Creatures 1: Trista and Pollen

I have another two Norns today, both females. Although generation one Norns, both these young ladies have interesting mutations that are worth noting.

Trista:




Trista is a bit of an unfortunate Norn. Although she eats well and seems quite friendly with other Norns she has a rather nasty mutation that is having a detrimental effect on her sleeping patterns. Which is to say, she basically doesn't have any sleeping patterns.

Trista, like all the Norns I'm raising now has the usual two mutations that allow her to die of old age, as well as preventing antioxidants from turning into the ageing chemical.

She has a small mutation to the half-lives of one of the unknown chemicals in her bloodstream (226), but considering it's a change from 72 to 73 I can't see this having a dramatic impact on her life.

The nasty mutation is this one:

Instincts:
135: Tiredness + 'I rest' -> 93<048>

This instinct should read:

135: Tiredness + 'I rest' -> 93Reward

Essentially this chemical 048 has replaced the reward chemical emitted when Trista goes to sleep. This means she doesn't get any reward for attempting to sleep and thus is a terrible sleeper. She has just hit adulthood around 1.27 hours and has only slept the once.

For this reason I'm sad to say I don't think I'll be including Trista in the final run of 8.

Pollen:



Pollen also has a nasty mutation, although I don't see it as being quite as bad as Trista's.

Pollen is one of the best Norns I've had when it comes to sleeping. She sleeps regularly and will often just drop down and take a nap without hesitation.

She's not quite so good when it comes to eating, but in the last half hour I had her in the world I pretty much left her to her own devices, and although she ended up being a lot hungrier, she managed to take care of herself. She eats very well when food is brought to her, but doesn't seem quite as good at hunting food down, even when it's only a few feet from her. She tends to get distracted by lift buttons instead.

She also has a tendency to get bored when left alone. With company she's not nearly as bad and hopefully with a few more Norns in the world this won't be an issue.

Her initial reaction at meeting another Norn (Trista) wasn't exactly promising. They first met around the piano near the garden, and Trista was forced to chase Pollen all the way back to the hatchery before she agreed to play nicely. Eventually Trista found one of the beach balls to play with and Pollen reluctantly agreed to join in.



Pollen has a few interesting mutations, although I think a few of them were introduced into the Purple Mountain Norn genome and probably aren't mutations at all.

As with the others she has the mutations in relation to ageing properly. As well as that she has some mutations related to Geddonase, glucose and glycogen, which I believe are the special PMN genes. As I'm not sure what Geddonase does I can't really go into much detail on those.

She has emitter 136 changed into:

Noun i/ps Loose dens/cells, chem: NFP

which I'm honestly not sure what it does. However it used to read:

'I'm asleep', chem: NFP

which by the sounds of it emits 'Need for pleasure' chemical while the Norn is sleeping. This is obviously detrimental, and although I'm not sure what the new gene does I think this is a good change.

The interesting mutation in Pollen is another emitter gene:

154: Emit Crowdedness, 'I am fertile'
154: Emit SexDrive, 'I am fertile'

The top gene is her current gene, the bottom being what it usually is in other Norns. I will have to monitor her closely when she interacts with other Norns, but from what I understand this means that when Pollen is in her reproductive cycle, instead of an increased sex drive, Pollen will actually feel more crowded than usual.

This will have an obvious impact on her ability to reproduce, as she is less likely to want to be around other Norns when she is most fertile. Fortunately I don't see it preventing her from reproducing, and I will try and breed the mutation out of the next generation.


Bob:

We don't hear much about our resident Grendel, Bob, but he's still doing okay. In fact he seems quite happy most of the time and his English has become as good as any of the Norns. He now knows my name and will respond to my commands



That said, he's still not the sharpest tool in the shed which he demonstrates by eating the Laburnum weed. I was quite worried when I first heard the Grendel sneeze, but thankfully he made a fast recovery.

Creatures 1: Heartly

Heartly:

This should be a relatively short entry as Heartly, although having been a wonderful Norn to raise, is genetically quite dull. I also raised him on the computer at my parents place and email him back home, so I'm very limited in terms of photos I have.



Heartly has been a great Norn to raise. He sleeps and eats well, often eating multiple mouthfuls of honey, or several carrots in one sitting. He also has a facination with lift buttons, which keeps him entertained.

He has the usual genetic changes that allow him to die of old age and prevent antioxidants from turning into the ageing chemical.

As well as that he has a very small mutation to one of his lobe genes, number 120. This has changed the rest state of that gene from 80 to 88. And from what I can tell this lobe effects one of his unallocated senses. Which basically means it does nothing. I do wonder what the point of this gene is if it doesn't do anything, so I could be wrong. But with my current understanding of lobe genes, it truly seems to be completely unimportant.

So that's it for Heartly. He's been a great Norn to raise and I hope he does well in the future run. I'd especially like to see some offspring between him and Tabby, as I'm a huge fan of the Pixie Norns and Tabby's genetics are something special.

Creatures 1: Albia

I'm spending the Easter weekend at home with my parents, so I'm without my computer and therefore without my usual batch of Norns and addons. But there's a spare laptop at home which I've been able to use and install Creatures on. I can continue raising a new Norn or two, then email them to myself and add them to the batch on my home computer.

So I do have another Norn, who goes by the name of Heartly. He's a friendly pixie Norn who eats and sleeps well. Currently I don't have access to my usual set of tools, so I'll do a full diagnostic of his genetics in the next few days, as well as finishing off Tabby's.

In the mean time however, I thought we could take a little time to smell the digital roses.

