Community Designed Evolution Competitions Winner!🦀

Yes, yes, the moment a lot of you have been waiting for is finally here, but first, a HUGE thank you to everyone who submitted ideas. There were so many fantastic ones, which made it so so hard to longlist and then shortlist them.

After over 400 submissions, Odd Dreams and Secret Mode voting to narrow it down to 10, and finally, over 3,000 community votes, we arrive at a top three...

Pedal Glands by _de3

• Shoutout to eezda and asher_delmasca for similar submissions

Sticky Tongue by .telandria

• Shoutout to .playpal for a similar submission

Spinnerets by abelhawk

And the winner is....

ALL THREE OF THEM!

We loved your ideas so much we couldn't bear the thought of only adding one of them, so all three of these evolutions will be coming to Everything is Crab in the 1.2 update.

Congratulations to _de3, .telandria, and abelhawk on submitting the winning evolutions!

Here are the submitted descriptions of what each evolution does:

Pedal Glands:

General Description: Darwin gains an evolution akin to a snail, slug, and other gastropods, granting him the ability to produce slime from a specialised gland that his body can then release below him, coating the ground he moves on in a thick, gooey substance! This allows Darwin to better traverse the ground he moves on, as well as slow anything that is stupid enough to follow directly behind him! I think this evolution could bring about further additions to poison builds, as well as applying an early game strategy to help evade those faster-moving enemies as opposed to just a pure speed build!

Animal Of Origin: My original thought was snails, but then looking into slime production in animals in general I found there to be LOTS of animals (particularly those in the sea... and worms) that actually produce slime or some kind of mucous counterpart. So really its based of gastropods, annelids and other worm groups, or even fish!

Rarity & Affinity: Originally, I did consider rare, because the only other abilities that, in the game that I personally have discovered to do anything at a range is the fungoid evolution and the spit evolution. I would honestly even consider epic as after delving into the research I do think this evolution has a LOT of potential for upgrades or specialisations so epic may be more fitting I think the most fitting affinity would be Gregarious and Trickster, I see it playing into both honestly.

Type of Evolution and What it Would Boost/Upgrade: This evolution would be both a movement/passive ability kind of upgrade, in regards to the fact snails (the origin basis) use it to both move much easier, and the fact that it's well, sticky! I think in regards to WHAT it would boost each upgrade would probably be terrain adaptation due to this.

On Card Descriptions & Level System: This Evolution would be a 3 stage upgrade with a specialisation at the 3rd upgrade (I'd even consider 5 honestly, unsure as of right now). I think it would, on the card say something along the lines of "+x% terrain adaptation, +Slime production, +x% slowness to those in slime? (not sure how this would come across.

• Lvl 1 - +x% terrain adaptation (similar to slithery), +x% slowing effect of slime.

• Lvl 2 - +x% terrain adaptation, +x% slowing effect of slime.

• Lvl 3 - Specialisation!!!

As to why I chose terrain adaptation, I don't think there is many terrain adapting buffs outside of the branching ones like wings, slithery, etc. And I kind think it makes sense because snails DO use it to move on practically every surface they encounter. Specialisations:

• The HAGFISH! --> On top of the slime slowing down any enemies that walk into the slime, the Hagfish specialisation would make the slime incredibly thick, so much so that any enemy that is unfortunate enough to walk on it now gains a 'slimed' debuff and this effect lasts and x amount of seconds after the enemy has stopped walking on the slime path.

• The BOOTLACE WORM! --> Anything that now walks on the slime is now affected with the poison debuff, scaling with other poison boosting evolutions (such as virulent). This poison would persist whilst the enemy remains on the slime path and only begin to actually 'count down' after they have LEFT the path.

(Of course they would need to have slightly different specialisation names similar to how they do in the games - like how the beak specialises into 'narrow and long' or whatever the names are 🙂 - Maybe something like 'Mucosal' and 'Neurotoxic' 🤔)

Evolution Blocking: I believe, due to the strength and versatility of this evolution it would make sense to block the tail evolutions and its unlocks. I know that is a BIG evolution to block as there is lots of specialisation around the tails (so maybe not?) - But typical invertebrates like gastropods don't have tails, and tails require BONE to function, which they don't have

Sticky Tongue:

Animal Inspiration: Chameleons, Frogs

In-Game Visual

Same existing tongue attack animation as possessed by the Spiderfrog. Maybe a throat bulge for Darwin.

Range

Up to Nearby Damage: 0.5x - 0.7x Ability, Gains 0.15 per level.

Cooldown

2s Effect: Pulls a struck target adjacent to Darwin.

Unlocks

None Bans: Spit Blocked By: None Special: Benefits from Poisonous Saliva Specializations: Alternatively, instead of benefiting from Poisonous Saliva, can offer two specializations: one that adds a (very) brief stun, and another that inflicts poison.

Animal Fact

The tongue of a chameleon is an evolutionary marvel, able to extend up to twice its own body length and back again at a speed of nearly sixty miles an hour, all in a few hundredths of a second.

Spinnerets:

Creates a web that slows enemies (just like Clawdia's).

Possible extra ability

immune to being slowed by webs.

Possible specializations

• Sticky Silk: Web entirely immobilizes enemies instead of slowing them

• Egg Sac: Creates an egg sac inside the web. After a few seconds it hatches into a Darwin Crawlee

• Dropline: Your speed increases when an enemy is slowed by a web

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Carcinisation - a form of convergent evolution where non-crab crustaceans independently evolve into a crab-like body. 🦀