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: 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: 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!