants (I'm not a plant person so thoughts are limited)

1. Garden balsam: they have exploding seeds that can be used as grenades
2. Lamb's ear: Offers a warm-fuzzy coat.
3. Nepenthes: If you dare venture down its sac, you can find a rich reservoir of bug parts, provided that you have a way out.
4. Bladderwort: sucks player inside its trap pouch if triggered.
5. Many plants have long hairs that make it difficult for insects to climb on. When more realistic climbing behavior is introduced for the insects, these plants can serve as a defensive building materials for the base.

 

• Protists

While the shrunk size of the protagonists offers great opportunity to explore the microscopic world, I think most protist bugs are still too small to interact meaningfully with the player. A lot of interesting ciliates will be no bigger than the size of a pebblet. It is possible though to build the visuals so we can see how the water is thrived with planktonic creatures. Maybe the devs can create some area rich in diatoms, which players can harvest in bulk to get glasses for building or diatomaceous earth for water-filtration.

(Can you build halteres for the mosquitos?)

[ScritchOwl]

Protists hmmmm nature is scarier than you think. This protist is bigger than the player and it's an engulfer

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_(genus)

Then you got a smaller volvox type which grows into a spherical arrangement. Maybe it could be a portable water item as they grow 2mm

 

 

[PliantWalkJojo]

Oh I totally got the protagonist size wrong when calculating these... Somehow I thought 0.76 cm was 76mm
In that case the protists would be totally worth incorporating! Also the rotifers would be something cool to see swimming in the pond.

[DUDEmanhunts]

Didn’t know how much I wanted a hydra in the game till I read this love your ideas man the lot of them are really unique and interesting

[Johnny Wirick]

there was a recent youtube video by Sir Sim-Alot that shows the admin build and what could potentially be in later updates. there are leech parts, and also cattail fluff. that could be used for warm clothes in the game files, implying a cold area could be coming. so we maybe getting those suggestions at some point.

the hydras barbs could be used for a harpoon gun. i believe there used to be a harpoon gun in the game files at one point too. 

Edited November 8, 2021 by Johnny Wirick