How I will extend sandbox mode (evolution sim devlog 2-1)
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- Опубликовано: 9 июн 2024
- I'm working on evolution simulation game The Sapling, my solo indie game project. It's a game where you can basically do two types of things: on the one hand, there are a number of scenarios tasking you to design an ecosystem that meets specific requirements, on the other there is a sandbox where you can build your own plants and animals, turn on 'random mutations', and see how they evolve.
In this video I will list various smaller features and fixes for the sandbox mode, one of the two main pillars of the upcoming update. Furthermore, we will have a first look at the procedural terrain generation.
Website: thesaplinggame.com/
Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/99...
Itch: woseseltops.itch.io/thesapling
Twitter: / thesaplinggame
Fan initiatives:
* Discord / discord
* Reddit / thesapling
0:00 Intro
1:39 Small features and fixes
6:32 Procedural terrain generation
10:41 Terrain optimizations
11:43 Outro 
Игры
Can't wait! Sandbox mode really is what unlocks the magic of The Sapling and what makes it special. So excited to see what you have in store 🙂
A reason why plants like to evolve spikes might be because you simply have the plants die when eaten. In real life plants want animals to eat them or their fruit when they're properly seeded so that the animals can carry seeds to new places and pass the seeds out in their bowel movements.
Hey xXVantXx, thanks for the suggestion! More realistic food/seed mechanics is indeed often requested, but won't be part of this update.
This game has a lot of potential, I hope you will support it with more variety of creatures, behaviors and plants
'More variety of creatures, behaviors and plants' is a pretty good description of all future updates I have in mind ;)
@@TheSapling you should make the eyes look a little more natural in the future, they are very big and comical but this doesn’t mean your game is bad, your game is one of my favorite and I cannot wait for the next update
@@dabbingraccoons6416 this game is so fun, just wish i had a computer good enough to run it
@@kaical8273 oof
@@dabbingraccoons6416 indeed 😔
I love to read speculative zoology as my favaurite book genre and now i think evolution will be my favourite video game genre
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE GAME NEEDED! I'm so glad to see the progress this game is undergoing-- I unfortunately found that my computer is just... completely destroyed, but the first thing I'll do when I get a new one us install and boot up this wonderful simulator!
Ayooo whatever features and progress you've made, I'm stoked to see it!
I know this will be a huge addition to the scope of the project, but it would also be interesting to see tides in this to let the island population mix with the main-land every once in a while.
Hey Roman, fully agreed. This is kind of the central idea behind the last scenario, but will not be part of the sandbox in this update. Without making promises, it's on my to do list to think some more about how this could work!
@@TheSapling Wan't at all implying that that should be in the next update. Quite the opposite, really. Glad to know you are thinking about this, though.
When temperature changing some creatures should migrate but some of them unfortunately fall behind and adapt. This may bring many fun and interesting aspects to the sandbox.
Balance in an evolution sim is actually very important because evolution is very happy to cheese the system.
Idea: You should add events.
Those are basically rare events that occur naturally that changes the environment like meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, earthquake, tornadoes, and hurricanes. (Each one has a different chance of happening)
If events are added, then you should add a way to disable them.
Hey Ali, without making promises, fully agreed this would be super cool B). Reminds me of SimCity, where I never really liked this option, but for this game it makes perfect sense.
@@TheSapling maybe those could have the function of separate or combine populations like tectonic shifting or the creation of new nishes where creatures can evolve into using.
@@TheSapling Yes you need to add them it would like be fun
Yes please, mass extinction events would be a nice addition. Instead of life just evolving and evolving into weird forms, extinction level natural disasters would be cool in the sense that in the aftermath, if anything survives, we get to see what the survivors evolve into.
Eu adoraria que tivesse uma opção, nesse caso de escolher entre: sem catástrofes, catástrofes anuais (enchentes, ventavais, raios, terremotos simples) e cataclismas em massa como vulcões, meteoros, furações.
Resumindo, nível 0, 1 e 2.
I am very excited! I think it’s really good that you fixed the overpowered spikes. An idea for an update is making the water available for plants and animals. I think it would really add to the game. And I am also excited for the new body parts.
Super hyped for what else is in this update.
