Creatures 1 Gen 2: Update

Just another quick update. Several more Norns have fallen into old age. Bonza and Mayflur have recently taken their place amongst the elders, with Bonza turning at 7:30 hours and Mayflur at a youthful 6:57 hours.

 

In old age, Bonza has taken on this amazing habit of star gazing. Interestingly enough this doesn't appear to be a gait or pose mutation, it's just something he's started doing since he got his greys. He does this regularly, regardless of whether he's sitting still or walking.

I was quite worried about poor Bonza for a while, as he caught himself one of the worst cold I've seen in my worlds. As you can see from this shot he as Antigen2, two different unknown toxins and HistamineB not shown. Antibody2 rises very slowly in the body. Fortunately Bonza's health only ever dropped to around 60% and he's made a full recovery.

  

From this photo you might think Techie has taken to the female ways. Don't be too disturbed though, Causty is just out of shot to the left. Including the one lost to the skies, I believe this is her 4th.

Totem has just hit 9 hours and still has his good looks. He's either going to live to an impossible age or he may never get wrinkles. Looking at their 'Ageing' chemical though, all the Norns look like they're just about on par for life left.

As they succumb to old age the Norns are slowly becoming less frequent eaters. Fortunately Totem and Techie don't need a lot of food and seem well off most of the time. Mayflur amazingly is still a good eater despite her age. You just need to drag her away from her toys for a brief moment.

Enza and Trillo eat on and off. Not enough to be considered good eaters, but enough I don't need to worry about them too much.

Beatrice regrettably has become a terrible eater. She'll simply sit and look at food saying "Beatrice food" periodically. About the only way to bring her to her senses is to give her a light slap which perks her up for a moment. Sadly it only lasts until she feels hungry again.

The Norns are all averaging around 8 hours now. I've been fortunate to not experience any deaths yet, however I can only imagine they are not far away.

Creatures 1 Gen2: Old age and pregnancies

Old age and pregnancies, although in this case not the same Norns.

One on side of the world, Techie finally succumbed to old age at ~7:30 hours. Amazingly though his testosterone levels are still incredibly high (almost full) so I've no doubt he could still father some more children if the desire takes him. I've no doubt this has to do with the excellent way he takes care of himself. I almost never need to feed him as he does it all by himself.

It's rather impossible to tell when the Pow-wow Norns hit old age, but considering she's pregnant again and only 6:42 hours old I think Enza still has a little bit of youth still left in her. I missed the actual kisspop, but Totem had been pursuing her for some time, so I'm pretty sure this little red and yellow egg is half his.

Oh, and on a random note, the now full sized Grendel you see in the strawberry patch is Gregor. He seems to spend most of his time on the Island and lives predominately off strawberries. He seems a pretty good eater, and will often munch away on the berries even with a couple of Norns present.

As I've been typing this I notice Techie isn't the only Norn to hit old age. Causty here has literally just turned at exactly 8 hours old. And it's okay, she's just sleeping. If you look really closely you can just make out the little 'z' above her now wrinkled eye.

 

I've exported Stephanie again to give Mayflur another shot in the world.  She's only 6:30 hours old, with plenty of time left to have another egg or two. I'm kind of hopeful most of the Norns will just live out the rest of their days with minimal pregnancies though.

Amazingly Totem, the eldest Norn in the world at 8:16 hours still hasn't hit old age. I'm sure he can't be too far away, but I've no doubt his excellent genetics and casual lifestyle has led to his good looks in later life.

I've got most of this weekend free and expect to get a fair bit of Creatures time in. With the current age of most of the Norns being around 7:30 hours I won't be surprised if we start to see the first Gen2 Norns passing soon. I've rather bonded with this second generation, so I've no doubt this will be quite sad but I am really itching to see some of their children in the third generation.

I'm also looking forward to starting a new world when Gen3 begins. Unfortunately I've experienced one of the most annoying bugs in C1, the starch injection. Periodically Norns receive a completely random starch injection, lowering their hunger and in all probability teaching them bad eating habits. I'm happy to let this go until the end of Gen2, but it's something that will potentially mess up Gen3.

Creatures stories: In need of names

I've started writing my Creatures story again. It seems to happen in drips and drabs, not unlike the way I play creatures, only more infrequent :P

Anyway, when I first started writing this story I used the names of several of my own Norns and those of my friends who were also playing at the time. Sadly none of them play anymore (honestly I don't think they even play computer games anymore) and the world in my story is slowly getting bigger and bigger with more characters becoming necessary.