It's been said by many, many people that Creatures 1 has some of the most beautiful scenery of all the games. Personally I'm more drawn to the graphics in Creatures 2, but there's no doubt the game has some beautiful art, and it seems, an amazing amount of detail. Now everyone who's played the game knows of the major features, such as the giant statue under one of the oceans, but I thought we could take a moment to notice some of the smaller details. Theses are the subtleties that may not always be noticed, but they are the details that make a world believable.



Everyone will have noticed the paintings on the walls under the incubator room, but have you looked closely at the one spot without a painting? Mushrooms! Everyone likes mushrooms!



Mostly trees are just trees and Albia is littered with them. But taking a close look at the trees, I think this is the only one with a birds nest sitting in it. Pictured right in the background; now that's an eye for details.



Speaking of details in trees, has anyone noticed the kite stuck in this one? I guess this is why there are no kite toys in the game. Someone lost the last one.



Looks like earth isn't the only planet with pirates. Perhaps some of the ancient Shee felt the need to hide treasure chests. Why, who knows? Perhaps it's filled with gold and riches. Or even better, a spare kite?



There's a couple of temples and shrines littered around Albia, and odds are you've noticed this one. But have you looked really closely at it? Notice the animal heads lovely carved into the stone? That looks like a bear on the right. And perhaps deer on the left. I've no idea what the ones on the top are. I guess erosion will do that to you. And...is that a monkey on the ground to the left!



The background of Albia holds all sort of secrets. What are these temples here? Relics of the past? What did the hold? Do they still hold anything? Do they, dare I say it, perhaps have another kite?



Everyone knows of the giant statue in the ocean between the island and the overhang with the cannon. But have you stopped and taken a close look in the other ocean? It seems the Shee must have been into voyages before they left for greener pastures. Perhaps whoever owned the ship also lost their treasure.



I'm sure everyone has noticed the cobblestone in the background here, but have you taken a good long look at it. That piece to the right there looks like a parapet, the topmost part of a castle. Why is there a run down castle in the middle of Albia? Who used to live there? And why did they plant a carrot garden out the back?



The final little nugget I found a while ago. This one definitely perplexes me. Is that, Trident? The god of the ocean? He's a tad smaller than I envisaged.

Albia is full of secrets. What ones have you found? And don't feel the need to limit yourself to Creatures 1. The other games have beautiful, albeit very different artwork. What other secrets have our Shee friends been hiding?

Creatures 1: Tabby

Time to introduce the latest Norn. It's a female forest Norn, going by the name of Tabby.

I'm really not a fan of the Forest or Ron Norns, but they came with the fixed genetics I downloaded and although I still don't really like the way they look I'm glad I decided to give Tabby a go. They have very different genetics than the original Norns and by the looks of it, it does them a lot of good.

Tabby:



Tabby has a couple of new instincts included in her genome, one of which gives her a huge boost of reward chemical for resting. As I suspected this makes her a good, deep sleeper, as she enjoys her nap times far more than other Norns. I also seem to be having some success in telling her to sleep, although it hardly seems necessary.

She tends to doze off any time her sleepiness drive gets to around 50%, which means she's never grumpy due to lack of sleep.

She's also a darn good eater. Again due to some new instincts, Tabby gets 127Reward chemical when she approaches plants and a whooping 255Reward for approaching food. As well as this extra reward she doesn't seem to need as much food as other Norns, with her hunger drive almost never rising. Honestly, she probably eats more food than she needs to.

Although mostly minor, Tabby has a lot of changes to her genome. I'm going to hit you with a wall of text now, but don't worry, we'll go through them bit by bit. Just scroll down past the giant wall of text for an explanation.

Mutations:

Lobes:
121 Different in File 1 6 0 Emb B MutDup Lobe #= 7 State Rule: state PLUS type0 PLUS type1 , WTA= 1
121 Different in File 2 6 0 Emb B MutDup Lobe #= 7 State Rule: state PLUS type0 , WTA= 1
122 Different in File 1 7 0 Emb B Mut Lobe #= 8 at X=11 Y=5 is 42 neurons wide and 18 neurons high. Perflags=0. Dendrite Type 0: Input Lobe=0, Min#=1, Max#=5, Spread=1, Fanout=2

Receptors:
274 Different in File 1 40 0 Emb B MutDupCut Creature, Sensorimotor, stagger, chem=Dancing, thresh=86, nom=0, gain=173, features=Analogue
274 Different in File 2 40 0 Emb B MutDupCut Creature, Sensorimotor, stagger, chem=Alcohol, thresh=106, nom=0, gain=255, features=Analogue
324 New in File 1 44 0 Emb B Creature, Circulatory, floating chem 2, chem=Glycogen, thresh=0, nom=0, gain=255, features=Analogue
326 New in File 1 45 0 Sen B Creature, Somatic, die of old age, chem=Ageing, thresh=5, nom=117, gain=255, features=Inverted Digital


Emitters:
325 New in File 1 28 0 Emb B MutDup Creature, Circulatory, floating chem 2, chem=Hunger, thresh=0, samp=5, gain=2, features=Inverted Analogue

Reactions:
58: 1*NFP++ + 1* => 1*NFP + 1*; half-life = 8.
58: 1*NFP++ + 1* => 1*NFP + 1*Punishment; half-life = 8.

59: 1*Hunger++ + 1* => 1*Hunger + 1*; half-life = 8.
59: 1*Hunger++ + 1* => 1*Hunger + 1*Punishment; half-life = 8.

62: 1*Tiredness++ + 1* => 1*Tiredness + 1*; half-life = 8.
62: 1*Tiredness++ + 1* => 1*Tiredness + 1*Punishment; half-life = 8.

