The Return! (AR G1 W1 P9)

Hello again everyone! We're finally back after all this time. It might not be a Friday, but I intend on concluding the poll today anyways.

Seeing as the poll results were tied by the time that the poll reached its deadline, I decided to flip a coin (Heads for cow, Tails for Stove) between the two results and I am afraid to say for those who voted for the Working Stove that The Cow came out on top of that coin flip.

And to take care of another loose end: I still remember the bonus I gave out to people who requested userbars from me back when I was still taking requests. Nobody requested any norn names, so I will be defaulting to the requesting usernames. The people who got userbars from me were Civvi, veevveeeza and Dragoler, in that order, so the next three female norns will be named as such in that order.

So starting off again in the world, I began to guide Lucy towards the Island teleporter. Basically, I had figured out that there was another spot where I can isolate norns, which is the platform on the island. Norns who are staying there can be fed using the carrot vendor and can only leave and enter through the teleporter. This allows me to free up the basement and beehives for an additional norn, which makes it safe for me to hatch a fourth norn without them crossing paths with another norn too often. I also moved Darius over to the basement, just to make sure he's not too far from Lucy.

As well as that, I also injected the Drive Computer COB that I made a while back, as I am quite fond of it. Speaking of which, I still need to finish up and release the Noun Computer COB. Don't let me forget!

To take advantage of this new COB, I moved Bruno to the Temple where he can use the computer not just to learn Drives, but also to keep his boredom at bay. This frees up the Incubator and Computer Room for the hatching of a new norn.

I don't really have much else to write for this post at the moment, so I suppose I'll keep making new posts if there are any recent developments in the world. For now, see you next time!

We're not dead!

Just sleeping a bit. I'm going to be back with the next post in a bit, I have a bit of redesign work to do with my other blog first though.

Natural Hatchery (AR G1 W1 P8)

After checking Lucy's age (by hours and minutes) in the Owner's kit, she should still have enough hours to have more children. As a result of that I've made my decision to keep the egg safe until later. If for any reason I end up with only one creature left in this world I will definitely hatch a third hatchery egg to give them a partner. Since Bruno is 3 hours younger than my main couple he might have enough time to breed with a hatchery female norn should the need arise, so long as the norn can grow and mature quickly enough for Bruno.

Lucy struggled to eat at first and decided to have a nap instead while Bruno was happy and enjoying himself by the computer with no particularly high drives. Meanwhile, Darius was steadily getting hungrier. He was bored at first but started playing with the piano in the temple to pass the time, however after he eyed a lemon on the trellis in the distance he definitely felt his stomach rumbling.

Coming back to Lucy I saw that her pregnancy recovery countdown was at 4 and she was riding the raft back and forth until I moved her back over to the basement. However, in the corner of my eye...

The egg is hatching! I quickly lifted it to freeze it into this stage for later incubation. That's the first egg in my natural egg hatchery for now! The plan is to acquire even more natural eggs for this hatchery and when Darius and Lucy become pensioners I will incubate the eggs to hatch the next generation of this world.

However, one thing worries me a bit. Is there some kind of egg limit in Creatures 1? If there is, that could be detrimental to this plan however it would depend on how restrictive the limit is. If it was something like 6 I might be able to handle it, but if it

was more like 2 or 1 for natural eggs I might have quite the problem on my hands.

After this however, I caught Bruno sleeping badly. He was standing up to sleep with a sad expression, turning left and right every now and then. As any seasoned Creatures 1 player knows, when this happens it means the norn is in fact not getting any satisfaction from this rest. I'm not sure myself why this happens, but it isn't good for norns at all and you should try to get them to sleep properly if you can.

While I was occupied with Bruno I caught Lucy running off with the egg in the corner of my eye and I have to admit, it definitely made me chuckle! To wrap up for today I would like to ask all of you readers to please vote in the poll, as it is the final day for which you will be able to do so!