So what I'm after is names for some of these characters. They're not big parts in the story, often just townfolk for the Norns, warriors or scientists for the Ettins and soldiors for the Grendels. Eventually I'll even need a few extra names for some Shee. I've randomly made up some names (seriously, you'd be amazed how many names have been derived from car number plates), but I find it more meaningful when the names come from somewhere.

Keep in mind they're small parts and in many cases the Creatures will end up dying, so don't let me use names if that will upset you in any way.

If you like you could even provide a small amount of backstory for the creature and I'll see if I can factor it in somewhat. It'll undoubtedly provide extra depth to the story if the characters seem to have some small bit of history to their name.

Also, I understand there are some rather special Creatures out there. Perhaps the first ever Norn of a new breed? For example, Ron and Eve, the first ever Norn couple will eventually play a part in the story. So too will Aaron and Sandy, the Purple Mountain Norns. If people know of any of these kinds of Norns, even if they're not yours personally I'd love to know about them.

So...bring on the names!

Creatures 1 Gen2: Pregnancies

Wow, what an exciting half hour or so of Creatures! I know I've already done an update tonight, but if I don't do another one now I'll have forgotten everything that's happened by tomorrow morning.
As you can probably guess from the title, there's been a ah...few more pregnancies.
I'd had a bit of a dry spell there, and with most of the Norns being around 5:30 and 6:30 hours I was beginning to think the number of eggs might have just about hit it's limit. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, Creatures surprised me. In the last hour or so of play I've had 3/4 of the female Norns in the world fall pregnant. With Mayflur being up to her 5th egg I thought I'd give her a break and bring in Causty again. Now she's pregnant. Including Beatrice's surprise pregnancy in the last post, that's 5/5!

Here are the pregnancies in the order they occurred.

Like Beatrice, Stephanie's pregnancy happened on the Island. And just like Beatrice's I once again missed the pregnancy announcement and have no idea who the father is! Another surprise egg.

Bonza found himself a very happy Enza to contend with. Having recently fed and slept she was very much in for a game and Bonza was happy to take part in said game.

Their fooling around has resulted in a lovely blue egg, which appears to have been quickly forgotten as the two ran off to continue their game.

Totem happened upon Mayflur up in the tree house. I'm not so sure Mayflur was in the mood, but it seems she'd gotten a little lonely playing in the garden all by herself.

 

It would appear motherhood has done her a great deal of good though. Perhaps it was the need to now be eating for two, but Mayflur has straightened up and started eating and sleeping exceptionally well again. I'm extremely happy, as she's a darling of a Norn and with 5 of the next generation being her eggs I'm hopeful they'll take after this happier side of their mother.

I decided to export Mayflur after her 5th egg and threw Causty back into the mix. At just the right time Totem was heading towards the kitchen for a snack and found himself a Norn to cuddle up with instead. Totem does a lot of travelling and spends a fair bit of time alone, but on those occasions where he meets up with the girls he makes the most of it!

And heavens above, while I've been typing this Enza has gone and got herself pregnant again!! I can hardly keep up with these little fuzzballs tonight. Did someone spike the hootch?

And Totem strikes again. I wasn't kidding when I said he gets the job done.

Here is the stack of eggs at the last count. Sitting here there are 13. There's also at least one egg that accidentally hatched, and I can't remember off hand if there might even have been two. Including Enza and Causty's eggs still to come that brings me to at least 16! Considering that only 8 Norns will make it into generation 3 I kinda hope there aren't too many more to come. Still, the more genetic diversity the better, and if nothing else other people will be able to give a good home to a lot of pretty cool Norns (if their parents are anything to go by).

EDIT: Not sure what happened with Causty. I could have sworn she was pregnant (the Observation Kit certainly suggested so), and I could have sworn the egg counter in the Breeders Kit was going up, not down. But its now reduced down to '1' and she still hasn't laid her egg as far as I can see. I didn't hear a kisspop with her and Totem, so maybe I got over ambitious. Right now though I'd say I made a mistake. That's still 15 eggs though, so I'm hardly going to complain.

EDIT2: I um...think I've found Causty's egg...

 On the plus side at least it hasn't hatched? Thankfully Stephanie randomly found this one hanging in mid air almost direction above the underwater statue in the ocean. I've heard of this bug before, but hadn't experienced it. I doubt I'll be able to get it down and the egg itself will probably never hatch. Fortunately I've found the genetic file and should be able to reproduce the egg from there.
For my own reference (coz I'm sure I'll forget which file it is), the .gen file is "8JOE.gen".

Creatures 1 Gen2: Update

I'm rather happy with my furry bunch as of late. When I first imported them all they very quickly started showing signs of bad eating/sleeping habits, but as they've dispersed themselves around the world their habits have improved dramatically again.