Man that was amazing! i can already amagine the speculative creatures and worlds that can now be amagined and even played out! stories of extinctions and evolution....MAN THAT PLANET REALLY IS A GOOD TEASER FOR THE FUTURE
With the islands, maybe you could add semi-aquatic parts that can allow creatures to more easily cross bodies of water. For example, say there's a river that an animal needs to cross to get the rich resources on the other side. While flying animals will have no problem getting there, the terrestrial ones will have a bit of a harder time getting to it.
Take a closer look at the parts during the small features and fixes seccions when he is using the animal editor, you will find some pleaseant surprises
@@Leyva0scarVRL indeed and people ask why i re watch videos at .25 X speed
It's interesting how the development evolves with the game itself
Plants with spines become op, so a new mouth has to added to adapt
Finally Here🤪thanks friend for continuing developing this awesome game, its really great. Can't wait for further updates. Never stop.🙏
Amazing! I'm excited about this Features and hope the next Dev Videos will come soon. 🦖 All the process you make is unbelievable amazing. Keep going Dude! 😅
But don't forget how important different food sources are in evolution processes. To have different nieches will thrive a lot of interesting species. 😉 (Nectar, plants, fruit, mini lifeforms, roots, nuts, shells for example).
Also climate change or nature catastrophies are a main part of big changes in wildlife. 😎
But step by step. Like you do, you do it quite well! 🤓👍🏽
Hey BenCake, thanks a lot for writing down you suggestions! Without making promises, fully agreed all of this is important and would make the game more interesting.
@@TheSapling I know you will. 😉 Like in evolution. 🤓
It starts smart. Basics. Then it will come more and more. This is the way things Develop successfully.
Sry 4 my horrorfying english 🙈
Commenting again after the premiere, you really have been working hard and your love for the project is definitely showing. It's like you read my mind on all of the features I was hoping we'd see in the game one day. Super excited for the next chapter of The Sapling! I've been fantasizing about a game like this ever since I was a kid.
Can’t wait for the update! Sandbox is my favourite mode, so I’m looking forward to all these amazing new features!
Keep up the great work (:
Re: avoiding seams around the sphere when stitching back together
When I tackled a simular problem, I found that instead of trying to map 2d noise to the surface of a sphere, you can instead sample 3d noise values from a spherical region. This prevents seams along the meridian and stretching near the poles
This is excellent suggestion. I tried googling this approach, and I find an approach using 3D noise... is did what you did as well?
@@TheSapling it looks like RUclips deleted my reply for linking to some code
But, yeah, this is the approach i used in a world generator I made. You can use some combination of sin and cos to convert latitude, longitude, and radius into x y z coordinates to sample noise from. This will guarantee smooth seam points, as the noise values on either side will have been sampled from right next to each other
That being said, since your gamplay takes place entirely on the flat version, I'd recommend still making the edges watery. What's normal on a globe will be stretched on a plane, and vice versa, and there's nothing we can do about that, mathematically speaking.
I'm glad to see a lot more people following the game now.
You and me both :)
Can you add sea creatures and plants. It would be awesome if the sea creatures could evolve to become land animals based on how it would happen in real life. That would be amazing. Also, if you can, can you try to make an xbox version ( when the game is done and everything ).
But sea animals and stuff. I really want that.
This looks great, looking forward to seeing the rest of the upcoming update! The island option especially sound really interesting, especially if there are ways for limited dispersal between them (swimming, maybe rafting, possible sea level change, etc.).
2:44 i spent hours messing around in the editor trying to break something. found out that if you put a mouth on the back of the animal and extend the tail into it the plants duplicate themselves and the game crashes 😅
Didn't know that, thanks for the pointer!
I found this channel about a week or so ago, and I was just thinking how much cooler the game would be as a planet instead of a flat plane. I'm an aerospace engineer, and I've done a lot of work with orbital mechanics. There are lots of possible ways the orbit interactions could affect the evolution process and would be awesome to incorporate. Climate and local weather could be affected by orbit eccentricity, orbit radius, type of star, planet axial tilt, atmosphere composition, etc.
Hey notsostrong, the game still plays on a flat plane (investigated changing to a spherical terrain, but that would take too long) though! As for climate and weather: there will some of that in the next video, but very open to suggestions on how that could work.
So glad you continue to work on this!!