64: 1*Sleepiness++ + 1* => 1*Sleepiness + 1*; half-life = 8.
64: 1*Sleepiness++ + 1* => 1*Sleepiness + 1*Punishment; half-life = 8.

68: 1*Boredom++ + 1* => 1*Boredom + 1*; half-life = 8.
68: 1*Boredom++ + 1* => 1*Boredom + 1*Punishment; half-life = 8.

142: 1*Starch + 1* => 2*Glucose + 1*Hunger--; half-life = 64.
142: 1*Starch + 1* => 2*Glucose + 1*; half-life = 64.

144: 3*Glucose + 1* => 1*Glycogen + 1*; half-life = 56.
144: 3*Glucose + 1* => 1*Glycogen + 1*Hunger--; half-life = 56.

145: 1*Glycogen + 1* => 3*Glucose + 1*; half-life = 64.
145: 1*Glycogen + 1* => 3*Glucose + 1*Hunger; half-life = 64.

146: 1*Glucose + 2*Hexokinase => 4*CO2 + 8*Activase; half-life = 24.
146: 1*Glucose + 2*Hexokinase => 4*CO2 + 1*; half-life = 24.

292: 4*Adrenaline + 1*Ageing => 1* + 1*; half-life = 128.
292: 1*Adrenaline + 1* => 1* + 1*; half-life = 88.

308: 1* + 1* => 1* + 1*; half-life = 248.
308: 1*Hunger-- + 1*Hunger => 1* + 1*; half-life = 32.

320: 4*AntiOxidant + 1* => 1*Ageing + 1*; half-life = 56.
320: 5*Geddonase + 5*Glucose => 5*Geddonase + 1*; half-life = 72.

321: 2*Geddonase + 3*Glycogen => 1*Geddonase + 1*; half-life = 88.

322: 1*Dancing + 1*NFP => 3*Dancing + 1*; half-life = 128.

323: 1*Dancing + 2*Boredom => 1*Boredom + 1*; half-life = 112.

331: 8*Adrenaline + 1*Activase => 1*Fear-- + 1*Anger--; half-life = 32.

Stimuli:
92: 'Creature pats me' 'Sensed Even When Asleep' => 48NFP-- + 16Loneliness-- + 31Crowdedness++ + 8
92: 'Creature pats me' 'Sensed Even When Asleep' => 48NFP-- + 16Loneliness-- + 16Crowdedness++ + 8SexDrive++

97: 'I bump into wall' 'Sensed Even When Asleep' => 25Pain++ + 127Turnase + 0 + 0
97: 'I bump into wall' 'Sensed Even When Asleep' => 25Pain++ + 0 + 0 + 0

98: 'Object comes into view' => 12NFP-- + 12Boredom-- + 12Loneliness-- + 3SexDrive--
98: 'Object comes into view' => 0 + 0 + 0 + 0

99: 'Unrecognized word' 'Sensed Even When Asleep' => 12NFP-- + 12Boredom-- + 12Loneliness-- + 3SexDrive--
99: 'Unrecognized word' 'Sensed Even When Asleep' => 0 + 0 + 0 + 0

332: 'I have retreated' => 127Collapsase + 0 + 0 + 0

Instincts:
327: Stim source i/ps Herb + (Lobe/Cell=0/0) + (Lobe/Cell=0/0) and I Come => 127*Reward
328: Stim source i/ps Weed + (Lobe/Cell=0/0) + (Lobe/Cell=0/0) and I Come => 127*Punishment
329: Stim source i/ps Food + (Lobe/Cell=0/0) + (Lobe/Cell=0/0) and I Come => 255*Reward
330: Drive i/ps Sleepiness + (Lobe/Cell=0/0) + (Lobe/Cell=0/0) and I Rest => 255*Reward

Okay, you're still with me? Good. Lets start with the lobes.

Lobes:
The lobes are one of the things that still confuses me, but with some of the reading I've been doing I've started to get an idea. I'm not sure yet what 121 does, but I'm pretty sure 122 has made Lobe #8 slightly larger to incorporate some of the changes in Tabby's genome.


Receptors:
Again, not entirely sure what some of this does. But I can tell you that 324 and 326 are the changes that allow Tabby to die of old age.

Emitters:
Okay you got me. This one. No idea.

Reactions:
Ah, finally something I can explain properly. Changes 58,59,62,64 and 68 all stop Tabby from feeling punishment went receiving certain chemicals. These chemicals are NFP-Increase(Need for pleasure), hungerIncrease, tirednessIncrease, sleepinessIncrease and boredomIncrease.

What this means is that whenever one of the original hatchery Norns felt NFP, hunger, tiredness, sleepiness or boredom, they'd receive a small amount of punishment for it. The problem with this is, firstly Norns can't distinguish where they are getting their punishments from, therefore they associate the punishment from whatever their last interaction was (got that from reading "Creation: Life and how to make it"). On average, this still works and over time Norns will still learn what they need to learn. But with the punishment chemical being injected into their bloodstream constantly from these original genes there's a good chance it was confusing them.

The other problem with this is that being tired or sleepy, or even hungry, isn't always a bad thing. If you're exercising you'll feel all of these things and it's a perfectly natural thing to happen. Likewise, when a Norn is tired and tries to sleep it slowly increases their boredom. In other Norns this would send a small amount of punishment and could potentially be telling the Norn that sleeping is a bad thing.

So I've pretty happy to see these changes. They make a lot of sense.