Techie has once again inhabited the Island, although this time he's stayed as far away as possible from the strawberries and saxophone. Taking to the rope bridge via one of the new lift COBs I installed he seems very happy to have parsnips brought to him and play with the beach ball off to the side.

Enza and Totem have also taken to the skies, although a fair distance from Techie. The two wander back and forth, partaking of the apples and using the cable cart. They seem to get along quite well, but no pregnancies yet.

Mayflur and Trillo haven't strayed too far from home and spend a lot of time in the garden; Mayflur in particular. Mayflur seems to be suffering most from age forgetfulness and needs a fair bit more care than the other Norns to get her eating and sleeping. She's still better than the last generation though, and we aim for improvement, not perfection.

Bonza has once again set off on his own and ended up near the distiller. Most of the hootch cans seem full, but I did find one empty one. Perhaps Bonza is remembering the good times he had down here with Minimee, when the two would get drunk and eat bananas. Ah...what a life.

Stephanie has taken to riding the underground cart back and forth looking at sea creatures. I've been really impressed with the recovery Steph has made. She's been eating and sleeping well, although I'm sure some of that has to do with her being alone a lot of the time. Typical of course, in this photo she's complaining of hunger!

And lucky last is Beatrice. Especially lucky because since I reimported all the Norns there's been a lot of kisspopping, but only one pregnancy. Amazingly I didn't catch this one until she suddenly sat down and laid an egg in front of me, so I can only guess at the father. My best bet would be Techie as he's been around the Island a lot, but certainly not a guarantee. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

And for interests sake, I've updated the Family tree again to add some additional details.
Green titles are Norns who were added to the gene pool.
Red titles are Norns who were excluded from the gene pool.
Blue/grey coloured portraits are Norns who have passed on.
Each Norn now has an extra panel below their portrait that has all their children's names included.
(F) = Female      (M) = Male.

Would love a roll-over feature to give a couple of interesting details about each Norn, but I think that's beyond this program. Still, got most of what I wanted and it seems easy enough to understand and navigate.

Creatures 1: Family Tree

I've been thinking of putting one of these together for a little while now and I've found a little time...so I've done it.

Long term readers will remember I used to create family trees for my Creatures 3 Norns. This was a great deal of work due to the rate at which C3 Norns breed and I spent most of my time naming Norns and adding them to the tree before the next one came along.

I'm far more optimistic about keeping a tree for my C1 Norns and hopefully it'll be a lot less confusing. At present I'm still using the 'bubble.us' website to create the tree, but I'm considering finding something a little more powerful. This is really only a brainstorming tool and all I can do is add the names of Norns and link them to the corresponding parents. I'd really like to be able to add birth and death dates, photos and maybe one or two interesting pieces of information about each Norn. I'd really like it if these details could be shown in a mouse roll-over fashion.

I've taken a quick look at some of the online Family Tree programs and they're either far too powerful and ask for wwaaaayyy too much information, or they're too simplistic and don't account for a Norns provocative tendency to take on many partners.

Once I'm done with this post I'm going to see if there's any brainstorming tools out there that might meet my requirements, but if anyone has suggestions for programs to use I'm all ears.

In the mean time, here's the first taste of the C1 Family Tree. I'm not sure yet whether I'll do an update post each generation, or whether I should create a separate page and keep it constantly up to date as new Norns are born. Preferences people?

P.S. You'll probably want to click on the image to get a large view.


EDIT:

I've found another brainstorming tool I've been playing with. It's a great deal prettier and I really like the additional features like images and notes. Another nice addition is the icons (I've used smileys to indicate Norns still living and frowns as deceased).
The downsides are the arrow links are even messier (I've removed them in the image below and tried putting the children as sub-nodes instead), it's a little slow and it has a tendency to move your nodes around when you zoom in and out. It also forces you to have all your nodes attached to the master node which adds a whole heap of unnecesarry arrows to the second generation.

Another nice feature is the ability to embed it into websites. Unfortunately viewing it in this small space crunches the interface and moves all the nodes around, so here's the image for now. Let me know what you think!

EDIT:

Third times a charm. Found yet another tool and this one I think I like the most. It's a little more limited in functionality, but it allows for unlimited linking and images, which basically means some things might take a little more to set up, but I have a lot more control over where things go. It seems pretty stable so far and none of my nodes have started shifting yet which is a good sign. It also allows me to save out images and has a share feature like the previous one, although I haven't been able to get it working yet (internet is being dodgy). It's not quite as pretty as the previous, but it's pretty elegant in it's simplicity.
Again, let me know what you think.