Will you have any updates related to predators? I notice that they die out very quickly I can never manage to get them to stay alive long.
Hey NeknTit, it's not an important focus for this update, but there will be some improvements in that area. I won't consider this game done before I get self evolving predators working, though!
I wonder if the life on the planet can change the elements in the atmosphere just like real life when life first started.
@Wyattagum yeah indeed
Hey JunkBrick, will not be part of this update, but (without making promises) it's definitely an interesting idea.
A planet editor is something I've always wanted in a game.
Also you're really cute. This is the first time me seeing what you look like.
Haha thanks. There are quite a few videos on this channel with my face in it though ;)
Excellent Spore placement in the background :D
Haha as a Spore fan I couldn't resist
There should be a game mode called "Apex Species"...
Basically, you try to engineer a species like spore and try to make it the most advanced and powerful species. If you chose to be a plant species, you compete against other plant species. If you chose to be an animal species, you compete with other animal species. Choosing to evolve/make changes to species will keep the older species and now will have to compete with them.
To compete against other species will be either laid back (let the population live and survive) or actively control any member of the species to eat and reproduce as fast as possible using your species' traits.
What do you think?
Hey Ali, thanks a lot for your suggestion! It's a game mode I indeed considered at the very beginning of development but haven't thought about in a long time... At the moment in most cases I think it's not that hard to design an organism that would outcompete existing organims; any suggestions to keep a game mode like this challenging for the player?
@@TheSapling a smart way could be to make specific established ecosystems with aniamls that are heavily specialised for example nectar eaters or fruit eaters that could potentially add challenge to making your species the most diverse and widespread
@@TheSapling you could make it so that you have a limited amount of "points" that go down as you make changes to the creature, that way the player cant turn one species into a completely different one that can immediately outcompete everything
It's actually really satisfying watching the map turn into a planet and back again
No addition to gameplay, sure, but added value nonetheless
My thoughts as well, turned out much better than expected.
@@TheSapling finally got around to buying the game earlier today ☺️
No regrets
I couldn't be ere during the stream but I am very excited about the update and what it means for the game and game play good luck and I hope it comes out soon 😀
I am really exited.. this seems to adress most little or big issiues I had in the game and puts a whole new dimension on it, as well. And now that I know, that you thougt of sandbox as the side mode, I am even more impressed on how good it was already (besides the bugs, which seem to be due to what you mentioned in this video)
For me the main thing with this kind of games is just to watch the development of life, to some times try to understand what it takes to live in this enviroment and create something, to test if your're right, and just to see how life finds a way, so to say.
For me games like this are like my own walking with dinosaurs, every time a new world to explore. And I think many people see it in that sort of way. Who doesn't want to be David Attenborough for an evening or if you so desire John Hammond (the old man from jurassic Park), feel free...
I'm glad games like this and Species exist, and even more that both are igoing to get even better. this trailer hinted on a bright future.
Thanks a lot :)! Also, I thought Species was no longer being worked on, but I just looked it up and it turns out the dev was dealing with depression
Yes indeed. I thought as well it was dead, I think most people did. But I'm glad that he is back, both in working on the game and foremost in feeling better. I know a fair share about that kind of stuff and yes ... Glad to hear he's ok. (If you ever feel like burning out in making this game, please just make a break, even the coolest games aren't worth it)
And it's weird, how for me at least these games or simulations are really helpful against depression and anxiety. Maybe because they literally create a new world. And partly (and this is more a thing of species, than the sapling) due to the utter craziness that evolution unleashes. I cry of laughter sometimes, when evolution is done being Salvador dali. In your game the animals seem to turn out a bit more like if they are not coming straight from hell. Wich is good in a way, but less funny. I'm glad we got both and like I said, your new update sounds amazing.
Keep on updating us, I loved all the updates so far. Nice work
OH MY GOD. I love your simulator.
this reminds me of a certain 2008 video game...
hmmm, i wonder which one tho
spore
See the previous video about this game's relation to Spore, in case you missed it ;)
I can't wait! This is so cool!
