What kind of animals are the Nichelings?

[Monnigu]

I was thinking about this for a while, because even if we know they are inspired in cats, they also have some other weird properties that are not that similar to cats.

Putting mutations apart (like the poison fangs, the ancient genes, etc) how are the point of the game and the reason why this animals don't look like any other, I'm mostly talking about their physiognomy, the shape of their body, something that all Nichelings share in common and its kinda weird; this animals looks like they work using two legs, because of the way the nimble fingers and claws seems to work, and I'm sure it will be hard for a Nicheling with two digging paws to keep going on four legs. But then you have the runners legs and velvet paws, making all animals with some of this genes having to move on four leg, and also see the form of their lower legs, legs that even with their variations keep the same general from, a form of legs that is for animals how move on four legs.

You could say that some of them move on four and others move on two, but that have no sense because first, like I said their physiognomy stills being the same in all creatures, all of them have the same spine structure, even with things like Water body is the same only with guts, and even if the toxic body seems to have some kind of protuberance in the back, personally I think is like frogs' vocal bags, and the spine estructure is the same as the other body types. And second, is the simple reason that this creatures could have mixed kinds of paws, like one runners leg and one nimble paw, or velvet and claw, and this creatures still moving with those mixes, so, how do they move?


Well, even if they are inspired in cats, I have this theory that they are more like meerkats. Meerkats are known to normally stand on two legs when they are still, but moving on four legs, making a lot of sense when thinking of them using their paws, to gather food they just stand on two legs, when they attack they stand up to look more threatening. Also, think about is, even if we are in this totally not real place with totally not real creatures, and the Nichelings could become almost any kind of animal, it would not be that crazy to think that if we have Bearhienas we could have some crazy variation of meerkat with cat and whatever else.



So, what do you think of this, is accurrated or no? What other kind of animals do you think are in the mix?

[Monnigu]

Originally posted by Fortuna:

I tend to view Nichelings as a fox and canine mine, pimarily. The normal head is a little more canine but the ears seem more fox-like. Body and tail lean towards canine.

I don't really class them as anything Earth-ish though, since it is a fantasy world. It feels more like they're just a mix of whatever they need to be to survive, their DNA highly mutable. So they're probably more a creature all their own.

You are right, even I think they are nothing like any of our animals, and even if they could be somewhere in our world im 100% sure that they will be their own category because they are so diverse that is imposible to just be a variation of any other creature, but also is really fun to think about this, thinking about how they work basing on known animals is always a good exercise ^ ^

[Minimanta]

I've always seen them as squirrel or raccoon like animals. Nimble, opportunistic omnivorous animals. They're nothing like canines or especially felines to me, they're not strict carnivores after all.
And they're definitely quadrupeds in my opinion. Again think squirrel or raccoon, they walk on four legs, but can stand on two while using their front legs for something else. The way they slide around all upright in-game looks so awkward to me, that's not how that spine and leg structure work :P

But of course, the more specialized the nichelings gets, the less squirrel or raccoon like they are. A water specialized nicheling would probably be more like an otter and a bearyena hybrid would be more canine like. Stuff like that. But the average "base" nicheling is, to me, definitely squirrel or raccoon like.

[Mediocre_Medic]

Long time ago before the storymode update people referred to nichelings as "foxcats" , except for those weird eyed ones.

[reveralove]

Originally posted by Monnigu:

Originally posted by Sparkius:

I think everyone can agree that they are a canine/feline mix, any objections? Also for no reason this Niche emoji :nest:

Well, actually, even if I mention that this things are in some part felines, is actually only because the creators said that they were inspired by Warrios, but, to be 100% honest to you, I... I really don't see any feline features in this animals.

Really, the general from of the head is not a feline one, is a more canine like shape, even the derp snout have canine like features in its shape. Their eyes are no feline eyes, their claws are not retractable, they are to big to, and even if the ears are somehow cat like, looking at the big ears genes is quite obvious they have to be fox ears. The only 2 genes that are somehow feline like the velvet paw (Which I suppose is like a mitten) and the Saber Tooth face, and I don't take that one on count because is an ancient gene and if we take those on count this creatures are even more like elephants than cats.

I think they are actually a mix between Meerkat (For the reasons that I said above, the fact that they have some kind of herd attitude and also that would explain their omnivorous diet) and domestic dog, something that would explain their canine features and also why they have so many mutations, making every kind of mutation some kind of "breed" (Because thats what they are, surprisingly, they stay as the same species all time, even if one of them look more like a shark.)

Even tho, this creatures have like 100 different species inside of them, and like I said the velvet paw is clearly a cat like attribute, I'm just pointing out what are the species that I think are the most present on this creatures.

As a person who is desperately trying to draw and culturize these creatures I completley agree. I find myself using canid references almost exclusively while throwing in various lizards, squirrels, and even dinosaurs just to make sense of some of the physiology. The meerkat idea is perfect especially for the tree stump tiles.

[AstraKatNyx]

:nest

[AstraKatNyx]

n

[PeasantKyr]

Originally posted by HarpPlayer:

Wolf: The top fur tufts give it away.

What in the world do fur tufts have to do with wolves?

As far as I am concerned, nichelings are nichelings. Just like a raccoon dog is neither a raccoon, nor a dog, but a separate kind of animal even though it looks similar to other things.

[BlueLeafy]

Pretty much everything in this game are chimeras--mixes of several different things. Even the bluebird doesn't look like a bluebird, and shares some facial similarities with helmaroc from LoZ. lol