142, 144, 145 and 146 all seems to be changes to how a Norns digestive system works. I suspect these changes are what is causing Tabby to need so little food. The starch/glucose/glycogen reactions now give her a dose of hungerDecrease, bringing down her overall hunger. This should mean her body's energy levels are more realistic and should prevent her from feeling so hungry when her internal energy supplies are still high.

320 is again related to ageing. In the original hatchery Norns 4Antioxidants would turn into ageing, essentially allowing Norns to live forever. This has now been corrected.

323: Ever see a Norn do that funny little dance movement? Well, now that decreases boredom slightly.

Stimuli:
92: Having other Norns push them increases crowdednessIncrease by an additional 15. Also removes the 8SexdriveIncrease.

97: Bumping into walls now adds 127Turnase. I haven't looked it up, but I'm pretty sure this prompts a Norn to turn around and walk the other way.

98: Objects coming into view now inject 12NFPDecrease, 12BoredomDecrease, 12LonelinessDecrease and 3SexdriveDecrease. Previously this did nothing.

99: Hearing unrecognised words now injects: 12NFPDecrease, 12BoredomDecrease, 12LonelinessDecrease and 3SexdriveDecrease. Previously this did nothing.

Instincts:
327: New instinct that gives 127Reward for approaching plants.
328: New instinct that gives 127Punishment for approaching weeds.
329: New instinct that gives 255Reward for approaching food.
330: New instinct that gives 255Reward for resting.

As we discussed above, Tabby has instincts that reward her for trying to sleep and approaching plants and food. She also has another instinct that punishes her for approaching weeds. I imagine you'd find some pretty similar instincts in Creatures 3 Norns, as they've always seemed to know exactly what to eat from birth.

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So that's it. I know this has been a darn long post, but hopefully that wasn't too scary. Good on you for sticking with it for this long. There's a couple of changes I skipped in the genome, either because they're not terribly interesting or because I don't yet know what they mean. Feel free to ask questions.

So, next update, I'll introduce you to Heartly. Don't worry. He's not nearly as complex as Tabby.

Creatures 1: Tony

So here we go again with a bunch of new Norns. As I said in my last post, this time I'll be introducing Tony.

Tony:



Tony has just jumped into his adult form at one and a half hours and I'll need to export him shortly, so I figured now was a good time to do some introductions.

Tony has been quite a joy to raise. I don't know yet if he's particularly clever, or if it's just that much easier to train Norns when you don't have another 5 running about hitting each other. I'm guessing probably the latter.

Tony has been a splendid eater, often eating multiple carrots in one sitting without additional prompting from me. He also seeks food for himself a lot of the time and I haven't needed to force feed him at all. I do still bring him the food most of the time, but I don't need to tell him "push food" to get him to eat. Occasionally he will even find food all by himself!

Sleeping is a little more of an issue. Although he has slept, and slept soundly, he doesn't seem to respond when I ask him to "sleep". But then again, I'm yet to have a Norn that does. I'm actually wondering if they understand me at all.
All in all, not a fantastic sleeper, but better than most I've had.



In older life Tony has got a little bored, which is probably due to being on his own a lot, although he does seem to enjoy the company of the local Grendel, Bob, and has been teaching him to speak a little. Bob has also returned the favour on occasion, but with less success thankfully.





Tony's favourite toy seems to be the ball, which is hardly uncommon. Although he does periodically try and get rid of them. I think he was playig hide and seek with Bob. He has also dabbled in music a bit, but hasn't really spent enough time around them to fully appreciate their brilliance. Tony's favoured past time seems to be playing with buttons and lifts. He seems quite able to get himself around.

The only interesting thing in his genetics is the changes to his ageing genes, which I already knew about.

Although genetically uninteresting, Tony has been a lot of fun to raise, and has spent most of his life so far with a big smile on his face. Hopefully his foraging skills will come in handy for the next stage of his life, when I release him into the wild to breed.

I'm going to keep playing with him for another hour or so, just to see if he continues his good eating habits further into his adult life. Then, I shall hatch another Norn, probably a female this time.

Creatures 1: Immoral! Kinda...More a demi-god

So I asked a couple of questions over at the Creaturetopia forums and judging by the feedback I've got it appears my Norns are in fact immortal. Well, kinda.

The original Norns in Creatures 1 have two things in their genomes that inhibit their aging process. It doesn't quite make them immortal, but it's pretty darn close.

The Norns have a 'die of old age' gene, which is turned off by default. From the reading I've done in the past this gene is basically a switch that kills a Norn once it reaches a certain age. I don't think this gene should need to be turned on, but for now it is. I may turn it back off at some point as I think it will prevent the Norns from increasing their potential lifespans.

The other genetic problem is that the Norns can convert antioxidants into the ageing chemical, thereby extending their overall lifespan. This gene basically reads:

4Antioxidant + 1None -> 1Ageing + 1None.

Pump a Norn with enough antioxidants, and they can essentially live forever. This gene definitely needed to be changed.

I found the solution over at Creaturetopia. Tarlia, one of the posters over there has tweaked the genetics of the incubator Norns to fix these two genetic issues and has provided a zip with all the new .gen files. Replace the files in the genetics folder with these and everything should be working properly again.

You can find this download under the "Edited hatchery genetics for C1" thread in the forums. Unfortunately Creaturetopia doesn't seem to have addresses for it's threads, otherwise I'd provide you guys with the direct link.

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So what does this mean for my experiments? Well, unfortunately it means I'm going to have to start from scratch. The Norns I'm currently using will likely live forever, assuming I take good enough care of them. So I've downloaded the new genetics and I'm testing them now. But with a new world, comes new ideas for experiments.