That new map editor is looking really awesome! The potential for different scenarios and environments is going to make future gameplay really interesting. On the topic of balancing spikes on plants, it may be worthwhile to add more than one mouth that can deal with spikes, because it'll not only help increase the chances that at least some herbivores have the tools to eat spiny plants, but it'll also help to add some variety to the herbivores that can eat them. Alternatively, you could add some clawed hands that can remove the spikes but are less efficient at other things. Galapagos land iguanas could serve as a basis for either of these ideas, as they use their claws to remove large spines from the prickly pear cactus that they eat, which then allows them to eat the rest, including smaller spines.
Thanks Pointyfish, super useful, didn't know this!
Glad to see you as a Dev is able to see what the community wants
Some devs try to force the community to play one game mode because it was the original/the intended one even if the community liked another one better
I think it's very interesting that you didn't think of Sandbox as the main game mode.
That’s very interesting to me that sand box wasn’t the original idea and I really like your aditude of not caring how players enjoy your just that they enjoy the game
Figuring out the wrapping of the flat plane onto a sphere looks extremely impressive. Very cool.
The scenarios definitely are a great tutorial in my opinion.
Via little challenges, you can leaen how certain mechanics work, up to two at a time (Because the hothouse scenario introduces the predator prey mechanic as well), and learn as you go
I loveeee this sooo much I can’t wait to see this full game
you are awsome i look forward to this games updates can't wait to play more of this awsome game
My take on natural disasters: there should be multiple changeable parameters. The first would be to turn them on/off. Then the frequency (I'm thinking something like the longer there isn't anything happening the higher the chance is for something to happen, maybe more parameters changing how that works). Then the minimum and maximum intensity, a parameter which makes intense events happen more rarely, a parameter that makes the most intense events more intense while making less intense events even less intense.
I forgot most of the idea and it came out as generic nonsense. Very nice
Hey T1000, without making promises, I'm indeed interested in adding disasters to the sandbox one day. Didn't realize that multiple sliders would be needed, but you might be right here!
im very big fan of this game, and this looks like great!
Actually related to the game itself: this method of creating a map (that can fit to a sphere) has a pretty good likelihood of making planets look a lot alike -because the edges of your rectangle are always going to be flat, and that portion will always correspond to the same coordinates on the sphere, there will always be a flat area on the sphere that has roughly the same shape. How big of an issue this is is not my business, and there's a good chance you already knew this, but since you didn't mention it in the video I thought I'd tell you as it's important to keep in mind.
Hey Zap Gun, you are absolutely correct this is a downside of the current approach. In practice, at the moment this means that there always is an ocean, however small, at one side of the planet. I thought this was acceptable, but I have been wrong about these kind of things before (in both directions)
Watching all the videos on your channel instead of doing math homework 😊❤
Fun fact: there was a lot of trigonometry involved in making this game ;)
@@TheSapling that sure is useful, but i don't think I need to know how to calculate A^n, A being a 3*3 matrix.
Well that could actually be of use in some very limited situations but meh 😕, it's just not fun
what will be cool is a weather system. If more heat -> more evaporation -> more rain -> more plant -> more herbivore so less heat or more winter ish -> less evaporation and cold environment -> less rain -> less plant -> smaller herbivore -> less carnivore.
Hey Sebastian, without making promises, indeed a really cool idea, thanks for writing it down!
Great work!
God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear;” and it was so.
Great video
Ayy Another great premiere on the way
Very nice, i can't wait
You seem.... legit? And genuinely into making this game? I'm glad I picked it up, even if it has all kinds of problems atm!
Oh btw are you aware of a bug where the creatures just freeze?
I’ve ran the game and after a certain amount of time, time stops moving and the creatures just freeze, but the game is still running and I can move my camera and stuff
Also btw my ecosystem is like 33 millennia so it being old might have to be something to do with it
I have exactly the same bug! Good to hear I am not the only one, I hope it will get fixed!
Hey RandomWolf and Renz, this might actually be an 'Impossible creature' as discussed in the video (which as I write this has not premiered yet)... Do you know of a way for me to reproduce the problem or does it happen at random?
@@TheSapling honestly not too sure, my ecosystem was before the flight and fight update so maybe it’s the fact it went through multiple updates, with it being old and all
So what happens is the animals freeze, I save then leave, reopen my world and they are unfrozen again for around 20 minutes, then freeze again
Maybe after animals become adapted, it’s more likely for them to evolve in an ‘impossible creature’
@@TheSapling To me it happens when my world exists to long. It looks like that when it reaches a certain point some data will stop coming.
