Critter Guide for Earthtongue

Cones Overwhelming

 

 

Construct Additional Grubs

 

 

You don't need shovels when you have vicious parasites!

The bugs in Earthtongue are virulent, whimsical, destructive, erratic and beautiful creatures. Their numbers can soar the plummet in seconds, and a single critter can shatter your crystalline midnight garden. Woop woop.
If there is one thing the developer succeeded on, it was successful diversity. The game is too erratic to discover the perfect balance of critters and fungus, I've found, but at least that not because of balancing. Each critter performs a role that can fit into your little garden somehow.

There are a number of classes of bug, as with the fungus: the beetles, the crawling critters, the flying bugs, the predator bugs, and the cicada, which I guess is a beetle.


Beetles
These guys are your walking mossy counterparts. They reproduce by dropping eggs (small white stalks) and will quickly multiply across natural valleys. They can't really traverse spaces, and will be locked into pits very easily. Like most bugs, they're stupid.

Rhino Beetle. Small, blue and apparently rather vicious, it'll kill other types of herbivorous bugs around it. Be careful; they'll need a predatory population to keep them in check. The beginners pinkmold/rhinobeetle mix is good for a start, but in more complex gardens the hordes of beetles can quickly eradicate hard-to-grow fungi.

Roach. Small, brown, and apparently a lot nicer than the rhino beetle. Go figure. This one wont clash with other bugs, but will eat their corpses, which is good, because corpse buildup can be a problem with large populations. They can't climb walls either so will remain indigenous to wherever they are dropped.

Cone Beetle. He looks like the Dark Magician. They wont fight, but they are symbiotic with the sundew mold. The cone beetle is the only one who can forage in the deadly red stalks of the sundew mold, and in return spread its spores for it. Otherwise, they behave much like any other critter, consuming fungal matter (not corpses), and pose a risk to fragile fungi. They'll thrive in sundew patches, where they happen to be, but you'll need the wasp to keep them in check.

Crawlers
Snails. Neon blue-ish. They aren't hindered by hills like the beetles are, and thus they wont overpopulate bordered spaces. Unfortunately the common snail is prone to wandering past life and suffocating where the mold ends, as they cannot turn around! Useless. These guys don't eat very fast.

Erratic Snail. Hornby tossed ketamine into the petridish, producing these guys. They can turn around, and will do so after a certain distance or when food is scarce; thus they artificially mimic the same homesteading effect of beetles who cannot escape biome areas. Generally you're better off with regular slugs that will maintain low numbers but are difficult to extinguish.

Grub. After eating some grub, the grub will eventually become enter a chrysalis and emerge as a Moth. Whilst grubby, they behave much like erratic slugs, consuming food quickly and wandering back and forth. Moth stage brings flight, and a much lower consumption rate. They will land, place an egg then wander off. The egg will shit out a few more grubs before disappearing. Grubs are an excellent critter, but can get out of control. They eat a lot, but they replicate astoundingly fast. However, the number of moths that flutter out of a grub colony means windcombs get the food they need without removing flys or wasps.

Spiny Slug. Probably the stupidest looking bug. The spiny slug is like a grub or snail: it crawls, remains where the food is, typically not doing much. It cannot be eaten by typical predators, however. You need spiders to maintain this guy, as they can escape webs. That or starvation. Or Hungrypods. In fact, having a few hungrypods perched atop a hill is a good way of reducing crawler numbers in general.

Flying Critters
Fly. The common garden fly will perform the ultimate task: eat the dead bugs. Where your roaches may have trouble getting to the husks due to grumpy rhino beetles, the fly can swoop in and pick off the top without hassle. They will multiply quickly, and wont bother anyone else. Their numbers will survive throughout mass extinction and into the new age, and frankly are one of your best inhabitants.

Wasp. Keeping critter populations in check is by far the hardest part of Earthtongue. Wasps are important in performing this task. They're unconstrained by terrain, and can spread across valleys easily. They will attack and consume all land critters (chances are, a grazer) then swoop off to wait until they're hungry. In this way, they're prone to hungrypods and pitchers, and windcombs, but rarely will they die if there is food. They are also effective at spreading your cordyceps.

