First of all, in Crystal Caverns I use the terms pattern and gene interchangeably. Sometimes you will see me refer to a pattern which is the exact same thing as a gene.
Each parent has a 25% base chance of influencing the baby with any given gene. So if both parents have a facial gene, there is a 50% chance the influenced soul to develop a face gene. Say you have a mother with freckles and a father with face fade. The developing soul has a 50% chance to inherit a face gene (25% chance for Face Fade, and 25% chance for Freckles).
Each mushroom in the mushroom circle has a different % chance of influencing the developing soul. This is already covered in the Breeding part of the website, and I assume you read that. So, going back to our example with the face gene, If you use a maternal face pattern mushroom and it ends up influencing the developing soul (whether or not it actually influences the soul is determined by its placement in the mushroom circle and a random roll), this will increase the odds of inheriting the mothers facial pattern by an additional 25%. In our example the mother has a 25% base chance of influencing the soul with freckles, and the father has a 25% base chance of influencing the soul with face fade. The use of the maternal face pattern mushroom changes those odds so now the mother has a 50% chance of influencing the soul with freckles (25% base chance, 25% mushroom increase), and the father still has a 25% base chance of influencing the soul with face fade.
This is the system I have developed so far. I reserve the right to change these percentages as I am developing the breeding circle system. Percentages too low and it wouldn’t be any fun. Percentages too high and the creatures would get messy looking, so it is a balance!
Also, currently, developing souls will only be able to inherit one pattern gene for each slot (Body, Face, Socks, Mane, Design (Design would be like the hearts pattern for Valentine's Day, I plan on adding more of these), or Cutie Mark slots. However, you could still use a random pattern mushroom in addition to the parents having a gene which would then give the developing soul a chance to inherit two Body, Face, Sock, Mane, Design, or Cutie Mark genes (though I cannot guarantee this would look good). I do think especially some of the face, body and sock genes look nice overlapped, but obviously some combinations would be less than desirable. I would stick to what looks good. It’s not my goal to stick you guys with ugly creatures ^.^
In the future I will be adding mushrooms for all of the individual PI genes into the store/random mushroom distribution, instead of just the random pattern mushrooms. Crystal caverns creatures currently have all PI genes available to them, as well as the Valentine's Day genes and the gene I developed specifically for the Ariessea, the Koy Fish gene. I plan on developing a breed specific gene for each Crystal Caverns creatures!
Additionally, you will be able to use a breeding circle to 'grow up' your baby Crystal Caverns creatures. This means you could potentially introduce genes to a premade creature, while it goes through development in a breeding circle. I hope to add a list of the genes available for each slot (Body, Face, Socks, Mane, Design, or Cutie Mark slots). Though I haven’t worked out all the particulars of this system yet.