I found reading the "Survival of the Fittest" by Brian Hershey over at CreaturesVillage (http://www.creaturesvillage.com/creatures1/library/science/lib_science_survival.htm) quite inspiring and I've got a few good ideas from reading that.

So here's the new format for the forseeable future:

I'm going to hatch and raise Norns individually. This gives me a chance to train them up properly and give them the best chance at survival. Genetics are important, but I'm a strong believer that environment plays a huge part in who we are. It also gives me a chance to actually play Creatures and enjoy raising Norns as pets and friends. And finally it will give me the time I need to do good write ups for each Norn and share them with you guys.

Once they reach breeding age I'll export them and train another. I'll keep doing this until I have the maximum number of Norns I can import (8). Then I'll import all of them again and essentially do a feral run.

I'll let them all breed for a little while and collect a bunch of eggs. After either a certain amount of time, or after I've got a reasonable deposit of eggs I'll export any surviving Norns and start hand raising the next generation.

I'll then take my favourite 8 Norns from the next generation and do it all over again. My 'favourite' will be based upon appearance and how well they take care of themselves, such as being good eaters and sleepers. Norns tend to struggle most with these two attributes, so I'd like to try and breed some good eaters and sleepers.

As I export Norns I'll make backup copies of them, so if I find anything interesting in their genetics I'll be able to reuse them at a later date, or share them with anyone who is interested.

I imagine I'll end up with a lot of exported Norns in this process, so keeping a good database using Telinome's 'Creature Log' will be important.

So, onward we go. I now have good genetics, a decent collection of cobs I'll use and most importantly, a plan of what I want to achieve. Ultimately I'd like to breed Norns that can take care of themselves from birth, but we'll see if any other interesting mutations crop up along the way, and whether some of them might be worth investigating further.

Next post I'll introduce you to the first Norns with the new genetics, Tony.

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.

Creatures 1: When do you admit you might have an immortal?

Fairly self explanitory. At what point do you admit you might have an immortal Norn on your hands? I'm dumbfounded by the age of my Norns. Bella has just hit 20 hours and she doesn't show any signs of slowing down!

She's still in the adult stage of life. Every now and then she pops out another egg. The average age of a C1 Norn is meant to be 15 hours, and although that's a great deal longer than C2 or 3, 20 hours is getting a little crazy.

I've very fond of my Norns, particularly some of the older ones, but at some point we need to move on to the next generation. I hope to eventually do some selective breeding, but at this rate I'll never get past my first incubator hatched Norns.

Bell is over 20 hours.
Aaron is just about to hit 19 hour.
Gorden is 18.5 hours.
Poppet is 17.5 hours.
Petter is 16.5 hours.
Bolly is just about to go 15 hours.
And there's a heap more sitting between the 10-14 hours.

The greatest concern is if one of my original hatchery Norns was immortal and passed on the gene (like say Bella) then almost all my Norns will be.

I've been watching Bella's 'ageing' chemical and although I haven't seen it drop, it does appear to be going down VERY slowly. Of course that might just be in my head.

So the question is, at what age to I presume she is immortal and export her? And out of curiousity, does anyone know what the longest known life span is for a (non-immortal) Norn?

EDIT: Okay, I just went back and checked Bella's ageing chemical again and it's definitely gone up! Is that even possible? When I checked before she hadn't eaten for a while and her life force was low. Now it's back up and she' doing better, but I doubt that could actually make her younger? Right? Right!?

Creatures 1: Raising Norns

I received an interesting comment on my last post with quite a few interesting questions about Norn raising. I started writing a reply, then realised how big it was going to be and thought it might be worth dedicating an entire post to the topic. So here goes:


I'm curious - do you have a strict methodology you use when hatching, training and investigating each individual Norn?

Even after playing for 10 years or so there's still so much I don't know. I've no idea if there is a 'best way' of hatching and raising a Norn. Do you give them one tickle or many when they behave nicely? How many smacks is too many?

So no, no strict methodology. Although I do hatch, feed, then try and get them to the learning computer ASAP. I try and keep them around the garden as babies (not always effective). If possible I like to take them around the world once to teach them, then let them go off on their own, although as the worlds population increases this becomes harder.

I use the observation kit to keep tabs on them, and if their health drops below 65% I usually need to encourage them to feed. At least for the moment I'm trying to keep the Norns alive more as pets and learn about their biology and genetics at the same time. Once I have a solid number of Norns and a better understanding of their innards I'll start looking into some more experiments.

What do the other [Norns] get up to in the meantime?

Mostly? Breeding. With a population of about 13 Norns I've found I've usually got at least one Norn pregnant. I remember the C1 Norns not breeding nearly as much as C3 Norns and although that's true, it's not as wide a margin as I remember :S

And do you have any kind of endgame or direction in mind as you investigate their genetics or are you just wanting to see what happens as they breed and let the chips fall where they may?

I would like to have an endgame idea. At the moment what I'm really doing is looking for one. I think what I'd really like to do is have a collection of Norns, then do some selective breed to achieve...something. I'm not sure what that something is yet.

Perhaps I'll learn enough to craft my own breed from scratch. Perhaps I'll just seletively breed a new breed into existance. Or perhaps Grandroids will be released before I get around to it and I'll get massively distracted :P I don't know.

If anyone has ideas of what would be fun to aim for, or knows of some other interesting breeding experiments that have been done, or even has a method of hatching and raising baby Norns, I'd love to hear about it.

Creatures 1: World Reboot

I've decided to give the world a quick reboot. Well, not so much quick, but we'll get to that...

