Sorry for my leave of absence over the last couple of months. I'd kind of reached a point where I needed to play some other games for a bit, but rest assured Creatures is still on my list and I've been lurking around the community, keeping tabs on other blogs and waiting impatiently for more Creatures 4 news.
Judging by the post over at
Fishing Cactus patience will be rewarded in the next few weeks as we'll hopefully be getting some further insights into the game as we get closer to release.
As for my little C1 world of Albia, it's been given a reboot and is ready to receive the next generation of Norns.
You'll probably notice a few new additions to the world over the next couple of posts. I've started reading a relatively new Creatures blog called
Jessi's Creatures Documentations which you should check out if you haven't already. It's an interesting read, but most importantly there's some lovely new COBs available. They not only function well but they look really cool too!
On the topic of blogs, I've added Grendelmans
My little hole to my watch list too. Far from being a new blog, but one I didn't realise existed until recently. Also very much worth a watch and with an overhaul to the website layout the new downloads sections would be well worth a visit.
Okay, that's enough pimping others blogs, time to get back to my own!
As you know I've hatched all the Gen3 Norns and placed them into their respective family trees. As of yet though I haven't done a genetics breakdown on anyone, so this post we'll take a look at Clowen, the daughter of Stephanie and Totem.
Although Stephanie was a Horse Norn and her ancestor was Pollen, a PMN, Clowen has completely inherited her father's appearance and is a Pixie/Forest Norn.
She has also inherited her grandfather's (Heartly's) eating habits. Her hunger drive rarely if ever rises, but thankfully she still has a drive to eat periodically and doesn't seem to starve as a result.
Looking at her genetics more closely I'm starting to think I may have misinterpreted Heartly's eating genes. I'll be doing a closer look into these genes in this generation and will get back to you all on what exactly it all means.
Although she hasn't travelled from the garden yet, Clowen seems quite at home with her new environment.
She took a bit of a shine to the new addons to the world, in particular the Muggy COB from
Jessi's Creatures Documentations. Essentially this fella is a great brute of a dog, although they have a great temperament. They'll generally hang around and keep your Norns company, but if interacted with they'll wander about looking for interesting objects to dig up. Sadly my Muggy hasn't managed to find anything yet, but he hasn't had much chance to practice yet.
You'll also notice the pink flowers in the background. Also from Jessi, this is a new plant added to the world. They grow randomly when injected and drop the flower head when clicked on, which can then be eaten.
I've added a few new food COBs to this world as I've recently discovered some of the old ones I was using were a little buggy. Hopefully you've already seen this news via Jessi's blog, or at Discover Albia, but the random starch injection bug has finally been tracked down to its source.
Unfortunately that source was the extra carrot COBs I had installed, including the Muddy Carrots near the incubator and the Parsnips on the Island. These have now been removed, so hopefully this bug will no longer be present.
GENETICS:
Since we're now getting deeper into the generations I'll be skipping over some of the old mutations we've seen but I'll still make sure to mention any new or interesting mutations.
I'll also be taking a leaf out of Jessica's book at Discover Albia and colour coding the mutations, with
underlines being the changes in the gene. I'll keep the colours consistent to reduce confusion. Hey, genetics are confusing enough!
Green: Good Mutation | Blue: Neutral Mutation | Orange: Bad Mutation | White: Original Gene
Mutations from Parents:
These mutations are completely new.
RECEPTORS:
45: Creature, Drive Levels NFP, chem=NFP, thresh=0, nom=0, gain=255, features = Digital
45: Creature, Drive Levels NFP, chem=NFP, thresh=0, nom=0, gain=255, features = Analogue
From memory I think the difference between Digital and Analogue is that they're reverses of each other. In other words Analogue increases the chemical while Digital reduces it. Keep in mind though that you could reduce a decrease chemical such as hungerDecrease, just to add another layer of complexity.
I think this gene should reduce Clowen's Need for Pleasure (NFP) chemical when her NFP drive reaches a certain level, but I have noticed she seems to have a frown on her face even when all her usual drives are met, so I could be wrong on this one.
STIMULI:
103: 'I've activated1' causes sig=0 GS neu=255, int=0 => 3*TirednessIncrease + 16*BoromDecrease + 0*None + 1*None
103: 'I've activated1' causes sig=0 GS neu=255, int=0 => 3*TirednessIncrease + 16*BoromDecrease + 0*None + 0*None
This gene adds tirednessIncrease and boredomDecrease when the creature successfully pushes an object. The mutation here changes the 'None' chemical from 0 to 1, essentially making this a completely irrelevant mutation. Should the 'None' chemical mutation in the future though, this could change things up significantly.
That sums up all Clowen's new mutation. Here's a couple of interesting ones that she inherited.
Inherited Mutations:
REACTIONS:
146: 1*Glucose + 2*Hexokinase => 4*CO2 + 8*Activase
146: 1*Glucose + 2*Hexokinase => 4*CO2 + 1*None
I'm pretty sure this was a new gene that came with the Forest Norns. I've only included it because I'm not entirely sure what it does.
320: Antioxidants will no longer reduce aging.
68: Doesn't receive punishment for being bored.
145: Does not receive hunger when changing glycogen into glucose
I'll be returning to gene 145 in a later post as I think there will be some interesting things to discuss about it. What I think has happened is that the Forest Norn genes related to glycogen/glucose conversion have mixed with the original Norn genes in such a way that the Norn no longer feels hunger. Technically you'd think this would be amazingly detrimental to the Norn as it should stop them eating, but judging by Heartly and Totem's success in life it seems to have actually been beneficial. We'll try and figure out why this is true another time.