Third natural egg (AR G1 W1 P7)

I opened up Albia to find Lucy walking into a wall constantly, as well as a perfect excuse to take a snapshot of the harp! I also found both Bruno and Darius to be hungry, so I had to feed them first. Once I had finished feeding carrots to them both, Lucy had already navigated to the basement and gotten herself out of the situation. Scanning her with the Health kit, however, I found her to be a wee bit peckish so I fed her as well. With all of that out of the way I also scanned her with the Breeder's kit to find her pregnancy was currently at stage 6.

Some time passes and I look away from Lucy for just one very short moment and here she is with the new egg as pictured. In fact, speaking of which, Lucy appears to be pretty camera-shy today! I am currently considering whether I should hatch the egg and hope for a female, or if I should interrupt it and hold on to it for a later date so I can hatch a batch of eggs together. However that could leave Bruno quite lonely. I have been planning on increasing viewer interaction on this blog though, so perhaps I should start some method for viewers to name these norns, or perhaps have a norn named after themselves?

Looking at our performance so far, we appear to have accumulated a lot of Breeders Score lately. I am still not sure if the goal I set myself will keep me on G1 W1 (Albia) for far too long for my liking, or if the length isn't actually that much of a bad thing, as it lets us get very comfortable in Albia before moving to the next world?

Curiosity takes me as I continue to study the Performance kit - what would happen if my Breeders Score got too high? Would the game crash or perhaps the score would just stop increasing? Would it escape the restrictions and start blocking where the text says "Breeders Score" or would more digits be added, putting more numbers towards the right? Or, would the number overflow and become something very low?

Before I end this post, please don't forget about the poll! It ends at the very beginning of Friday, so if you want to have your say in the future of the run, be sure to cast your vote!

Photos of Albia (AR G1 W1 P6)

Just before the pregnancy was confirmed in the Breeder's kit, the cable car had conveniently arrived as if it secretly knew I would be wanting to use it right now. As soon as Lucy woke up I called her into the cable car and sent her on her way back down to the beehives, while I fed Darius (and wrestled with the cable car lever again!).

With Darius sleeping in the lift I went over to check on how Bruno is doing. It turns out that while I was with Darius and Lucy, Bruno had worked up quite an appetite! I fed him three carrots and left him with his drink. As he had been so studiously tapping away at the computer, his boredom levels were very low.

As I went back to Darius to feed him some carrots I found my eyes drawn to something in the background. A huge mountain. Now while it is known the main part of the background was sculpted in real life, I always wondered what process was used to make the

distant background. Judging from the way that this mountain wrinkles as well as the rocky, dusty texture of it I would assume at first glance that this was made using 3D modelling, perhaps some old method of terrain creation coupled with a grainy texture. The way it stands out against the sky leads me to believe that the original render was completely isolated and just pasted in front of the sky. As for the clouds which sweep past it I am not sure, but I doubt those were made in 3D.

Whoa, where was I? Oh yes, I was about to check on Lucy to see how her pregnancy is going. So far we have a 5 and counting, here's hoping it's not a false pregnancy! As for her drives, which I gave a quick scan using the Health Kit beforehand, she is perfectly content aside from a little bit of pain from wallbonking. She is currently playing with the slideshow projector once again, which she does indeed appear to enjoy! Who doesn't enjoy photos of the Albian landscape?

Before I sign off for this post I would like to announce a poll! Next Friday I will be adding a new COB to this run and you will be given the choice between three COBs, be it the cow, the television for Albia or maybe even the working oven? Please vote in the poll (Located on the right hand side of the site) for which COB you want to be added to this run the most and check back on Friday when it will be added to the current world!

What's your favourite part of Albia? (AR G1 W1 P5)

The teleporter has always been an effective means to distance two norns from each other. After I finished feeding Lucy, Darius was extremely bored. When I passed him a microscope to play with I moved over to Bruno, who was in the same place he has been for most of these updates.

A quick scan from the Health Kit to check his drives - he appeared to be rather hungry! As I was feeding him I spotted Darius advancing towards the incubator in the corner of my eye. He stumbled obliviously right into the wall behind the incubator and as he did so, Bruno made straight for the teleporter of his own accord. Taking advantage of this convenience, I called the lift down for Darius to take Bruno's space.