I've found having the 24 population and 24 incubator cobs isn't quite as nice as I initially thought. As I've said in a previous post, having an increased population limit doesn't actually increase the number of Norns available in your 'Norns' dropdown menu. What this means is that once you get above the population cap of 13, new Norns become very difficult to find and select. You need to search for them manually, which means if they get sick you'll never know about it.

It's also meaning a lot of extra work for me, as I'm having to run around collecting all the new eggs before they hatch. I'd really like to be able to step away from the computer for an hour or so and leave the game running, but I know I'll come back to a world massively overpopulated.

Also I believe, once you reach the population limit your Norns can no longer get pregnant. Although no always a good thing, right now I'd welcome that little feature. I've got more than enough Norns to ensure the species will survive long into the future.

So, I've exported all my current Norns. I've made a backup of the world, just in case. And now I'm hatching all the eggs sitting under the incubator. The performance kit says I've got 47 natural eggs in the world. Minus the 10 or so Norns I've already hatched that means I should have about 37 to go through! I'm just exporting all of them with the file names "Creature_SEX_xx" (eg. Creature_m_02).

Other than their sex and appearance I know nothing about them. The Owners Kit doesn't actually tell you who the Norns parents are until after you register, so I'm pretty well in the dark here.

Once I'm done with all the eggs I'll start a new world and bring in all my old Norns one at a time. I'll give them a quick feed, maybe a sleep, then send them on their way. The fun part is, I believe the import limit is something like 10, while the population limit is naturally 12-13. So I wont be able to import all my old Norns. I'll leave out the youngest for now. When some of my older Norns begin to pass on I'll start importing the new babies I'm hatching right now. Naturally as I import them I'll do a write up and check out their genetics.

So, to conclude. There are 21 new baby females and 14 baby males sitting in my export folder. That makes for a grand total of 35 Norns to be imported! God help us all...


The export folder with all the new baby Norns ready to be imported.


The one egg I couldn't hatch. This egg bugged out on me a long time ago. I'm sure there's probably cobs to fix it, but I think 35 Norns will be more than enough to deal with.

Creatures 1: Zowee and Cloe

Introducing Zowee and Cloe!

Zowee:



Zowee is the first and one of the few generation 3 Norns in the world. There are plenty more contained in eggs, but I'm limiting the population at the moment as I find it more enjoyable to have a relationship with each creature.

Zowee is the daughter of Gretel and Aaron. Yes I'm aware that's incest, but with their haploid based genes it's not a big issue. Although there are some potential problems with limiting the gene pool, but with small populations like this it's not terribly different to normal.

Zowee hasn't had any of her eggs hatch yet. She has also been enitrely trained by other Norns. I have possibly taught her a couple of words along the way, but she's never visited the learning computer. Despite that her vocabulary is fairly well on par with the other Norns in the world. They do a good job of teaching each other.

Zowee inherited the typical Purple Mountain Norn genes revolving around Geddonase and the dancing chemical (which I don't really understand terribly well).

She also has a mutaiton to her stimuli whereby upon being slapped by the hand she has a higher sleepiness decrease injection.

Stimuli : 1
93: 'Pointer slaps me' 75Pain + 32Fear + 16Anger + -17Sleepiness -- Zowee's Mutation
93: 'Pointer slaps me' 75Pain + 32Fear + 16Anger + -16Sleepiness

Cloe:



The daughter of Bella and Gorden, Cloe is quite a dear. She eats well and generally takes good care of herself, although she does get distracted by other Norns fairly easily.

Early on in life she had a strange tendency to walk to the left. I found her butting up against the incubator wall quite a lot. She seems to have outgrown this strangeness though.

Currently no kids, but there's bound to be some of her eggs laying about unhatched.

Cloe is the first Norn I've found with some interesting mutations. At first I thought she was the first, but I did some back tracing and I've found this mutation actually started with Bella, one of my first generation Norns. This has the potential to be a problem, as Bella has mothered quite a few eggs and some of these mutations are cropping up regularly.

The first worth discussing is a chemical reaction mutation:

Chemical Reactions: 1
61: 1Hotness + 1Pain = 1Hotness + 1Punishment
61: 1Hotness + None = 1Hotness + 1Punishment

From what I can gather, this means Cloe will not recieve the punishment chemical (the chemical that tells Norns not to do certain actions) when she gets hot. She will only recieve punishment when she is hot AND in pain. This might make it more bearable for her in hot climates, but will still teach her not to touch burning objects. Not necessarily a bad mutation.

The other mutation is another chemical reaction, and this one is a lot more dangerous:

Chemical Reactions: 1
255: 2Antigen4 + 4Glucose = 1Antibody0 + 1Hotness
255: 2Antigen0 + 4Glucose = 1Antibody0 + 1Hotness


It appears that when antigen4 is present in her system she will produce Antibody0, rather than 4. This will make it difficult to recover naturally from antigen4 infections.

I have tested this theory, and it seems that she can still recover from antigen4 infections, although I think the virus may knock her about a little more than other Norns. I haven't had a serious infection spread though Albia yet. It will be intersting to see the impacts on the population when this inevitably happens.

Creatures 1: Peter and Gretel

It's been a little while since I got a chance to play Creatures again, so not much in the way of updates. There are some interesting things happening with the Norns, but I'd like to get through naming all the family before I get onto those.

So today I'm introducing Peter and Gretel!

Peter:



Peter is the son of Bella and Gorden. Born on the 8th of March 2011, at 5:41pm. Peter has one child to his name so far, a daughter called 'Suuki', whom he fathered with the help of Gretel. Suuki is an interesting character, but we'll meet her shortly.

