Creatures 1:Gen3 - Hatchlings

It's taken me a couple of nights, but I've finally gone through and hatched each Norn for generation 3!
There's 21 Norns in total, 12 males and 9 females (very good balance of numbers). Although I haven't gone through and done a full genetics analysis yet I have taken a quick glance and there's some interesting stuff in there.
From Norns who reach breeding maturity earlier to Norns who become cold while relieving crowdedness to a rather nasty brain mutation, this generation promises to be exciting.
One thing I've noticed is that Totem's genetic appearance is quite prominent in this generation. There's a whole heap of Pixie Norns with Forest Norn legs. Although it's a combination I really like it'll be a little difficult to tell them apart.
But that's okay, I intend to add a little genetic diversity to this generation by adopting one or two Norns from the 'CreatureLink' over at Discover Albia. Hopefully that'll be enough to keep appearances unique.

So, in no particular order here are the candidates for Gen3, followed by their parents names.

Clark - Stephanie, Totem

Bucca - Causty, Techie

Raiden - Causty, Techie

Shizzan - Enza, Totem

Pix - Enza, Totem

Milton - Mayflur, Totem

Mia - Causty, Techie

Hannah - Mayflur, Totem

Spunk - Enza, Bonza

Trish - Stephanie, Totem

Sprinkles - Causty, Totem

Ryan - Stephanie, Totem

Elton - Beatrice, Trillo

Stubbs - Mayflur, Bonza

Davis - Mayflur, Bonza

Toff - Enza, Bonza

Seebal - Mayflur, Techie

Totlet - Unknown, Totem

Clowen - Stephanie, Totem

Desirey - Causty, Totem

Joe - Causty, Totem

Much to my amazement Trillo seems to have only had the one child. I'll be double checking this as that just seems wrong, but that's what the genetics files say.
Beatrice too only has the one child, however I know I have two photos of eggs she laid, so that's definitely not right.
There is however a Norn with an unknown mother (Totlet), so perhaps that's Beatrice's other child? The genetics files don't match up, and although I have a genetics file for Totlet's mother, that file doesn't have any parents so I have no way of figuring out who she is. Apparently I'll need to be more careful with my record keeping.

So, we welcome the newest Norns to Albia and wish them luck. Naturally I'll be spending a little time with each of them once I've restarted the world and I'll do a breakdown of them and their genetics then.

EDIT: I went ahead and cloned the unknown mother via the Genetics Kit. Thankfully the Norn that popped out has a very distinct appearance and there's no doubt it's a clone of Beatrice. That's not surprising as Beatrice was cloned when I added her to Gen2 (she had been part of the previous wolfing run and had died there). How exactly she ended up with two children that linked to the different genetics files I have no idea, but there's no doubt it's her. Mystery solved!

Creatures database tool

At some stage I'm sure most of us have thought about doing it, while others have gone ahead and done it in some form or another. Some use spreadsheets. Others have created family tree making programs. Myself I've been using an OpenOffice form to record my creatures information.

This nifty little tool by Telinome has served me well for the past year or so. Anyone who's interested can download a copy here.

As awesome as this small database has been though, I've always found it restricting. Mostly in terms of not having a 'search' function.

Since I started playing with it a year or so ago (March 31st, 2011 to be exact!) I've been considering rewriting it in a different program to give it a few more features and make it more user friendly.

Ages ago I considering writing it in Adobe Flash, but soon gave up when I learned about Flash's limited ability to write to files, thus making it extremely difficult to actually save the database when you'd filled it in. Only mildly limiting.

For the past month or so I've had the urge to get back into some programming and tonight I decided to pick up this project again. Using a combination of HTML, XML and PHP (those are all web coding languages for those who don't know) I've started building a tool to record, save and recall all my Norns in a similar fashion to what Telinome's form does, just via a web browser instead.

So, after about 3 hours coding tonight I've finally managed to get the damn thing to print:

001
Tiggy
Arch

Which corresponds to: Experiment 'Number', 'Name' and 'Owner' respectively.

Yes that's right...3 hours!
...

Don't hold your breath for a Beta release. This could take a while...

The next trick will be getting it to record input from the user and then print it, rather than having the database premade.

Creatures 1 Gen2: Case study

And just when you thought Gen2 was done and dusted. It turns out there was another Norn who I'm pretty sure I never mentioned. Technically this Norn is from generation 4, although this was an early attempt at a wolfing run that ended in the species extinction.