Checking back on Lucy I made the decision to move her to Darius to try for another norn. As I called her to the cable car I took a moment to reflect (while also wrestling with the switch!) on the existence of the cable car in the game. It is indeed a very novel concept and you just have to think of the thought process that went behind it's development, how it syncs up with the background of Albia as well as the direction it moves in. One wonders what interesting e-mail conversations could've been had between developers regarding this concept. In fact, the tube train in Creatures 2 could very well have been inspired from this cable car!

When Lucy finally arrived at the treehouse I saw that Darius was out with Bruno. I used the power of the teleporter to split Bruno away from Darius and then I called Darius up the lift to meet with Lucy. However, when Darius was halfway up the lift he immediately fell asleep!

Darius lied there, snoring, while Lucy tried her best to wake him gently. After a few pushes, he woke up with a smile, returning the favour with a kisspop! However, upon checking the Breeder's Kit I saw no pregnancy. Lucy was getting rather tired and Darius was feeling rather hungry, but they tried again a few more times and a second kisspop was had just before Lucy decided to take a nap. Checking the Breeder's kit once more I had confirmed a pregnancy!

Before I sign off for this post I have a question for all of you avid Creatures fans out there. What is your favourite part of Albia? Do you enjoy the cable car, the teleporter network or perhaps the relaxing environment of the lighthouse and the island? Please leave a comment reflecting on which parts of Albia you like the best!

Creatures Adventure run G1 W1 P4

I've been having an odd itch to play more Creatures 1 lately, so here we are! As soon as I loaded up the game I caught a new grendel hatching in the treetops! After feeding Darius a bit, I quickly ushered him towards the lemons but once he was there I was having a hard time getting him to eat! After a while, I finally managed to get him to eat a single lemon, a good start for now.

After a while though I did manage to get him to eat some more carrots. Now that he's no longer hungry I moved over to see how my other norns are currently doing. Lucy appeared to be sleeping in the cable car while Bruno was constantly wallbonking near the computer. In fact, he didn't even seem to be getting pain from it. When I told him to come hand, it appeared to me that he was somehow stuck in the lift! As soon as I moved the lift down and he got out of his situation, he fell asleep.

Moving back to Darius, who had moved back into the temple, I caught the new grendel eating a deathcap! He immediately grunted and took the lift back up to the jetty, waited for the paddleboat to arrive and departed to the island, eager to get away from the Yggsdrasil as quickly as possible.

When I went back to Lucy, she was not hungry but her boredom meter was pretty much maxed out. There were no toys up near the beehives aside from a trumpet, which has a different object type than a usual toy.

As I tried to find her a toy, she moved down the lift to the theatre where I told her to play with the slideshow projector. I also got a snapshot (pictured left) of her looking (almost) directly at it! Satisfied, she moved down the lift to where the instruments are kept.

Jumping back to Bruno, he appears to have grown up! He also appears to be somewhat hungry. I check the owners kit and it reports that Bruno is 29 minutes old.

I think that'll be all for this post of Creatures Adventure run! I would like to take the time to say welcome to everyone who came here from Albian Engineering! I've recently set up here to focus on Creatures blogging as a different blog allows me to promote it under a different name and also to give it a different layout. I hope you enjoy what this new blog has to offer!

Creatures Adventure run G1 W1 P3 (Mirrored)

(Post mirrored from Albian Engineering.)
Been playing my world again lately. Let's see what has happened in it!
I've been having Lucy at the left side of the world again by the hives for her to recover from her pregnancy, which she eventually did. Next I had to wait for her estrogen cycle before moving her over to Darius.

I checked the Breeder's Kit and waited patiently, and we have a confirmed pregnancy! I quickly moved Lucina back over the raft and Darius up the lift to end the meeting. When Lucy arrived at the hives, I watched her pregnancy through the Breeder's Kit, hoping for an egg. And luckily for us, there was no false pregnancy!