Early in life Peter tended to spend a lot of time alone and as such tended to be a darn good eater and took care of himself quite well. As he's got older he tends to hang around other Norns more and as a result needs a little more personal care.

I've still caught him a few times on his own, staring off into the distance. Usually avoiding eating. He's a bit of an odd one alright, but he's definitely got his own personality.

Peter only has the one mutation I've been able to detect, and I think it's one that's cropped up a few times, not necessarily from parent to child either. Peter has a mutaiton that causes his to feel crowded rather than bored when attempting to sleep.

Gretel:



Gretel tends to be a bit of a handful. Although this photo doesn't show it, she's all grown up now with Children of her own. She is the daughter of Bella and Aaron and the mother of:





Zowee(F)
Suuki(F)

Gretel has a rather obvious gait mutation which forces her to lean forward heavily when walking. Although I'm not sure it's an issue for Norns, I'd like to get her some physiotherapy.

Gretel only seems to have the one mutation. It is a stimuli mutation that causes a slight drop in intensity when retreating from objects. What this actually means however, I'm not entirely sure :P

Creatures 1: Update

My goodness it's hard to keep up with these little fluff-balls. I'm no longer counting the eggs I've got sitting under the incubator. There's just far too many of them.



That there is Cloe, the daughter of Bella and Gorden, who I shall introduce to you properly in a future post. As you can see she has a half grown egg sitting behind her. Yet another egg to add to the collection!

My first generation Norns are getting quite old now, but none of them are showing signs of slowing down. They're all still adults and none of them have started growing grey hairs yet. Even more amazing, they're still popping out eggs!



Bella is 14 and a half hours old and I dare not even think how many of the eggs are hers.










Aaron is just over the 13 hour mark and still does a good job of taking care of himself. Of all the elder Norns he's the one who has a smile on his face most often.






Gorden is just short of the 14 hour mark. I do need to go to a little effort getting him to eat but I'm certain there's still a whole heap of eggs that belong to him.






Poppet is one of the bigger challenges to take care of. She doesn't do a lot of eating on her own but she does okay when coaxed. Even with 13 Norns in the world I'm managing to get around to them all and keep their life force above 65% most of the time.

I've introduced a Pow-wow (Cheroki Indian) Norn into the world for a little variation. We will meet Chandan in a later post. I also intend to hatch a pumuckle Norn at some point, but at the moment the world is very much overpopulated.

I recently injected the 24population and 24incubator cobs, allowing me to have a lot more Norns in my world. Unfortunately I didn't realise any Norns above the limit of 13 don't show up in the Norns menu, making it difficult to keep tabs on all my Norns. I'm trying to find a way to undo this but the cobs don't come with any .rcb files, making it impossible to remove. If anyone knows a way of undoing this without starting a new world (and thus losing all my eggs) I'd love to know about it.

Creatures 1: Bono and Bolly

It's time to start introducing the generation 2 Norns. First up we have Bonno and Bolly, both children of Gorden.

Bono:

Born on the 9th March, 2011 at exactly 8pm, Bono is the first child of Bella and Gorden.



Inheriting much of his father's appearance Bono was a relatively good eater early in life but seems to be struggling in his later hours of life. He seems to get a lot more care than most of the Norns.

Currently none of his children have been hatched, but I know they're in the big pile of eggs underneath the incubator.

Bono's genetics are a bit of a mystery to me. He lost his father's (Gorden's) hotness/pain mutation but has both a chemical emitter and chemical reaction mutation I've been unable to desipher.

It is particularly curious to me, as one time when I was trying to get him to eat Bono seemed to magically restore his own hunger drives. Currently I've got no idea how he managed to do it. I suspect he might be able to turn slaps by the hand into hunger decrease, although I'm far from certain. It's definitely not pain into hunger decrease as I've seen him do plenty of walk-bonking while hungry to no avail.

He has a few mutations that I'm fairly sure don't do anything, but he has quite a few that I don't understand. Maybe someone can help?:

***** LOBES *****
120 Different in File 1 5 0 Emb B MutDup Lobe #= 6 Cell body settings: nom=0, leak=25, rest=80, input=128.

120 Different in File 2 5 0 Emb B MutDup Lobe #= 6 Cell body settings: nom=0, leak=24, rest=80, input=128.


121 Different in File 1 6 0 Emb B MutDup Lobe #= 7 at X=44 Y=30 is 5 neurons wide and 8 neurons high. Perflags=0. State Rule: state PLUS type0 PLUS type1 , WTA= 1

121 Different in File 2 6 0 Emb B MutDup Lobe #= 7 at X=44 Y=30 is 5 neurons wide and 8 neurons high. Perflags=1. State Rule: state PLUS type0 , WTA= 1


***** RECEPTORS *****
130 Different in File 1 18 0 Ado B MutDupCut Brain, Concept, Chemical 0, chem=Reinforcement, thresh=0, nom=0, gain=255, features=Analogue

129 Different in File 2 18 0 Emb B MutDupCut Brain, Concept, Chemical 0, chem=Reinforcement, thresh=0, nom=0, gain=255, features=Analogue

Bolly:

Born March 26th at 4:35pm, Bolly is the daughter of Poppet and Gorden. Currently Poppet's only child, but as mentioned before Poppet has a whole heap of eggs that remain unhatched.



Bolly's only child so far is Sofie, although like her mother Bolly has lots of eggs unhatched.

Bolly inherited her father's pain/hotness mutation, as well as a new one whereby she feels hotness rather than sleepiness when laying eggs. Not a terribly distressing mutation and one that even makes some sense.

