Round 1: Introductory Round

[White parrot]

Good question, what heads do we already have exactly

[Quasar]

Also, long like a Gharial, which is a fish eater, your typical crocodillian jaw (modern ones anyway), or something that is crocodillian and yet alien at the same time?

I dunno! I had a mental image of the classic saltie jaw, but there's plenty of room for interpretation (and better yet, variation).

Good question, what heads do we already have exactly

If I'm completely honest, what we already have is just a load of placeholders. I doubt any of the current heads will survive through to the final game: they'll either be replaced or refined out of existence as we keep improving and updating.

But we can basically break them down into 6 lines: Overbite, Underbite, Mandibles, Beak, Horns and Tusks. All of these lines were created by taking P. specium's "sphere with dent" and organically modifying and varying it, which is part of the reason they're all pretty blobby and ugly.

I personally think that the jaws suggested for 0.7.0 are a bit too specific. I like the idea of everything being randomly generated to an extent, so wouldn't Crocodile Longjaw just be a mouth with teeth, from their it would evolve things like jaw length, width, teeth size and shape, overbite and underbite etc. Housefly probiscus is fine as its just a probiscus. I love the idea of Zoidburg tentacles due to the amount of lovecraftian monsters would spawn from it, but it should have variables in size and quantity and maybe a bit in shape. Halo Elite Split Jaw already happens to somewhat of a lesser extent, maybe some variables in size, shape or even numbers.
http://speciesgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=273

This is a good point. As I mentioned above, our existing placeholders were taken from the P.Specium sphere and molded via small variations: they grew organically, which is great for an evolution simulator. This voting competition gives us end-forms from the start.

My answer to that is that we still intend to grow the mutation map organically: these targets provide a direction, but we will drive towards that target by mutating existing head types, rather than modelling them from scratch. Then we'll go back and add variants and offshoots and so on.

The longjaw is just one possible "end form": as a result of breaking off into other paths from it's intermediates, there will likely end up being a whole variety of crocodilian end-form mouth-pieces in the final game. (though we're only promising the one for 0.7.0, because there's only so much time in the day )

Progress:

[applemachine]

Gotta say, I'm surprised the crocodile jaw is such a darkhorse. I was expecting either the zoidberg tentacles or the split jaw.

I think it has to do partly with the fact that the results were visible. Dang peer pressure. I think that most of the fans of this game desire a realistic simulation so they choose the most realistic head type and steer clear of impossible zoidberg or split jaw heads. I personally prefer the realistic simulation with the ability to create imaginary creatures. I don't think of the world in the game as earth but a different world where a new variety of creatures spawn.

[Quasar]

Still 600 visitors to go. This is gonna be surprisingly close. C'mon guys, one last push: let's make sure we get the longjaw!

(edit) Sunday morning, 200 to go!
(edit) Holy crap this is close. Sunday afternoon, 100 to go.

[MrKyurem]

I want to vote for the Mosquito, but I'm going for the Crocodile Longjaw.

[Obscerno]

Yahoo! Goal reached! Terrifying crocodile longjaws for everybody!

Edit: At least I think... I don't know what timezone you're in over in Australia.

[MrKyurem]

If in a terrible chance that the tables turn before they're checked, here's proof (somewhat) that Longjaw wins.



You may call me paranoid, but I've seen stuff like this happen before.

[Quasar]

Hmm... looks like I made a mistake when I was setting up the counter, counting the first weeks sunday as part of this week. The final result according to my stat counter report for the week (which I get at 1:56AM brisbane time) was:

2,434 + 2,138 == 4,572.

But since that was my mistake, I'll grant you guys this one. As Obscerno says: "Terrifying crocodile longjaws for everybody!" I'll talk to Jade about getting them modelled.

Setting up round 2 now.

[White parrot]

That was more than close.

Anyway : huzzah, saurian overlords !

[JDG]

I'd like to vote for Crocodile Longjaw