This Norn is the child of Tabby and Billy. Billy was a third generation Norn and the son of Jake and Beatrice. Jake was a second generation Norn who, unlike Beatrice never made it back into the gene pool. His parents were Pollen and Tony. But that's enough family tree.

This poor Norn had some major genetic problems and was immediately exported. Because of this she is now known as 5MIU, her genetic file.

If anything 5MIU was unlucky to not be a stillborn. from the few minutes I've spent with her she appears to be blind, mute and crippled. Her eyes are perpetually closed and she hasn't spoken a word yet, nor has she taken a step anywhere.

Amazingly though she is still alive and I'm pretty sure she's not deaf. She seems to have small responses to sound and will look towards the Hand when spoken to. With her eyes closed I'm assuming she can't see, but she will swing back and forth as if looking at the Hand when it grabs her attention, although her 'Creature View' is permanently fixed on herself. Aside from this I haven't been able to get her to interact with anything else.

Clearly a very sad case. She will however serve for a very interesting look into genetics. Hopefully we can find what went wrong with her.

GENETICS

LOBES:
She has three mutations from a regular Norn in her LOBES section. When compared to her parents only two of these mutations show up, so clearly the issue for her is in Gene-120 or Gene-122. Of course it could also be a combination of genes from elsewhere.

120: 5 0 Emb B MutDup Lobe #= 6 Loss State Rule: chem3 end end 0 end end, Loss= 5
120: 5 0 Emb B MutDup Lobe #= 6 Loss State Rule: chem3 end end end end end end end, Loss= 5

We can fairly safely rule this gene out as being the cause. Anything after "end" is ignored, so for all intents and purposes, this gene is identical.

 121: 6 0 Emb B MutDup Lobe #= 7 State Rule: state PLUS type0 PLUS type1 end end end, WTA= 1
121: 6 0 Emb B MutDup Lobe #= 7 State Rule: state PLUS type0 end end end end end, WTA= 1

This gene was inherited from Tabby and appears natively in her genome. Lobe #7 is the attention lobe. Despite her many defects 5MIU has she is still capable of paying attention to things.
Having a read over at CDR (Creatures developer Resource) it appears the second gene is actually a bug in the game that was fixed by a workaround in the source code. Apparently the Norns released later on had these gene fixed and this gene now works as intended.

But, in a nutshell what this gene does is calculate the current state of the Norns attention (State), what object in the world is the most stimulating (type0) as well as taking into account anything the Hand has just said (type1) and direct the Norns attention to the most stimulating object.

With this understanding the original Norn genome would have prevented Norns from paying attention to the Hand!...hmm, I'm not sure they actually fixed it...

Gene-122 was a bit of a doozy to figure out. The gene itself reads:

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. State Rule: anded1 end end end end end end end , WTA= 0 Dendrite Type 0: Input Lobe=0, Min#=1, Max#=5, Spread=1, Fanout=2


Which has a few extra neurons, but once again it's the same as Tabby's and shouldn't cause a problem. But wait, is it actually the same?

By shear dumb luck I hit the 'Toggle Details' button in the DDNA-Analyzer and found there's a whole heap of hidden details I wasn't aware of. Using this I was able to do a direct comparison between 5MIU and Tabby's genes. There were two discrepancies.

5MIU:  Lobe #= 0  at X=11 Y=5 is 42 neurons wide and 18 neurons high.

Tabby: Lobe #= 8  at X=11 Y=5 is 42 neurons wide and 18 neurons high.

I think this gene actually gets automatically corrected and replace the 'Lobe#0' with an 8, as that's the way it reads in standard mode, however if I'm wrong this could certainly account for a major malfunction. It would mean that instead of having these neurons associated with the concept lobe where they should be, they would instead be attached to the perception lobe. (Opening the genome in the Genetics Kit does in fact fix this gene, so this is not the problem).

The other difference was this chunk of code:

5MIU:  State Rule: anded0 end end end end end end end WTA = 0

Tabby: State Rule: anded1 end end end end end end end WTA = 0 

 Here is what CDR has to say about 'anded'.

anded 0: If all type 0 dendrites are firing then this will be the value of the sum of these dendrites. If any of the type 0 dendrites are not firing then this value will be 0.

anded 1: If all type 1 dendrites are firing then this will be the value of the sum of these dendrites. If any of the type 1 dendrites are not firing then this value will be 0.

Now, I'm kind of guessing here, but what I think this means is that instead of type 0 dendrites (stimulation from world), type 1 dendrites (Hand talking) will be calculated. What this might mean is that 5MIU is incapable of being stimulated by the world around her and will only react to the Hand.

