Creatures Community Chat

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Creatures 1: This carrot has too much glucose

Most of us know about the OHSS (One hour stupidity syndrome) that affected Norns in Creatures 2. Basically it was an inbalance in the Norns brains that made it so they were rewarded for doing pretty much anything. This obviously affected learning and made it so the Norns would go stupid after a while.

I've been wondering if something similar is up with my Creatures 1 Norns, as the older they get, the dumber they seem to get. They very rarely feed themselves, and the more difficult ones won't even eat when asked. They just stand there, staring at the carrot looking terribly upset. The only way to get them to eat is to give them a slap or two, which seems to get them going again. But only until the next time they need food, when we play the game all over again.

Needless to say, this is very frustrating, because I don't know if it's genetic, a fault in the game's chemistry system, or if some of them are just plain dumb.

I've been watching the science kit, and I'm starting to wonder if it's not a small fault in the chemistry of my Norns. But first, a little science!

A Norns digestive system, although basic compared to ours, is terribly complicated. They can take in different energies and store them as muscle tissue and fat. This gets pretty complex in C2 and C3, but I think it a little more basic in C1.

As I understand it, in C1 Norns eat food, which gives them a dose of starch. This then turns into glucose, which is essentially their energy. With a lot of glucose in their system it can then turn into glycogen, which is stored energy (the C1 equivalent of muscle tissue or fat). When a Norn's glucose (energy) levels drop, they dip into the glycogen (stored energy) reserve for a little extra kick. Glycogen is essentially what gives you a Norns life force. A good glycogen level will usually result in a life force of around 77%.

Now here's the kicker. You would assume that a Norn with low levels of glycogen would need more glucose, which in turn means they need more starch. They get starch from eating foods. So a hungry Norn has low levels of glycogen, yes? Well, apparently not.

I've been watching my Norns hunger levels in contrast to their starch, glucose and glycogen levels. They all seem to have high levels of both glucose and glycogen. They only get small kicks of starch right after they've eaten, which then returns to zero while boosting their glucose. But they're always darn hungry!

Why is it a Norn who has plenty of energy, and plenty of stored energy, is so hungry? I think my Norns are fat. I think they've got to the stage where they're used to eating on a regular basis, but they're so fat they don't actually need the food. Which might explain why they're resistant to my pleas for them to eat. Perhaps they have bad body image.

So this is my project for the immediate future. Try and figure out whether my Norns are overeating, and whether or not this effects their desire to eat, even when hungry. And then I guess try and find a way to fix it, if it is indeed a problem.

There's a couple of interesting documents on the Cyberlife website, mostly written by Liz Morris. I'll throw a link up here at some stage, but I should really get back to work right now.

If anyone knows whether my ramblings are true or not, or knows any interesting links that would be worth a read, leave us a comment.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, how confusing. I always try to get my Norns to eat otherwise their life force begins to drop and they get all fussy so it becomes much harder to make them eat. At least with a higher life force I don't worry they will die. I also don't like the idea of them being hungry all the time. But even worse is the idea that all of them are fat. That can't be good for their health. I'll keep reading through and see if you found anything more about this. I'll also try to research on my own.

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