Okay, so how do the Nightopians work?

[LittleFieryOne]

Origially, when I set out to see how many of the Nitopians I could collect (starting with Christmas Nights, since I think it unlocks something), I initially thought the collection was showing me that the Nitopians not in eggs were the ones I owned, and the ones not hatched were the ones I had to search for. So I see that there are four eggs and think "So I have to hatch four eggs." I ended up unlocking four eggs in Clarice's statge right off the bat, and thought "I guess that's it". Wrong; the four eggs in the Nightopian collection were still unhatched. Then... I left the game for a few days when I bought Battleblock Theater. But then I came back, and tried again tonight. I hatch a few eggs, and now they start to disappear from the collection. It was only after a couple more tries that I noticed the total number of Nitopians in the collection was going down. I try one more time (and hatch two eggs when I only saw one in the collection), and this time the total goes up again, with one egg still there.

That broke me, so now I'm asking: What's going on here? I know there's some kind of happy/sad mechanic with them, but how do I finally get that last egg?

[Saturn Memories]

This is going to be a long explanation, but I'll try to break it down step-by-step:

• The end goal of the A-Life system is to hatch a King Pian (AKA: Super Pian).

• To accomplish this, you first have to create Mepians (Nightopian-Nightmaren hybrids). You'll need to either grab and shoot a Nightmaren at a Nightopian or drill dash into one and hope his balled up corpse comes into contact with a Nightopian. Nightopians who are struck by a Nightmaren instantly lay a Mepian egg.

• I'm not sure about the exact incubation period, but it's measured in "nights" (ie: times you've successfully completed a single dream/stage).

• Mepians share the physical traits of their parents but not always evenly. The head, torso, arms, and legs can be either Nightopian or Nightmaren.

• Ideally, you want to create Mepians with only ONE Nightmaren trait (ex: a Mepian with a Nightmaren torso, but with a Nightopian head, arms, and legs).

• Keep creating Mepians until you have several single-trait Mepians. Make sure they don't all have the same single Nightmaren trait. Two Mepians with Nightmaren arms will only ever be able to produce an offspring with Nightmaren arms and that's not what you want.

• If you have too many Mepians with multiple Nightmaren traits or too many with a singular Nightmaren trait (ie: all of your Mepians have Nightmaren arms), you need to kill them within the level using paraloops.

• Once you've got a diverse set of single-trait Mepians, it's time to make them happy so they reproduce on their own. Select the dream in which they're in, and go around the stage killing Nightmarens. Avoid killing Mepians and Nightopians, and avoid drill dashing into Mepians and Nightopians (you'll scare them).

• Complete the dream and kill the boss to advance time. Then go check the Nightopian box to see who laid eggs.

• Go back into the dream again, keep everybody happy, and complete it. Check the Nightopian box and see if any of the eggs hatched. If you ended up with any Mepians with two Nightmaren traits, you'll have to kill them the next time you're in the dream. Then work to make everybody happy again so they go back to breeding.

• Now if you're very lucky, two Mepians with different single Nightmaren traits (ie: one with only Nightmaren arms and one with only a Nightmaren head) will produce an offspring with 100% Nightopian traits. That Nightopian is the King Pian.

• The King Pian will have a pretty elaborately decorated egg, so you'll definitely know if you got him.

• When the King hatches, he'll have a little crown and, iirc, he also has a little trail of sparkles following him.

• If you keep playing and completing the dream he's in, he'll build a large castle within it. He does this bit-by-bit, so you'll have to complete the dream multiple times before it's finished.

And there you have it... It takes a lot of time to get a King and a castle, but that's how you do it.

[LittleFieryOne]

Originally posted by RedTail:

This is going to be a long explanation, but I'll try to break it down step-by-step:

• The end goal of the A-Life system is to hatch a King Pian (AKA: Super Pian).

• To accomplish this, you first have to create Mepians (Nightopian-Nightmaren hybrids). You'll need to either grab and shoot a Nightmaren at a Nightopian or drill dash into one and hope his balled up corpse comes into contact with a Nightopian. Nightopians who are struck by a Nightmaren instantly lay a Mepian egg.

• I'm not sure about the exact incubation period, but it's measured in "nights" (ie: times you've successfully completed a single dream/stage).

• Mepians share the physical traits of their parents but not always evenly. The head, torso, arms, and legs can be either Nightopian or Nightmaren.

• Ideally, you want to create Mepians with only ONE Nightmaren trait (ex: a Mepian with a Nightmaren torso, but with a Nightopian head, arms, and legs).