This in fact seems to be the case. 5MIU will periodically spin around without reason and aside from that she will only respond to the Hand.

Doing a very quick Google search there doesn't appear to be an exact match to a human condition, however a vegetative state comes pretty close. Technically these coma patients don't respond to any stimuli, however there is no real world counterpart to the Hand. They can also have their eyes open, which 5MIU doesn't, but this seems to be a pretty close example.

So, a very sad case of a Norn indeed. However the story doesn't end there. I figured as long as we're being all sciency and investigating genetics, why not put the theory to the test? So I opened the Genetics Kit and 5MIU's genome, found Gene-122 and changed the State Rule from 'anded0' to 'anded1'. I imported the egg into C1 and hatched it.

Much to my amazement and relief out popped a little girl Norn who immediately opened her eyes and looked towards the egg that is still flying in the Albian skies. As far as I can tell, she seems to be a perfectly normal Norn, although with a hit of Tabby's genes I'm sure she'd be smarter than the average Norn!

 Here she is walking around the Garden with Gregor, learning to speak English. I've named her Miu and she is available for download on the 'Norn Download' page.

Creatures 1 Gen2: Finale

I'm afraid it's all done and dusted. While I played last night the final three Norns, Trillo, Stephanie and Totem all passed away.

I was very happy to snap this last photo of them all together. Even Gregor (who has continued to call himself Enza) managed to make it into the shot. And yes, would you believe that is yet another egg laying beside Stephanie. More on that later.

I was also quite happy to grab two quick shots of Trillo and Totem as they both passed the 12 hour mark. This generation has been quite long lived indeed. Hopefully it points to a stronger gene pool for Gen3.

Long life isn't all that's promised to Gen3, as Totem was at it once again with his libido. Being the only female left in the world, Stephanie was the icon of his affection. At 12:20 and 12:24 hours respectively this was a very late stage for another egg.

I took a quick look at Stephanie's Ageing chemical, afraid this egg might share the same fate as Totem and Causty's child. The chemical was extremely low, but I was confident she would have enough time.

Much to my relief this turned out to be true and Stephanie gave birth to the final egg for generation two. Gregor witnessed the momentous event and took to watching the egg grow while Stephanie rather quickly jumped on the boat and left the Island for a brief moment.

The egg had  barely reached hatching age and been moved to the holding place when Trillo took his final breath and fell asleep for the last time. Although he had been a fantastic eater all his life, Trillo's last hour or so had been a bit of a struggle. Still, the vast majority of his life was amazing and I've no doubt some of his children will continue the gene pool for a long time to come. He died at 13 hours and 10 minutes.

If you looked closely at the above picture of Trillo you would see that there is a sleeping Stephanie on the level above. Less than a minute after Trillo's death, Stephanie fell into the long sleep and followed Trillo on one last adventure. Although Stephanie had quite a bit of trouble eating later in life, she had an adventurous streak since birth and had traversed the whole of Albia in her time. She died at 12 hours and 40 minutes.

With Totem being the last Norn and having an extremely low Ageing chemical it was clear his time was nearly up as well. I knew it would take a lot out of him, but I wanted to take him back to his place of birth and see if I couldn't get him to meet one of his children before passing. I bundled him into the boat for his final adventure.

A little slow on his feet, Totem took his time getting to the piano. I would have liked to hear him play one last tune, but he assured me time was of the essence and kept walking.

A quick stop over in the garden and Totem recalled all the wonderful times he had spent here, eating Feverfew and playing with the bouncy ball. He was only 12 hours old, but his story was so long it broke the speech bubble. But that was okay, his goofy smile said it all.

We finally arrived at the kitchen where Totem had taken his first steps. The warmth of the fire and the memories lit his face with a grin. This is a Norn who spent most of his life with a smile. I can only hope his children are as lucky.

I picked an egg at random and hatched it, hoping beyond hope it would by chance be one of his. If you look closely at the young Norn there can be no doubt she is his. Aside from being female she has identical body parts. She is most certainly a child of Totem.

The ancient was very happy to see her, giving her a tickle and following her on her first steps.

Regrettably the moment was short lived. The newly hatched could not have been more than three minutes old before Totem took his last breath. He was 12 hours and 48 minutes old at his passing. He wore a smile all his life and many of the eggs below the incubator belong to him.

Totem will be dearly missed, but his spirit will live on in his children, as will all the Gen2 Norns.