Locust. Your flying herbivores. They have a high survival rate as they can actively look for food across large spaces, and their flight makes them impossible to catch for ground-based hunters like mantises. If left alone, locusts will multiply, although they can be left starved when the ground is overwhelmed with grubs and beetles.

Carnivores
Mantis. The green mantis is your primary mobile predator. They'll carve through beetle ranks and multiply alongside them. Be careful, however, as the balance is delicate. Too many mantises and the food will very quickly dry up. Mantises will remain in valleys like other beetles.

Red Mantis. This guy will be your "mantis policeman". Essentially, drop him into a mix of mantises and beetles when the mantis population has grown too high; they're cannibalistic and will attempt to maintain mantis populations. Whilst they will also eat rhino and cone beetles, they do serve to reduce predator numbers.

Spider. Are good for you. Other than mantises, these guys are your main population moderators. They grow slowly, and their webs protect fungal growths beneath them. All critters that land in the webs are trapped and wrapped, ready for consumption. Normally,  spiders will flank a valley, consuming the trickle of crawlers or beetles that pass them. Spiders will eat all grubs, don't reproduce much, and thus maintain a balance in your garden. Their nets will spread quickly, however, forcing populations out.

Cicada. This peculiar guy doesn't have much of a purpose. He eats fungus, can't really climb walls, and doesn't propagate very fast. He does, however, hide underground whenever food is scarce (what seems most of the time). Typically, he behaves much like a cone beetle without the added sundew perks, and extra longevity. You wont see many running around your garden.

Fungus Guide for Earthtongue

Aid for all your garden needs.

There are two types of garden dweller in Earthtongue: fungus and bugs, which are then divided into a number of categories that determine method of spread and food type. We'll start with the simple ones first: molds.

Mold
The molds will provide the majority of your visible biomass and food for your ecosystem. The simplest is the Pink Mold. It erects lots of flowers, consumes minimal water and nutrients, and grows horizontally very quickly, and is thus resilient to over-consumption.

The next is Blue Mold. This variant only erects flowers adjacent to walls, allowing to spread up. It wont get trapped in pits and shortfalls like other molds are prone to. However, it also consumes more nutrients to do so. The blue mold wont be as blanketing as the pink mold, as it doesn't spread well over long horizontal distances; it thrives over rocky terrain though.

Green Mold erects flowers randomly across its surface. This means that spore production can be wasteful (as spores landing on occupied soil will disappear). Each unit of mold decides whether or not it will produce a flower. If the mold lands atop a protrusion and rolls sterile then the mold is trapped in that direction.

Yellow Mold will only erect flowers at intervals, remaining dormant otherwise. Its spread is slower, but it presumably consumes fewer nutrients and water for its duration.

Sundew Mold is by far the prettiest and most interesting mold. A green body with bright red flowers, it secretes a substance that slowly kills whatever attempts to graze upon it. Only by consuming its youngling stalks or by perching upon another bug (presumably already dead) can it be eaten safely. This mold is safe from hungry grazers and will likely survive locust or beetle overproduction because of its defences. The cone beetle also has a unique defence to the mold, and can graze within it free of harm; it has even go so far as to aid in the spreading of sundew spores by carrying them inside themselves outside of the colony. Thus the sundew will often grow patchily in distant areas across your garden.

Pink Mold; your best friend

Pods
The pods are stolid, more compact fungi than the molds. They often express fruiting bodies that spread spores in a dependant fashion. They are slower growing than molds, and significantly more vulnerable to consumption. They require less minerals typically than molds however, and can spread over much greater distances than molds.

Brown Pods are smallish and brown, with a flat base and short roots. After a time, the brown pod swells into a ball and ejects spores outwards, reducing down to its base in cyclic fashion. Compared to the red pod, this is a fairly slow method of reproduction.

