Niche had popped up in my Steam feed a while back, and I did have some initial interest. I had passed on the title after watching a few videos of folks playing the game, because it didn’t seem to have the depth that I really wanted, though.
Several weeks later, I’d stopped really thinking about the game when my niece downloaded it and started playing. We had a few conversations about her experience, and I was interested in hearing how she was enjoying it. Her description of the game and specifically of the things she really liked about it captured my interest.
I decided to purchase the game and give it a shot on my own. What I found was a mix of both unexpected depth as well as the limited experience that I’d initially expected. This is another one of those odd titles where I think it has a lot of tangential value, but probably wouldn’t recommend it as a purely entertainment purchase. Let’s dig into some of that complexity and go through what the plusses and minuses are for Niche.
Accidental Education
Readers probably know one of my penchants for recommending games that I feel expose kids to complex subjects through entertainment. I’ve often recommended games like Kerbal Space Program and Minecraft because they help teach kids problem-solving and I believe help build both the character and the depth of understanding needed to be competitive in future markets. The understanding of logic you pickup from building redstone circuits in the one or the grasp of order of operations and basic understanding of orbital mechanics you get from the other, are two examples of what I’m talking about.
I found something very similar in Niche with respect to hereditary genetics, and I think that’s something very worth paying attention to if you’re an educator or parent. I feel this game could be one of those really great ways to introduce kids to a very foundational scientific concept. A better understanding of what DNA is and how traits are passed on, and even how traits are expressed or repressed will serve kids incredibly well not just in school, but in life. A solid grasp of science and specifically of genetics would also help to eliminate some of the more pervasive conspiracy theories that circulate on social media.
That all sounds really boring, but that’s not to say the game isn’t fun. For one, the color scheme in the game is just super attractive with bright colors that make you feel good even as a hawk snatches one of your baby critters and carries them off to parts unknown.
The tutorial includes a very cute story and does a good job of introducing key concepts and is easy for kids to follow. I believe it’s another reason this game could be a great educational option for younger kids.
There was also some depth to the game that I hadn’t expected from watching videos, and some of it I really should have caught and don’t know how I missed considering that some are core aspects of the game. As an example, there are several sensory modes which I really thought captured the idea that animals do a better job of using their other senses than humans do in a very digestible way. It also happens to be a cool mechanic that allows you to specialize your critters down a path that spotlights one sense or another.
They all have their uses, too. For instance, you might be able to smell the buried root that you could eat for food in the next hex, but you can also hear the movement of prey from several tiles away. Hearing and smell are critically important when tall grass often hides predators and food alike.
The highlight of the game for me from both an educational perspective, as well as for entertainment, is the genetics system and the system of breeding traits through your creatures to improve the pack. Through the discovery of wild males and by using the selective gene tool, you can eliminate undesirable traits and breed in better ones over time.
I really enjoyed playing around with that and even started trying to figure out how to make it so that males had one set of traits while females had others. Not that I expect kids to be as thrilled by the genetic evolution of their species over time as I am.
I do think kids will enjoy the really bright and engaging visual design of the game, which honestly is done so well that I suspect it accounts for a very significant percentage of the game’s sales. I also think the semi-turn-based system is very approachable for younger gamers and I believe that there’s enough play value here that they’ll stay engaged for at least a little while.
Inattentive Problems
That’s not to say that the game is a slam-dunk, though. There are some issues that need to be brought up and you should definitely consider the caveats before purchasing. While the genetics system and how the breeding works was definitely more advanced that I’d expected, even reminding me to some degree of Spore from back in the day, much of the rest of the game was as shallow as I had feared.
The game feels heavily centered around the genetics and breeding and everything else really just exists to provide an environment for that activity. On the plus side, I think that most kids will have fun and play long enough to absorb some of that desired tangential learning before setting the game back down. The problem is that I think they will set it down, though. When there are other games with learning opportunities and more replayability, you’re left trying to decide whether this is a good buy or not.
The initial experience of trying to expand your pack while exploring the island a tile at a time is entertaining, but then that entertainment value wanes quickly as hunting for food, breeding, and building nests begins to feel more like employment than enjoyment. By the time you’ve decided to move on to your second or third island, I think the game loses a lot of its luster.
Niche does a good job of ensuring each sense is equally important and worth checking, but there’s a serious lack of gameplay to take advantage of the cool system.
Part of the problem is that all the various tasks are just too repetitive, and the complexity that was so unexpected when I first tried Niche also starts to detract from the experience. In an odd way, my favorite part of the game is also my biggest problem. There are several genetic variations to select from, and there’s no restriction on which genes you pick to promote with a given animal. I suspect that it would have been better if you were restricted to only being able to promote genes that the animal already had. Breeding two critters who do not have wings and have no wings in their ancestry to get a new baby with batwings seemed to take away from the value of even creating a breeding program in the first place.
I’d have also liked to see more of an evolutionary model to how genetics worked. Being able to select for and breed given traits more strongly over time would have been more interesting, I think. I also would have liked to see some traits only available from behind other traits, which would create the need to breed into a set of large batwings, for instance. Currently, you can crossbreed with a random wild male and magically batwings will appear in the next generation.
Additionally, I feel that a little more effort could be put into the actual gameplay to make it more interesting and more complex. For all the depth that exists in the breeding and the way genes work in the game, there’s a similar gap in general gameplay missing. That creates an odd situation where you stop paying attention to what traits you have unless it’s the specific one that you’re trying to push into your pack. Had they created some system where performing a task increased your chances of a mutation related to it, or some other way of effecting genetics directly through how you played the game and not just as a separate functionality that you access while in the game, it would have better supported the mutation and breeding portions of Niche.
I really liked how Niche teaches kids about dominant and recessive genes, along with genetic expression, such foundational concepts and this is a fantastic way to learn about them.
Red’s Read
So, to the answer of whether I’d recommend Niche, I’d probably say that I wouldn’t in most cases. While I do find the visuals of the game particularly well done and very enticing, it just wasn’t enough to make the game one I’d recommend in general. If the game were better scored, I think I might have found the game a more interesting artistic experience, but the score is simplistic and little better than general background ambiance.
Conceptually, there is a lot more to the game and some updates over time could turn this form a soft pass into a definite buy, but that will require some substantial rework of existing systems. In the meantime, educators that are looking for a good device to introduce kids to genetics or parents who want something moderately entertaining while also directly educational, I think this could be a good product to consider.
Specifically, I think that if I were home schooling and wanted a better way to engage a child on genetics and evolution, I’d say that Niche fits the need very well. My issues with the game won’t be a problem until after it’s been played for an hour or two, and by then kids will have learned many of the key lessons you’d want them to pick-up from the game.
During this period of social isolation and imposed distance learning, I think games are an increasingly important tool for parents and educators in avoiding the COVID-slide. I support the idea of tangential learning as a matter of principle, but this might be a period where we see more emphasis on educational games. What are some examples of other games you think parents and teachers should consider to help with encouraging kids to learn important concepts and to do it in a fun and engaged way?