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Next post we'll start hatching the rest of the Gen3 Norns, get their genetic information and export them ready to start a fresh world! I won't do a full run down on their genetics yet, but if I find anything of special interest I'll make a note of it.

Creatures 1 Gen2: Saved Egg!

Or more specifically, genetics file. It appears I was too quick in thinking I had lost Causty and Totem's final child. The baby's genetics file was preserved and with a bit of luck I'll be able to add another egg to the large collection. For future reference, the genetics file is '9SXJ.gen' as I'm sure I'll forget if I don't write it down somewhere.

This experience however, has brought up another issue I've known about for a little while and frankly I've been ignoring because it hasn't appeared to be (and still doesn't appear to be really) a big issue.

The genetics file of the unborn child, which is undoubtedly Totem and Causty by the creation date, lists Causty as the mother, but a Norn with the genetics file '1JCK' as the father. I have Totem recorded as '4QZG' and I don't have '1JCK' recorded at all!

I've opened up Creatures and taken another look at Totem's moniker and it appears that I did get it messed up. He is in fact '1JCK'. But this begs the question, who on Albia is '4QZG'!? I will have to hope this moniker comes up some time while hatching the Gen3 Norns, as it's left me quite perplexed.

Creatures 1 Gen2: Update

Feels like forever since I last picked up Creatures. I'm sure it's only been a week, maybe two, but work has been pushing me to do some long hours so I haven't had the energy to be posting and therefore haven't wanted to play. Any free time I've had has gone into playing Bioshock (got it just after Xmas really cheap on Steam). Mindless fragging takes a lot less brain cells than Norn care.

I managed to snap this lovely photo a week or so back last time I played. It doesn't show all the Gen2 Norns, but I managed to get most of them! Unfortunately it's the last time I'll be able to get such a large group shot for Gen2. As you probably expected, there's been a few additional deaths.

I was ecstatic to get this photo of Bonza. Although most of the Norns haven't been eating as well in old age they do periodically have a good feed and a snooze and end up with big smiles. Although surrounded by musical instruments, Bonza hasn't been playing for quite some time. Thankfully though it hasn't done anything to his anger drive and he's remained quite placid in later life. He passed away at around 11 and a half hours.

I was also quite happy to snap the happy face of Bonza as it was to be the last I would take of him while he was still with us. Bonza passed away shortly after from old age. As far as I could tell he was quite content in his last moments.

Sadly Bonza wasn't the only Norn to leave Albia in my last stint of playing. Beatrice, the youngest of the Norns passed away at almost the exact same time. Although she clearly struggled in her later years, the last half hour or so of her life she picked up on her eating habits and even wore a smile on several occasions. Beatrice died at a rather young 9 hours and 50 minutes.

Amazingly, once again at almost the exact same time, I noticed a pregnancy indicator. Despite being around 11 hours old Totem still had some fertility left in him and managed to get dear Causty pregnant.

Moments before I had been tracking Causty and counting her age timer. I managed to catch a screenshot just as she hit a whooping 12 hours!

Keeping tabs on her Ageing chemical in the Science Kit I'd noticed the chemical was down as far as it could visually be represented and I knew she couldn't possibly have much time left. Seeing Bonza die moments later (his Ageing chemical had been at the same level) I was extremely worried she wouldn't survive the pregnancy.

Regrettably, although she continued to eat and sleep well Causty age got the better of her. At 12 hours and 23 minutes (a record I'm sure!) and 7 'months' pregnant, Causty's body finally gave in and she passed away amongst the apples. I'm fairly confident the pregnancy didn't push her over the edge and it was simply her time.

Unfortunately I can't find a way to extract Totem and her final egg, despite finding an egg extractor COB on the Creatures Wiki (it only works on selected Norns and the injector kit vanishes upon selecting a deceased Norn).

I currently have the game paused with Causty's body still in the world on the odd chance someone can suggest something. Sadly I expect this egg will be lost.

With only Trillo, Stephanie and Totem remaining the third generation is just around the corner. Although if Causty and Techie were anything to go by I may still have another hour or so with these Norns.

Strangely I haven't noticed the Starch glitch recently, although it may well still be there. Regardless I intend to quickly hatch the 3rd generation eggs and collect their genetic information before exporting them and starting a new world. If any glitches are still present I'll uninstall the game and restart by creating the 3rd generation again through the Genetics Kit rather than importing the Norns.