• Keep creating Mepians until you have several single-trait Mepians. Make sure they don't all have the same single Nightmaren trait. Two Mepians with Nightmaren arms will only ever be able to produce an offspring with Nightmaren arms and that's not what you want.

• If you have too many Mepians with multiple Nightmaren traits or too many with a singular Nightmaren trait (ie: all of your Mepians have Nightmaren arms), you need to kill them within the level using paraloops.

• Once you've got a diverse set of single-trait Mepians, it's time to make them happy so they reproduce on their own. Select the dream in which they're in, and go around the stage killing Nightmarens. Avoid killing Mepians and Nightopians, and avoid drill dashing into Mepians and Nightopians (you'll scare them).

• Complete the dream and kill the boss to advance time. Then go check the Nightopian box to see who laid eggs.

• Go back into the dream again, keep everybody happy, and complete it. Check the Nightopian box and see if any of the eggs hatched. If you ended up with any Mepians with two Nightmaren traits, you'll have to kill them the next time you're in the dream. Then work to make everybody happy again so they go back to breeding.

• Now if you're very lucky, two Mepians with different single Nightmaren traits (ie: one with only Nightmaren arms and one with only a Nightmaren head) will produce an offspring with 100% Nightopian traits. That Nightopian is the King Pian.

• The King Pian will have a pretty elaborately decorated egg, so you'll definitely know if you got him.

• When the King hatches, he'll have a little crown and, iirc, he also has a little trail of sparkles following him.

• If you keep playing and completing the dream he's in, he'll build a large castle within it. He does this bit-by-bit, so you'll have to complete the dream multiple times before it's finished.

And there you have it... It takes a lot of time to get a King and a castle, but that's how you do it.

...Jesus. Thanks mate. I guess that's on the bucket list.

[rzamonalpolachek]

Originally posted by RedTail:

This is going to be a long explanation, but I'll try to break it down step-by-step:

• The end goal of the A-Life system is to hatch a King Pian (AKA: Super Pian).

• To accomplish this, you first have to create Mepians (Nightopian-Nightmaren hybrids). You'll need to either grab and shoot a Nightmaren at a Nightopian or drill dash into one and hope his balled up corpse comes into contact with a Nightopian. Nightopians who are struck by a Nightmaren instantly lay a Mepian egg.

• I'm not sure about the exact incubation period, but it's measured in "nights" (ie: times you've successfully completed a single dream/stage).

• Mepians share the physical traits of their parents but not always evenly. The head, torso, arms, and legs can be either Nightopian or Nightmaren.

• Ideally, you want to create Mepians with only ONE Nightmaren trait (ex: a Mepian with a Nightmaren torso, but with a Nightopian head, arms, and legs).

• Keep creating Mepians until you have several single-trait Mepians. Make sure they don't all have the same single Nightmaren trait. Two Mepians with Nightmaren arms will only ever be able to produce an offspring with Nightmaren arms and that's not what you want.

• If you have too many Mepians with multiple Nightmaren traits or too many with a singular Nightmaren trait (ie: all of your Mepians have Nightmaren arms), you need to kill them within the level using paraloops.

• Once you've got a diverse set of single-trait Mepians, it's time to make them happy so they reproduce on their own. Select the dream in which they're in, and go around the stage killing Nightmarens. Avoid killing Mepians and Nightopians, and avoid drill dashing into Mepians and Nightopians (you'll scare them).

• Complete the dream and kill the boss to advance time. Then go check the Nightopian box to see who laid eggs.

• Go back into the dream again, keep everybody happy, and complete it. Check the Nightopian box and see if any of the eggs hatched. If you ended up with any Mepians with two Nightmaren traits, you'll have to kill them the next time you're in the dream. Then work to make everybody happy again so they go back to breeding.

• Now if you're very lucky, two Mepians with different single Nightmaren traits (ie: one with only Nightmaren arms and one with only a Nightmaren head) will produce an offspring with 100% Nightopian traits. That Nightopian is the King Pian.

• The King Pian will have a pretty elaborately decorated egg, so you'll definitely know if you got him.

• When the King hatches, he'll have a little crown and, iirc, he also has a little trail of sparkles following him.

• If you keep playing and completing the dream he's in, he'll build a large castle within it. He does this bit-by-bit, so you'll have to complete the dream multiple times before it's finished.

And there you have it... It takes a lot of time to get a King and a castle, but that's how you do it.

Jesus Christ...