Estou só esperando o update de inteligência de grupo como manadas ou revoadas e pelo de construir tocas ou abrigos de sedimentos. Isso prepararia os caçadores a evoluírem inteligência e até quem sabe usarem ferramentas para caçar melhor.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH I'M SO EXCITEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
In real evolution, a plant wouldn't suddenly just become spiny all over from one generation to the next. It would develop spines gradually, giving the animals to also start changing gradually to adapt. This makes it less likely that there will suddenly be mass death because of one new mutation.
I know I know ;). It's a decision to simplify some things that now backfires.
LETTT GOOO!!!!!
So cool
love the game
You are epic
sandbox and aquatic
I hope you get rich with you incredible creation
YYYYEEEEEESSSSSS. There should be small, medium and big words for performance
Hey Xavian, every larger update or small patch includes some performance improvements and this one is no exception, but to be honest: this update will also introduce new things to optimize - which of course be done in future patches.
@@TheSapling fantastic 👏
@@TheSapling and I believe i meant to say world's instead of words
I noticed most of the options in the game are catered to animals that somewhat resemble animals possessing vertebrae, and options in making creatures appear more like crustaceans are little. Do you plan on adding those options or has it not crossed your mind that much? I love this game by the way, you're doing amazing 💕💕
Hey Shiba, without making promises, you are correct that arthropods are still a largely untapped but super exciting source of inspiration for this game :)
@@TheSapling Aww thats amazing!! Anything you do, Im sure itll be very enjoyable
Time to get my shovel and pail!!!!
This reminds me of Sebastian league's planet code
It is indeed greatly inspired by Sebastian Lague! (I also mention him twice ;) )
@@TheSapling cool!
spore galatic adventure has a really satisfying planet generator
Hey ThomasHelsign, thanks the tip! Wasn't aware of this.
This reminds me of a project I saw forever ago..
You mean Spore? :P
@@TheSapling No actually- it was a planet simulator. I'll see if it can find it later today. :)
@@TheSapling Can't find it sadly.
@@FireTurkey Too bad ;)
Cool. Cool cool cool.
Cool!!
holy crap yay
So fucking hype
nice
Wow!
Sooo question do you Intend to release it on console because I would really love to play this game!
I don't believe he has any intentions of moving it to console (it's already pretty difficult to run on PC!) but it's still early access and in development as you can see, so I'm sure it hasn't been ruled out :)
Your probably right.
LunarForte's answer is correct. Right now my focus is on functionality, but never say never. In case I do decide to expand, what console would you be interested in?
xbox one most likely.
cool
Think this might finally give a use for climbing, since rn, its all pretty much flat, except for the edge. Could this also mabye allow for larger worlds perhaps?
Hey Flask, the new sandbox is indeed twice as large!
hi remember me i got more suggestions im not tryna be hard on you
Suggestion 1: clams stuff like that like clams oysters corals stuff that dont eat algae and those things
suggestion 2: volcano's it would be cool doing a volcano in a sandbox to see how your specie's adapt to it
suggestion 3:creatures that can hide in the ground and when they see prey jump out at thim
Without making promises, all ideas I like! I like vulcanoes in particular because of the large influence they have on ecosystems ;)
@@TheSapling thanks
does this mean we can play on the new rectangle map as well as the world one? or is world just for looks?
Hey Pausitive, you can only play on the flat map. I did some experiments with a spherical terrain, but that would require an overhaul of various systems, which I decided would take too long.
I think to solve infinite game breaking mutations u should have bunch of recessive and dominant tails that will control the random mutations making this way harder to occur and have more diverse yet relative similar looking traits without mutations going all crazy like four legged marine mamals today most of em still have their hands as a trait and still have similar evolutionary paths and signature skeletons based on heir biological ancestry
Hey Nashe, thanks for your suggestion! Interestingly, 'impossible animals' don't necessarily look weird to the human eye... sometimes it's just a simple thing like a particular horn on a particular place on the animals.
Dude if you keep this up we gona have a game in wich you can make your own universe
Haha if only there existed a computer powerful to run a game like that ;)
Did you address the issue of carnivores not adapting to changes in the color of prey animals fast enough to not starve to death?
