New Life and Death in Albia

Today was an interesting day in Albia.

To begin with, all I had to worry about was getting my Norns to eat - a hard enough task, but nothing particularly gruelling. Though it was noteworthy that Dubby still hadn't woken up; if you can remember as far back as January you might recall that last time I played I was a little concerned that Dubby had been sleeping for ages. He still  hand't woken up and his life force was dropping rapidly; I don't know why he was sleeping for so long, and I don't think I ever will, but at this point I worried enough by his prolonged sleep that I gave in and decided to inject him with some wake-up pill.

He woke fairly quickly, and he's quite a good eater so it wasn't long before I was able to get him back up to full health. However, elsewhere in Albia...

Fight!

Today I sat down to creatures and the tedious but necessary task of getting the Norns to eat. Even so, as much as the task is tedious and sometimes frustrating, it is always kind of relaxing too. 'It would be good to play a nice, relaxing game of Creatures,' I said to myself as I booted up the game. 'Jolly good.'

Naturally I wasn't too ready when this happened almost as soon as I started:

He wasn't even really old. It always hits me right in the heart when this happens, especially when you're not expecting it. I'm gonna miss this kid.

Operation Save Unova

It's been awhile since I visited my Norns that aren't genetically modified, so when I sat down to play creatures today I thought I might boot up their world. Honestly though, I think I forgot how hard it is to look after ancient (and I'm talking 30+ hours old) Norns. They just don't eat like they used to!

...especially when they're hanging out and refuse to be separated from each other. As you can see from this picture, Coco, Finch and Dubby have decided to party on the raft, which doesn't make it easy to feed them.

As it turned out, though, these three Norns weren't really going to cause me too much trouble in the end—they all had an OK life force, so it wasn't like they were going to drop dead if they didn't eat within the next ten minutes.

But Unova—oh, Unova. She was the one I needed to be concerned about. She simply didn't eat. Her life force had dropped to around 35% and she still wouldn't eat. And of course, she was only going to find a way to make matters even worse. While I took a short break to admire Aladdin as he played some music for me on the drums and harp, Cosmos found Unova and made her bloody pregnant.

I didn't fancy her chances at this point. Especially seeing as I would have to find a way to get Cosmos away from her for there even to be chance that she might eat something.

The Egg Lottery #1

Remember when I said I have twenty eggs? Well, I've decided to make a start on hatching them. The only trouble is that they are all sitting in the tunnel beneath the garden perfectly unorganised. I put them down here because originally I thought I would never want to hatch them because they didn't have die of old age genes. But recently I went through and altered the genomes of all these eggs to contain the genes to make them die of old age; I wasn't sure if changing the genomes like that would work so I tested it in a new world with eggs from the genetics kit and it seemed to work all right there so let's hope it doesn't somehow break my world over here.

Two of my eggs are stored elsewhere in Albia so there are only eighteen eggs here, but that's still a lot of different possibilities of who will hatch without me knowing what I'll get. And there are some pretty interesting ones thrown in there, but we'll get to that once I start hatching.

To begin with I'll hatch only a couple, and these are the three eggs I've picked out to hatch first, simply because I like these eggs more for some inexplicable reason. Let's start with the one on the left.

...and meet Cosmos! He's the newest addition to my little family and, as you can see, he's already displaying signs of a great intelligence. Wallbonking is so trendy nowadays! He's doing it because of some dumb floating egg so I guess I can't really blame him too much for it.

Dubby???

  

When I booted up the game today I found Dubby like this. He's not harmed in any way; he can still interact and pick things up and do all the usual Norny things, he just looks a little... memorable.

Seriously, I don't know how this happened. The best guess I have is that an image or something got corrupted after I exported and then imported him again to get an .exp file to eventually upload to this blog. Whatever the case, he seems to be enjoying life as much as ever. Let's hope it doesn't somehow break the rest of the world.

Later while I was doing the rounds with cheese, Finch decided it would be nice to try some deathcap. Fortunately he's better at actually eating the cheese than a lot of my other Norns and his life force never dipped too low.