I noticed Darius was getting hungry, so I had to go feed him while I wait for the egg to grow larger. After keeping Lucy away from the cable car for a while, the egg was finally at liftable size, so I moved it into the incubator. Let's hope it isn't a stillbirth this time!

Thankfully, the baby survived! He seems to have inherited none of the appearance genes from his mother, appearing as a pure Purple Mountain Norn in appearance. I've so far noticed no odd mutations and I've moved him up to the computer and fed him. Looks like we're finally off to a good start!

Creatures Adventure run G1 W1 P2 (Mirrored)

(Post mirrored from Albian Engineering.)
I've been playing Creatures 1 again recently and both of my norns have reached breeding age. As per usual, I waited until Darius was fertile and at peak sex drive and then I waited until Lucy was on her downwards estrogen cycle and peak sex drive.

When I tried to pair them together, Lucy just fell asleep as soon as she came down the lift into the temple but Darius was still able to kisspop her. I waited for a while in the Breeder's Kit to check if she was pregnant, and indeed she was. Let's hope it's not a false one.

 I moved her up to Yggsdrasil in order to separate her from Darius for her pregnancy. Eventually she laid her egg.

After that, I moved her to the hives and waited for the egg to get a bit larger before I decided to move it into the incubator. I had originally planned to just let it hatch naturally but then I remembered that I have to teach the norn through the computer, so hatching it in the incubator would be more convenient. However when I hatched the egg, this happened.

Drat, a stillbirth. It's a shame too because I managed to get a female, which is ideally the norn you want to hatch first because it takes longer for them to become fertile. However this shows that the Natural Eggs objective is much easier to achieve than the Reach Generation objective as norns have to survive to pass on the next generation.

I think that should be enough for now so it is now time for me to get to work on today's CCSF post.

Creatures Adventure run G1 W1 P1 (Mirrored)

(Post mirrored from Albian Engineering.)
So I've decided to play out the game-mode myself, as a kind of trial run. So as explained in the rich text document, we're starting out in the default Albia and I'm not too sure on what to have as my objective yet. I think 25 natural eggs might work, or generation 10. I'll have to see which comes first and check my breeders score when it happens.

Starting out, we have our first norn, Lucy. She's a nice norn with good initiative who has a tendency to follow my hand on sight. And also likes to shoot me out of the sky with a cannon.

Our second norn is Darius. He's very similar to Lucy, but he tends to get stuck in the incubator lift a lot. He also likes tea very much.

As usual, I've hidden all of the hooch and cheese away from where my norns can find them, so I can ration my cheese and keep the hooch safely stored away when we ain't partying. The grendel has made his way to the island, giving us plenty of room in the world.

I'm not sure what else to write for now, so I'll write up another post when more stuff has happened in the world.

Creatures Adventure Mode (Mirrored)

(Post mirrored from Doringo's Dominion.)
I've been recently thinking up a new game-mode of sorts for the Creatures series, however mostly just for Creatures 1 and 2. There are other worlds for C1 and C2, but I don't see them get much use.

When thinking back to Creatures PS1 and how norns would progress from world to world on an adventure, I had an idea for a game-mode, a set of self-imposed rules to spice up your Creatures experience.

The game mode is Adventure Mode. Basically how it works is that you start off in Creatures 1 on the default Albia and you have to try to fulfill an objective, be it to get 20 natural eggs, reach generation 15, amass a certain amount of Breeder's score, et cetera. Once that objective is fulfilled, you can move any norn which is past the native generation, such as 1st gen for instance if we're talking about the first world in the conquest, to the next world in the list. There should be a limit of sorts to how many norns you can move to the next world, maybe only a party of 4, with at least one male and one female at minimum.

The main intention of this besides to spice the game up is to allow users to bend the rules to suit the experience they want to create. You can come up with your own little cheesy story for how the norns are getting to these different worlds, like maybe they walk across Albia and find this weird building at night and that's how they end up in the Albian Museum world.

I plan on doing this myself, and maybe writing a few blog posts about my experiences. If you want a general outline of the way it plays, see this copy-paste from the rich text file I used to plan it out.