Creatures 1: Selective Breeding

As we discovered in the last post, my Creatures 1 run turned out to be a pretty big failure. Although a couple of Norns were born there was unlikely to be enough to carry on to the fourth generation. As such I've aborted the run and decided to take a more active roll in my Norns lives, and more specifically their breeding habits.

I have kept the two third generation Norns from the run and will likely add them to the second generation of Norns after looking through their genetics.

For now though, I've started again with my first generation Norns. I'm only importing 2-4 at a time and trying to coax the Norns I want to breed. Already this is paying dividends. Tabby has laid an egg with Heartly as the father. Lillai too, has litterally just laid an egg. The father is either Tony or Heartly, although I think this will be Heartly's second child.

Tony has been a little reluctant to mate and has prefered to spend his time at the island hanging out with the Grendel. Seeing as she has laid her first egg I have exported Tabby for a while and replaced her with Pollen, the Purple Mountain Norn of the group. Upon Tony and Pollen's first meeting they kisspopped and although she didn't fall pregnant this time I can see her being the mother of Tony's children.

Having just laid her first egg I've also exported Lillai for the time being and replaced her with Trista. Trista was the Norn who appeared to have a mutation that would prevent her from receiving reward for sleeping and I nearly left her out of the run. As she has got older though she seems to have circumvented this problem and sleeps fine. Hopefully she won't pass this mutation on to her children.

And what do you know, as I've been typing Tony has got BOTH Pollen and Trista pregnant. This new method of selective breeding is turning out to be most effective!



I thought this image was particularly cute. Both girls are chasing after Tony. I almost feel sorry for him, but I guess they both got what they were after!



Here is a shot shortly after. At either end you can see the eggs that have just been laid. The far left is Pollen's, while the far right is Trista's.



As the two eggs began to hatch, who should rock up but the Grendel. Travelling from afar, he has come to pay his respects to the mothers and their eggs.

And as a final shot, isn't it nice to see them all together as a family? They're all a litle hungry at this point, hence Tony's frown, but they're all doing pretty well. Certainly a lot heathlier and happier than what the run did to them.



It will likely take a few generations, but it seems this is a much more effective way of seeing the Norns through the generations. Hopefully after enough time I will be able to raise a group of Norns in the wild and they will be able to take care of themselves well enough to be left to their own devices. That is my hope anyhow.