Testing the embed feature below:

Creatures 1 Gen2: Update

Just a quick one to say I've been away for the past week playing in a tennis tournament, hence no updates. Had an amazing week and came home with a very nice trophy and a little too much sunburn.

I've only been back a day, but I've taken the time to get all the Norns health back up to speed and imported them all back into the world. You can see them all here.

Most of them are sitting around the 5 hour mark now, although Beatice is quite a bit younger due to only being imported later in the run. She's currently around 3 hours.
All the Norns are doing pretty well, but I think some of them are getting to the forgetful age and starting to eat less. Interestingly the children of Tabby don't seem to be suffering this and I'm hoping it's due to their superior genetics. The females in particular are suffering, and none of them have the Forest Norn genes to support them. Fingers crossed the next generation will have a good chunk of Forest genes and none of the Norns will suffer this memory loss.

In other very sad news, Minimee caught himself an Antigen1 cold and try as I might I just couldn't get him to eat enough. I thought he had fought off the worst of it and I left to take care of another Norn, but sadly Minimee passed away next to the computer a few minutes later.

R.I.P Minimee

Creatures 1 Gen2: Update

I think I spoke a little too soon in my last post. Things have got hectic again, but at least it's mostly in a good way. I did have a bit of a sickness epidemic for a while there, with about half the Norns contracting it. Fortunately the illness itself turned out to be pretty tame and they all healed up pretty quickly, it was just a matter of making sure the virus didn't spread. That was the hard part!

The first thing to mention is that I've exported Enza and imported Beatrice to give her a chance to become a mother. Well she took up the challenge and produced her first egg with Trillo.

Bonza disappeared off my radar for a little while as he seemed to be taking pretty good care of himself and didn't need my attention for a bit. When I finally did get back to him he wasn't in quite as good shape. He and Minimee had taken to the hootch and had been having a jolly boys night out. Despite being surrounded by bananas neither of them took much interest in the food and stuck to the grog. Eventually I decided the two were becoming a bad influence on each other and separated them.

 

Much to my delight Bonza ended up in the music room and rekindled his passion for music. He hasn't really got into the instruments in a world full of Norns, but on the plus side his anger mutation doesn't seem to have done him any harm. Not once have I stumbled upon him in an upset state, so his mutation doesn't seem to be as detrimental to him as I thought it might. It will be interesting to see if his children inherit this gene.

 

I was rather amused to see Techie return to the Island area and take up his saxophone again. Apparently his days as the Strawberry Guardian aren't over yet.

This wasn't the only thing Techie was up to though. It's hard to tell from this picture, but Mayflur is once again pregnant and the culprit is Techie. It would seem strawberries are the way to woo the woman around here.

After my initial flu epidemic, Stephanie caught another cold, although this one was a great deal more lethal. I believe it was an Antigen7 infection. Antibody7 seems to take quite a while to build up in a Norns system, so Stephanie wasn't doing too well.

She has survived and made a full recovery thankfully, but her deterioration made me think it was time to give all the Norns a bit of a break. I've exported them all and intend to build each of them up again before going for another run.

Again I really need to emphasize just how fantastic this second generation is. The Norns are now sitting around 4-5 hours old and this is the first time I've needed to give myself a break to take care of them individually. Totem and Techie in particular hardly need any extra care and usually take care of themselves. With a bit of luck the Generation3 Norns will inherit a good chunk of these genes and traits and in a generation or two more I should be able to run a proper Wolfing run again.

Creatures 1 Gen2: More pregnancies

Things in Albia have settled into a comfortable pace. There's been a couple of new pregnancies and a couple of births, but things have been happening in a less haphazard way.

First off I want to introduce 'Minimee', the new Grendel of the world. I'm fairly sure I have the female Grendel COB installed, but Minimee is another male Grendel. The tiny Grendel sprites are amazingly cute. Minimee has taken to the Norns nicely and as you can see, they've started teaching him their language.

Next up is Mayflur's second pregnancy. As you can probably guess from the picture below, the father is Bonza again. I'm having a little trouble keeping with the number of children the males now have, but I'm pretty sure this will be Bonza's second.

Stephanie has also fallen pregnant again. Shortly after meeting Minimee Totem and Steph found a brief moment to ah, express themselves and another egg was on the way.

 

Astonishingly, Mayflur isn't done for this update. She and Bonza have been spending some quality time together on the Island and as a result Mayflur will soon be looking forward to her third egg!