Get ready for some difficult choices in the near future. I have 17 eggs and at least one or two accidentally hatched Norns and only 8 will be permitted to enter the next generation. With the great performance I've had from the Gen2 Norns I'm sure I'll need some help picking out Gen3.

Creatures 1 Gen2: Update

It seems on any night I write a post where very little happens, I follow it with a post an hour or two later where a whole heap happens. There's a lot of news for this post, some of it amazingly good, some not quite so. Let's begin with the good news.

I was doing a regular round of health checkups for all the Norns when I noticed a massive grin on Stephanie's face. I hadn't seen her happy for quite a while, so a giant dopey grin, although welcome, was quite a shock. I quickly took a look at her health kit and low and behold she'd been feeding herself.
At first I couldn't figure out what would have made the old Norn start eating again when she decided she would show me.
She had been spending the last 15 minutes or so around the hives and as I watched I saw her eye off one hive before hearing a smacking sound as she took her fill of honey. A brief moment later she did it again. Then again!
I still can't get the poor dear to eat any actual food, but she's fairing quite well for herself gorging on fresh honey.

Seeing this I thought perhaps some of the other Norns could learn from Steph's example and I hurriedly brought Beatrice over, as she has been having the most trouble eating. Unfortunately Beatrice's hive hunting skills aren't up with Steph's and she gets herself stung pretty much every time.
But then, a borderline miracle! Beatrice started eating again! Ordinary, everyday honey and carrots. I've no idea what those bees did to her, but whatever it was they seem to have stung her back to reality. Although she still needs a lot of care, Beatrice will now periodically eat without my needing to prompt her. Thank you bees!

In less happy news the second generation has taken it's first blow. Mayflur passed away just short of the Deathcap mushroom. I can't be certain it wasn't the mushroom that killed her, but the plant was in tact when I found her. I'm hopeful she passed away peacefully.

Mayflur lived to a ripe old age of 8:56. Although it's not as old as some of the other Norns it can hardly be sniffed at, and she certainly lived a good, happy life. I haven't been keeping a strict record on the number of eggs, but Mayflur has at least 5 eggs beneath the incubator, so I've no doubt her legacy will continue.

Shortly after, Enza followed her friend into the great beyond, but not before taking on last scenic tour. By complete chance Enza passed away atop the underwater cart and travelled back and forth a few times before vanishing.

Although he was sad to see her go, I think Gregor was happy to have her pass his way one last time before departing. The two had gotten so close during their time together that since her passing Gregor has adopted Enza's name for himself. Either that or they've developed some sort of symbiotic/possessed relationship.

Enza has at least 4 eggs to her name. Genetically speaking she wasn't as tough as some of the other Norns, but if her eating habits get passed down to her children I'm sure they'll fair quite well.

Amazingly though, there is still some more good news. As dumbfounded as I was to see it, the two eldest Norns in Albia have fallen pregnant! Techie and Causty spent the last hour or so of their lives together with a periodic kisspop, but at long last Techie got the job done!

Amazingly, Techie was 10:41 hours at the time, while Causty was an even older 10:46 hours!

Naturally I was terrified the effort of laying an egg as this age would be the end for Causty, but I'm happy to report she has successfully laid her egg without an issue. She seems to have even started eating better again as a result.

As I was so amazed at this late pregnancy I decided to take a look inside Techie. I was absolutely astounded at his fertility levels!

You could be forgiven for thinking the boy was fresh out of adolescence. I also took a look at Totem who I imported upon Mayflur's death and he too shares Techie's fertility. These boys are simply amazing!

Regrettably, it seemed the effort took too much out of Techie rather than Causty and the ancient passed away shortly after seeing his partner lay her egg. I was quite touched by their partnership as the end approached.

Seeing Causty was pregnant I quickly isolated her to bring her health back up. I turned away for a minute and found the two back together again. They only separated after Causty had laid the egg, at which point Techie walk off on his own and died a few minutes later.

Bonza wasn't present at Techie's death, however he did come by very soon after to pay his respects. Beneath the Graveyard app, Bonza is saying "sleep". Strangely enough, both his Sleepiness and Exhaustion levels are low, but his hunger and boredom both very high. I can only assume he is saying goodbye in his very limited language.

Techie lived to an astounding 10:54 hours. I haven't kept tabs on how many eggs the males have, but I imagine he'll be second only to Totem.

With only 6 Norns remaining I can see the second generation coming to an end shortly. Then again, those Norns that are left have started taking better care of themselves. I've no doubt I still have a few short hours left with this lot.