I figured this along with Dubby's makeover would have been all the drama for one day, but alas that was not true. Unova, who was already down to 51% life force because she refused to eat, fell ill at the island. And how many of the eight Norns living in this world were on the island with her? Five. Only Michelle and Hat were absent.

One Norn sick with her life force already low is bad enough, but five other Norns nearby gives it the potential to be disastrous. But luck was on my side this time - the sickness only had Antigen 7 and two unknown toxins. With no histamines present, the disease would not be contagious and the rest of my Norns were safe.

But that didn't mean that Unova was safe, especially because she thought it might be nice to have a little nap instead of eat. Her life force was dropping rapidly and there wasn't time to lie around! Normally I don't use the injections from the science kit because I don't find them useful, but in this case the Wake-up Pill was the very thing which could help save her.

She managed to conquer the antigen without eating anything, but she was left with a measly 25% life force. She still refused to eat afterwards and 25% soon became 20%, and then 14%. By this point I'd been trying to feed her for at least ten minutes without any success. But right when I was starting to give up, she ate! It was only one piece of cheese, but it was enough to keep her alive for now.

The Story So Far

This may be my first foray into blogging and into the Creatures community, but it's not the first time I've played Creatures. In fact, I still watch over the Norns from my original world. There are a couple of things you might like to know about my Norns before I start rambling on about them, so I'd like to begin by introducing you to what's been going on so far.

The first point of interest is that when I first starting playing Creatures I didn't know that the original hatchery Norns don't actually die of old age, so seven Norns were born effectively immortal, though only five of those are still alive today.

The time I hatched my first Norn with die-of-old-age-genes coincided with the time I started messing around with the genetics kit. The first time I changed only pigment genes, but unfortunately for some of my Norns I quickly grew bored with baby steps and as a result their genetic engineering didn't go quite so well. These attempts include one to try to make Norns eat better, one to make Norns avoid each other, one to make 'Glitch Norns' with wonky poses, and one to make Norns age backwards. None of them worked right, which I think might be why I tried so many different ideas instead of perfecting one, but I promise I will tell more, in detail, about these experiments at a later date, as well as trying to actually finish some of these ideas one day.

Now let's meet my Norns!

From left to right, these are Sally, Coco, Hat, and Unova. Sally's quite well-behaved for a Norn, whereas Coco and Unova are anything but. Hat likes his own company and spends a lot of time sitting on his own staring at nothing in particular.

This is Finch, Dubby, Michelle, and Aladdin. I like to think of Finch as a kind old man and of Dubby as a mischievous youngster, even though he's entering his twilight years too. Michelle's a bit of a trickster; she likes to taunt me by not eating until she gets to about 60% life force, at which point she promptly has a feast without me even needing to ask her to eat. Aladdin's very social and can almost never be found alone.

Think I'm done? Not even close! I still have to introduce you to my genetic experiments. These Norns live in a different world from those listed above to prevent too many eggs with really demented genomes.

These are Erin, Monty, Quella, and Cornelius. All four were part of my attempt to make Norns avoid each other. Erin and Monty were hatched before the other two and it almost feels like they're Quella and Cornelius's parents. Quella is quite a good little girl and Cornelius is stubborn and never listens to anything you say, especially when you ask him to eat.
  

Finally, this is Pythagoras, Tessa, and Mitzi. Pythagoras and Tessa are both part of my failed attempt to make 'Glitch Norns'. Pythagoras is hardly affected and really quite a cheerful lad, but Tessa can't walk. This wasn't what I was trying to achieve at all and I feel awful for doing it to her. Despite this I don't think she's overly sad about it; she may be stuck right next to the incubator but she enjoys playing with her ball and eating, and the other Norns drop by frequently to keep her company. I tried to make Mitzi age backwards but because of an oversight she's going to be a baby for the rest of her life. Which I'm almost entirely certain will effectively last forever, because of another oversight. Oops.

I'd also like to take a moment to commemorate my Norns who have passed on.

   
These are Fandom, Fred, Asper, and Kate. I have fond memories of each, more than words can express. The way you'd all chat and kiss and slap each other, run away from other Norns when you just wanted some peace and quiet...

Moving on to brighter things, I have twenty unhatched eggs in my original world, all of them brimming with mutations. I'm rather looking forward to starting to hatch them.