  

The Norns are all sitting somewhere between three and fours hours and I've officially hit my minimum egg number for the next generation. Well, technically I had a bit of an accident and I've only got seven eggs; one of them hatched and I can tell you that Totem and Stephanie are going to be having a lovely little girl. I was rather surprised to see that she came out of her egg not needing food straight away. I've taken a quick look at her genetics and although there's some interesting stuff I can't find anything that would explain that. A shame, because that would be a fantastic genetic advantage. Hopefully I can find an explanation once I start digging into the genetics properly.

Creatures 1 Gen2: Update

And what an update. I guess when you have 8 Norns running about the world plenty can happen, but it seems like so much is happening. Where do we start?

I guess we'll start with the pregnancies. In the last post both Stephanie and Enza had just fallen pregnant. Since then they've both laid eggs and everything went pretty smoothly. Both laid identical eggs which should make it interesting to tell them apart later. Strangely Enza laid her egg about a minute before Steph despite their pregnancies happening the other way round.

As you can see in the picture above, Enza took a trip over to the Island to have her egg. Bonza, not pictured here accompanied her. Apparently he too has taken to the fatherly ways.
Upon their return to the mainland there was much rejoicing, with Trillo, Totem and Redrum there to great the happy couple.

On the other side of the world Stephanie has taken some well deserved time to herself. Laying eggs can be a lot of hard work and Stephanie has chosen to relax by taken up a new hobby. Apparently the harp is so soothing it just about sends you to sleep.

 

Techie has remained on the Island as the keeper of the strawberry patch. He plays his saxaphone to pass the time and has become quite partial to it. Perhaps he heard somewhere plants grow better if you play them music?

I'm quite happy to announce yet another pregnancy in Albia. Causty is with child again and has already laid another egg. Unfortunately this pregnancy took place in a submarine party and I'm not sure if the father is Trillo or Totem again. Hopefully it's Trillo's first, but both had relatively low sex drives in the aftermath and I just can't tell.

Redrum stood watch as Causty laid her second egg. Regrettably he will never meet the child to spring from the egg as Redrum passed away shortly after. His later 'years' seemed much happier than his earlier life. I think he enjoyed having a world filled with Norns he could play with. The Guardian of the Strawberries gave him a mournful tune as the Grendel passed from this world.

R.I.P Redrum

Creatures 1 Gen2: More pregnancies!

After another hour of playing I have 8 of the Gen2 Norns in the world and for the most part they seem to be doing pretty well. Unfortunately due to the import limit of 8 Norns, Beatrice has yet to be imported. I know there was a reason I wanted to have 8 Norns each generation!

Causty, Stephanie and Enza have all fallen pregnant now, with Causty being the next to lay her egg.

Causty and Techie have shacked up together on the Island. Causty joined Techie shortly after I started playing and the two have been almost inseparable since. Upon Causty becoming pregnant Techie seemed to freak out and jumped on the nearest tunnel cart out of there. I didn't realise Causty was pregnant and brought him back to her. Since then their relationship has matured and Techie seems to have taken to being a future father quite well.

Upon importing Enza and Bonza there was a bit of a group reunion, with Stephanie, Trillo, Totem and even Redrum enjoying the large gathering. This eventually resulted in Stephanie falling pregnant. At first I wasn't sure who the father was, but taking a quick look at his sex drive I was pretty certain it was Totem. This will now be Totem second egg. I'm not sure Stephanie has taken kindly to the pregnancy. Her first reaction was to run away from the group and after a quick nap she seems to have kept running towards the jungle area.

No more than two minutes later I heard another kiss-pop and Enza was also pregnant. This time I was confident it was Bonza, as now both he and Totem's sex drive were drastically reduced. This is great news. Only a couple of hours in and I'm already halfway to my minimum number of eggs. The future looks bright for Gen3.

Watching the Norns over the last hour it's becoming clearer who the best survivors are likely to be. Totem almost never eats, and although his life-force does tend to sit a little lower than everyone elses he's constantly active and never has any complaints. With his second child already on the way I have high hopes for him.

It looks like Stephanie will need a fair bit of extra attention. She only has Horse and Purple Mountain Norn genes, and although she's still pretty good at taking care of herself she struggles to keep up with the energy of the Norns with superior genes.

Causty may need a little extra attention too, although she does a decent job of feeding herself. Perhaps it's just that Techie is always incredibly happy and it's only the comparison of the two Islanders.

It's too early to make a call on Bonza or Enza, but the remaining Norns all seem to be fairly well on par with taking care of themselves, which is to say about average. They'll clearly need a little attention to make sure they're eating and sleeping, but should be alright to leave for short periods of time.