The Red Pod is a tall, ugly fungus. It continuously ejects spores above it, forming a red cloud that spreads the pods across vast distances given time. The red pod can be a nuisance because of this; it will compete for space with your molds and generally clutters the place with its spores, choking out more fragile plants. It is also remarkably hard to eradicate with meteor showers.

The Fruit Pod is a peculiar blue plant, with short purple tendrils. Unlike its more mundane cousins, it doesn't ejaculate spores with wild abandon. Instead, it awaits some critter to come consume its seeds, which then survive the digestive passage and emerge elsewhere, to sprout a new pod. Thus, your fruit pods will be few and far between, and growing them can be a challenge. But they are very pretty.

The last pod is the Hungry Pod. A remarkably ugly plant, its open purple crocodile mouth consumes creeps as they walk across it. After a short period of rumination, it opens its jaws to eject some pod spores in a small area around it, and awaits its next dinner. Like the brown pod, its procreative method is slow, leaving them prone to being suffocated by the spores of more aggressive plants such as the red pod or molds. The Hungry Pod requires live food, and so is best placed near existing growth, meaning growing the pod successfully can be difficult.

This shit will take over

Mushrooms
They come in two varieties: blue and pink. Mushrooms generally looks quite cool, at least more so than pods.

The Blue Mushroom has the ability to grow to large heights, and can be quite impressive, although it must be left in peace to achieve anything. They grow in colonies, with a root system that can very quickly expand underground to reach deep water and nutrient. The roots of the blue mushroom are omnidirectional, unlike its pink cousin. They drop spores adjacent to each other, and often grow quickly, so large mushroom towns can sprout unchecked in the isolated parts of your garden. They don't fare too well in crowded areas however.

The Pink Mushroom is much the same as the blue, but instead of tall reaching caps, it will grow to a short colony height, with all further caps working towards the same. Thus spores that fall into crevasses will emerge at least to the surface, sometimes to match the height of the closest stalk. The roots will grow deep, but only vertical, unlike the blue mushroom. Both mushroom types are vulnerable to mineral shortages and grazing.

On a big enough hill, Blue Mushrooms can get mad big

Pink Mushrooms only grow down!

Stalks
Technically, mushrooms come under stalks, but hey ho. Here we have the pitcher stalk and the wind comb.

Pitcher Stalks looks like little red buttons that sprout a short distance above the soil. They are very fragile to grazers, but there is much fun to be had plucking flying bugs out from the night sky and dropping them into the little red mouths. It seems that they can only consume flying bugs; they also consume nutrients as it falls into their mouths. So if left on their own, the pitcher plant can survive. Like the Hungry Pod, they only eject seeds after a meal.

The Wind Comb is a tall, shaky fungus that at first took some time to figure out. It grows very quickly vertically, but can remain dormant in the soil for some time. Its short roots means it cannot grow on the nutrients of the ground alone, and so requires critters to die upon it to nourish it. Its stalk can reach a height greater than that of any other fungus, but will be quickly reduced by grazers. To reproduce, it needs a flying critter to get stuck in its entrapping stalk (hence the enormous height); it's death throes release spores adjacent.

Cordyceps
Whilst its actually a mold, the Cordyceps is very different to its colour-coded cousins. The "white mold" is modelled after its real-world counterpart. It grows small, whitish stalks, in a single tile of soil. When a grazer comes along to eat it, it remains within the grazer, until hopefully a carnivorous bug consumes the grazer (such as a mantis). When the predator dies, the cordyceps spores are released into the soil directly beneath, to continue the cycle.
Whilst its hard to properly monitor, when the cordyceps successfully emerges from its host, it will blanket the horizontal landmass, ready for consumption in a visible manner.

Bottom left, a cloud of death

Above are all the fungus' in Earthtongue. They can be beautiful, and difficult, and very fragile, and sometimes terrifyingly aggressive, but understanding how they work is key to growing your garden. A mixture of molds is necessary (not to mention much more exciting than just pink) to supporting every type of bug.