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[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Note: File is currently unplayable, as no sentient races, much less entities, exist at the current time.

This is a mixture of the Dwarf Fortress on Crack and Dwarf Fortress from Scratch in the sense that the raws folder starts out (near) blank, but each new entry is based off of a previous entry (for the most part).  Modding regulations are below, and the link to the mod proper is at the bottom of the post.

Spoiler: Modding Regulations (Open to suggestions to change this) (click to show/hide)

• Only make changes within files that carry an underscore, then a 3 letter approximation of your name or forum username.  The three letter rule also needs to be added to the end of the object's name as well.  Linking to previous content is allowed.  Exceptions to this is to add in the three letter naming convention to files, bugfixing files of an author that is not responding, or removing biome tags from the obsidian and moss, and soil tags from the black sand once we get more rocks, soils, and plants to put in those locations.
• When creating a new creature, plant, material, tissue, tissue template, or material template, copy from an existing creature, plant, material, tissue, tissue template, or material template, paste it at the end of your file, and make up to 10 changes to it.  For the most part, any changes to anything within the same set of brackets or the addition of a new set of brackets.  Exceptions are creation of castes (any number made only counts as 1), addition of a body part (counts as 1 per body part (each individual, not each :(group of body parts): ), addition of an interaction (entire interaction counts as 1 change), moving the positioning of code within a creature (counts as 0), a change in the names, description, prefstring, or creature tile (counts as 0), or addition of a creature variant (change cost is equal to the number of changes if the code within was added to the creature directly).  Material and tissue templates have to be tied to a rock or species.
• Entities, interactions, syndromes, reactions, items, languages, body part, and creature variations all are allowed to be created entirely from scratch.  Language source files (_words, _SYN, etc) are to be one single collaborated upon entity that are exempt from rule 1's naming convention.  Language files themselves (ex. _Dwarf, _Elf, etc) are up to the creator of the race to deal with and are not exempt from the rule.  Also, creature variations and body part groupings should have a total of the number of changes they are worth in their name, for convenience (ex. Arms_2changes_XYZ, Arms_6changes_XYZ).
• When we finally reach playable civilizations, try to make nothing that makes the game ridiculously easy or too punishingly hard.
• Use the changelog.  How to use it is contained within the log.
• If you make a playable race, post a guide on how to play it in the same area as the change log with the title "How to play as the [Race]" or something similar

In order to increase the speed of addition of new creatures, as well as make the process more organic by having copies of any other creatures that have been made, the files are hosted on Google Docs:
Link to the Mod

To edit the files within the Google Drive after you have gotten access to the files, here is a native text editor for chrome.

Spoiler: Thanks to (click to show/hide)

KingMurdoc (for the idea of modding a succession fort in progress that led to MDFification's idea)
MDFification (idea of making KingMurdoc's idea into a modding succession)
Halfling (borrowed your _shutupdf files for silencing the errors DF would create)

Current State of the World
The world is a hunk of water and obsidian floating through space with some moss and a bit of bacterial proto-life on it.  Some of the proto-life has adapted to feed upon its prior form, while others have evolved into colonies and moss-like plants.  The predatory life has evolved further into possessing a hardened shell, while the other has evolved to allow for greater movement.

[Chevaleresse]

I'll sign on for this.

My DFFC hasn't actually started, btw.


Could I recommend a slight name change to Primal Dwarf Fortress? Rolls off the tongue a bit better, imo.

[Cptn Kaladin Anrizlokum]

I'll just PTW for now, but I will probably work later.

[Chevaleresse]

I should probably mention that I have zero experience modding creatures, but w/e.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

(Edited modding regulations to make prefstring, names, description, and creature tile cost 0 to the change total)

Some of the progenators have evolved into the first predator, the Gusk.  They are twenty times the size of the progenators, have fins, a tail, a mouth, a stomach, require food, are carnivores who hunt vermin (progenators), and are no longer benign.

[Prudent Viper]

PTW

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

I was thinking of moving this over to DF Modding instead.  Thoughts?

[Chevaleresse]

I would cross-post it. Chances are there will be questions.


Edit: I'm DKM, if it wasn't clear.

[k33n]

This is a really cool idea.

[Timeless Bob]

Yes - this is something I've had rolling around in the back of my mind for some time now - since before hearing about Spore, actually.  What's interesting about evolution games is the various "arms races" that the creatures go through to both maintain their ability to survive another generation as well as gain more resources.  The trick is to find the change in the status quo that either saves more resources for the next generation or gains more resources for this one.  What determines whether a creature is "evolutionarily fit"?  What contests are Players hoping to be seen as the most successful in, so that they can aim their patterns of change to fit that goal?

For godlike Players, the ability to add minerals willy-nilly may become more interesting if it's instead set up as a mini-game such as: who can create a layer of two or more minerals that resembles a checkerboard?  A sphere?  A maze?  How about mineral veins that evaporate on contact, creating sudden twisty tunnels and caverns, possibly filled with hidden treasures, just like Aladdin's cave of wonders, or possibly just leading to treacherous sinkholes...

Enough mini-games and challenges, to be entered or not as the Players wish, and soon the World will teem with life, dynamism and wonder.

[Cptn Kaladin Anrizlokum]

Question, why are they both Vermin:Fish and Vermin:Nofish?

Also, are you planning on changing the objects? Because it seems kind of odd to have pants and cauldrons already... Do you need those?

[Person]

Also, are you planning on changing the objects? Because it seems kind of odd to have pants and cauldrons already... Do you need those?

From my past experience with the df from scratch threads, Dwarf Fortress dislikes when certain things are absent. It's hardcoded in the exe. The original creators sort of found a list of things that they needed to keep in or work around if they didn't want dwarf fortress to hard crash. If I recall correctly the root of the problem is that worldgen expects certain types of things to exist by default. You can indeed go about changing the names of these things, but I'd recommend asking before you change the files with all the clothes and cauldrons and such, given their importance. All that's in the far future though. This project is far from being worldgen ready, but I'm watching nonetheless. But yeah consider leaving these files behind for now to remind potential recruits how those sorts of items work. Seriously considering brushing up on my modding skills to join one of these. Maybe I'll make a wagon pulling animal or something. Which reminds me that wagons no longer exist, meaning we can do silly things with wagons. I'll stop talking now.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Question, why are they both Vermin:Fish and Vermin:Nofish?

From the information I had, the former causes it to be designated as a fish (which could be necessary for water-based pathfinding, for all I know), but the latter prevents it from being caught by fishermen.

[IndigoFenix]

I'll sign up too.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Indigo, you have a typo in your second creature.  You have two body sizes marked for the exact same time.  I've added the species to the changelog.  Please remember to add them in the future.

Edit: Added a chart that can be used to chart the evolution of all the species.