Chemical Reactions: 1
1Hotness + 1Pain = 1Hotness + 1Punishment
1Hotness + None = 1Hotness + 1Punishment

Stimuli: 1
242: 'lay egg' 190Pain + 160Tiredness + 112Hotness + 32Hexokinase
242: 'lay egg' 190Pain + 160Tiredness + 112Sleepiness + 32Hexokinase

Creatures 1: Gorden and Poppet

Gorden and Poppet are the last two Norns of my generation one group. I do have another two I gathered from another computer (Clayr and Mario), however due to the import restrictions I'm currently unable to get them into the world. And with a collection of over 10 eggs waiting to hatch I think it's likely to be a while.

Gorden:



Gorden has been a particularly easy Norn to deal with. Like Bella he has a social streak, but can often be found alone fixing his own hunger issues. This has made him a very good breeder with five children to his name:



Bono (M)
Peter (M)
Bolly (F)
Cloe (F)
Sofie (F)

His children seem to have inherited some of his good behaviours and most of them take care of themselves fairly well.

Gorden is my first Norn to show any interesting mutations and it seems some of his children have interesting ones as well, although not always the same ones.

The D-DNA Analyzer has this to say about a chemical reaction mutaiton:

1Hotness + 1Pain = 1Hotness + 1Punishment
1Hotness + None = 1Hotness + 1Punishment

The top one is his gene, the bottom is that of a template Norn. From what I can gather this means Gorden isn't effected as strongly by heat as other Norns might be. While getting burned will still register in his fluffy little brain, simple heat will have little or no effect.

Gorden also has a chemical emitter mutation, but so far I can't tell if it is significant or not.


Poppet:



Poppet has so far been unlucky with children. Not that she hasn't had her fair share, but only one of her children has actually been hatched. The rest are sitting dorment in eggs while I finish writing up notes on all the current Norns in the world. So far her only child is:

Bolly (F)

At first I didn't think Poppet had any interesting mutations to speak of, but using the D-DNA Analyzer it appears she might do. Here is her mutaiton:

1Adrenaline + 1CO2 = -1SexDrive
1Adrenaline + 1Oestrogen = -1SexDrive

From what I can gather, having adrenaline and oestrogen in a Norns system should reduce their sex drive. However Poppet seems to be missing this. Potentially this could mean an overabundance of sex drive, but it seems to now be linked to CO2 (carbon dioxide). I'm not sure how often Norns come into contact with CO2, and it might keep her sex drive low for most of her life. On the other hand if they don't breath it in too often, she may have a very high sex drive. I will keep monitering her and figure out which it is.

Creatures 1: Aaron

Introducing Aaron the purple mountain Norn, the second Norn introduced to old Albia. There's a good chance many of you have a copy of him in your own worlds.



Aaron has proven to be a pretty good Norn all round. He breeds relatively well but walks off on his own often enough to be well nourished. He currently has 3 offspring to him name:


Gretel (F)
Zowee (F)
Jarrod (M)

The previously mentioned Bella is his main companion, with Gretel and Jarrod belonging to both of them.

Aaron has 4 chemical reaction mutations, but at present I think they're natural mutations just from being a purple mountain Norn.

Two of these mutations involved Geddonase, which with a quick Google search tells me it is a chemical that eats away at both Glucose and Glycogen, both of which help supply a Norn with energy. Not a particularly good chemical reaction, but I believe a natural one.

The other two mutations involve the dancing chemical (there's a chemical especially for dancing?). A bit of dancing and NFP (need for pleasure) will increase Aaron's overall dancing chemical to the power of 3.
However if he has dancing and boredom in his system, it will decrease his boredom. It appears that if Aaron has a high NFP drive he will dance, this dancing then decreases his boredom. An interesting find.


In other Albian related news my Norns are breeding like rabbits! What gives? I used to play this game when I was around 12 and could never get them to breed. Now I have 10 or so eggs sitting near the beer keg downstairs waiting to be hatched, and about 5 Norns waiting to be re-imported. I guess I must be doing something right? At least they're not nearly as bad as C3 Norns :S

Breeders score is current up to 7366!

Creatures 1: Bella

It's time to start introducing you all to the new characters in my charade.

The first Norn of old Albia is Bella. Approaching 9 hours at the time of writing she is the matriach of the world with a horde of little ones under her.



She hasn't exactly struck me as the brightest Norn, but what she lacks in good eating habits she makes up for in social skills. She is usually found being distracted by other Norns and this seems to have led to her large list of offspring.

Her children at present are:

Peter (M)
Gretel (F)
Bono (M)
Cloe (F)
Jarrod (M)

Whom I will be introducing to you shortly, as well as their fathers.

Since I have laid my hands on both the genetics kit and the D-DNA Analyzer I'm very interested in learning more about genetics and mutations, then hopefully seeing if I can breed some interesting traits.

What I'm hoping someone might be able to tell me is what in the genetics I should be looking for that would be of interest. At the moment I'm keeping a record of neurons, lobes and dendrites (which currently have remained the same in all Norns), as well as any differences from a template Norn the Genetics kit shows me.

The D-DNA Analyzer seems to pick up on a few more differences between Norns and a template, but it's difficult to tell if these are general differences or mutations. Quite a few of the changes are the same for all Norns, so I'm not sure how to interpret that.

Bella has the usual number of Neurons (954), Lobes (9) and Dendrites (4770-6678). She also has a single mutation under 'chemical reactions', but all Norns seem to have at least one of these and I think it may just be due to the mixing of DNA.

Over the next few posts I'll start describing the elder Norns. If anyone is interested in watching something specific in the genetics let me know. At the moment I'm learning by doing comparisons and trial and error.