Hey Moop, It's not an important focus for this update, but there will be some improvements in that area. I won't consider this game done before I get self evolving predators working, though!
Hi, I noticed that when I'm in the sandbox mode having it run for a while will quickly eat up all 16 gigs of ram I have. I have to restart the game quite often to make it run more smoothly. Is there any other solutions you might know about or anything that might be coming in the near future?
I have this issue too. playtime is limited and the game progressively gets laggier until it crashes or I have to close the game. thought my laptop just sucked
@@GeneralLDS I have a pretty good gaming computer and even still I have had the game crash a few times
Hey SlimeKing, the game indeed leaks RAM... I built in cleanup moments every 500 years or so which seemed to work for me, but perhaps your situation is different? Or are we talking about losing RAM really quickly (1G every 10 seconds or so)? Because that might be caused be an impossible animal.
@@TheSapling I don't think it was from impossible animals. I think my ram just gets filled up before I reach the 500 year mark and then I just get impatient. Thank you for responding by the way, I love your game and I do think it has some amazing potential. Keep up the amazing work and I can't wait to see what it becomes 👍
@@slimeking101 Thanks! If you ever figure out how to (more or less reliably) reproduce your problem, let me know!
I love the sapling so I would like to suggest that you add aquatic anmilas you can evolve since of that sea and make so animals need to drink water and you can make plants have liquid in the so they do not need to drink water and eat the plant
Hey Nshorts, thanks for writing down your ideas! Without making promises, some of these I indeed plan to add :).
question if the game renders only a few chunks will the animals in unredered chunks just stop
Nope the simulation will continue! It's just a visualization thing.
@@TheSapling I see
I've had some very weird bugs that you haven't talked about in this video, can I send it with steam ? Or what is the E-mail I should use ?
Hey Le Kaki Rigolo, I'm indeed super open to bug reports, thanks! Best would be either the Steam forums or thesaplinggame@gmail.com !
I'm making a game similarly inspired by Spore, how did you manage to "wrap" your flap map into a sphere AND make it customizable. I am struggling to figure that out
It's a Blender animation with shape keys : ruclips.net/video/mSSUqZSbXnQ/видео.html . Also, let me know if you need a retweet!
@@TheSapling thank you so much!
Hey maybe a odd question but are you dutch by any chance.
Hey Damian, helemaal geen rare vraag want ik spreek Engels met een stevig accent :)
I gotta wait till 2 am then😭
Yeah sorry about that, I've discovered there is no time slot that will make everybody happy :(
make it so that animals can make mistakes like falling down and a new instinct like feeling uneven
Haha and then fall damage, so that a hunting technique emerges where predators chase prey animals off a cliff :P (just joking, no actual promise)
I thought the campaign was the intended way to play, and that sandbox was for when you were finished and wanted more. But I don't know.
I've been playing the sea & sandbox beta, and I've noticed that the planet creator almost always crashes when I adjust a slider in globe view, but it works fine in map view. Also, the sliders reset when you enter and exit the seasons editor, which is annoying.
Hey Nitro Indigo, thanks for your report! Saving slider positions was indeed not yet implemented until a few hours ago ;). I'm not aware of any crashes when looking at the globe... do you have any tips on how I can reproduce a crash like that?
@@TheSapling It seems like I mainly get crashes when I click on one slider while the current view is adjusting.
Hmm, when you say 'the current view is adjusting', do you mean when it changes from a flat map to a sphere? Or something else?
@@TheSapling I meant, while the map is adjusting to match the parameters you've set the sliders to.
intelligent life
Damn
Show us the impossible animals
cool game but can u maybe fix the unrealistic creatures (creatures with mouths on their asses and stuff like that)
Hey a_ragdoll, right now indeed the mouth position does not make it more or less effective. I also really don't like that this sometimes leads to really weird mouth positions, but I haven't really figured out a solution (at least, not a simple/elegant one).
@@TheSapling u could make it that there can only be 1 mouth on each creature (basically preventing most weird mouth positions) or just making the mouth not be able to move position at all, but im not a programmer so i have no idea if thats possible
@@TheSapling you could maybe try to make it so that mouths at the front of the body consume food the fastest, and the closer you get to the middle, the less effective they are. mouths placed on the back half just would not work at all, although they could still be used for defense.