Tuesday, April 10, 2012

List of Random Breed Ideas

The hiatus I mentioned in the first post is slowly coming to a close. I say slowly because, while I'm playing the game, I'm not actually doing any development. It'll probably be at least another week before I can be bothered to finish up everything.

Anyway, this is just a list of ideas I've come up with over the course of several months or so. Now that my knowledge of genetics has been expanded immensely, I'd like to have something to make with it. Unfortunately, my initial bleed splurge back when I first got into development seems to have expended all of my original ideas.

As an additional note, this is just a one-time thing - I'm not updating this on a regular basis. 

New Breeds:
  •  Ceratioid Grendels: The name comes from Ceratiidae, a family of deep-sea Anglerfish known for their odd sexual dimorphism. The Ceratioid Grendels are terrestrial unlike their namesakes, but they do share their sexual dimorphism: Females are mostly a more robust Jungle Grendel, but males need to constantly mate in order to feed once they come of age. A bit like a less complex Grendel of Minimordor, in some respects.
  • Eldritch Grendels: The first member of this species was to be the predator for my Devil's Reef survivor run at CCaves. Unfortunately, I never did get their genome right and as such I wound up cancelling the run. However, I still plan on making these someday. I think their name says a lot about what they're going to be like. If you can't guess, just know that they're going to be a bit odd compared to a normal grendel.
  • LotF Pack: A norn breed and a bunch of agents based on the novel Lord of the Flies. Since it's been a while since I've read that book, it's likely I'll never get to these (and it's not likely I'd be able to finish them - most of their agents require completely new sprites, and I'm overtaxing mea as it is).
  • Merrow Grendels: An aquatic grendel breed whose behavior varies depending on gender - females are friendly, social, and mostly carnivorous swimmers, males are solitary, aggressive bottom-feeders.
  • Tidal Grendels: A breed who normally lives at the water's edge. They're not amphibious, though - instead, they'll go underwater to get a critter or something and then promptly run out. I'm out of ideas beyond that, though.
  • Unda Norns: An aquatic norn breed that's pretty generic beyond looking rather like a land-living norn. These guys need a revamp concept-wise.
  • Wolfling Grendels: A grendel breed designed for wolfling runs whose behavior contrasts that of the Flesheaters - instead of seeking out norns like the Flesheaters do, the Wolfling Grendels are generally friendly grendels who only become aggressive if harassed.

Breed Updates (Own):
  • Moonshadow Grendels: I didn't implement the invisible/visible system very well in these grendels, and as such the agent often glitched and made them become invisible permanently. Besides that, there are a bunch of other things I want to do with their genome (such as making them infertile in the light). I did make a new agent for them, but that's about as far as I got.
  • Sea Monsters: The first ever breed I made and released to the general public (or attempted to). They were my favorite genetic breed back when I first made them, but now they're REALLY outdated (by that, I mean that they have things like a reaction that turns comfort into nothing. Back then, I didn't know what the "Do not express" checkbox did). They do have a V2, but that's also very outdated (and I wasn't very happy with them to begin with).
  • Carnivorous ChiChi Norns: The sole reason I made this breed to begin with was to go with the Edible Snotrock .cos file I made shortly beforehand. While they came out nice besides that, I think I can do better with their genome than I did the first time around (that, and the Edible Snotrock .cos needs updating as well). 
Breed Updates (Other):
First off, let me state what I mean by "Other." I'm referring to breeds who were originally made by someone else, but have their concept revamped and their genetics improved by me. The Potamogeton Grendels are the biggest example of this - their original version, the Pond Weed Grendels, was made by Grendel_Slayer, not me. I'll also say that I base these updated versions on a fresh genome and not the ones that were already made.
  • Water Ryuujins: This breed was originally made by Grendelgirl_88. They're amphibious grendels tweaked to be slightly friendlier and rest around Creature Eggs. I plan to make them fit their name a bit more ("Ryuujin" means "Dragon Lord"). However, the Waterfall Grendels do resemble these guys a bit, if only in spirit.
  • Mermaid Norns: A simple aquatic breed created by Nina of Yggdrasill. They were simply amphibious Bengal Norns who changed color as they aged, but I loved them and always had a crew of them in my Aquatic Terrarium a while back. Their revamp details a change in diet as well as making them more social (among other things). 
  • Vicious Norns: KC11's flagship breed whose main feature was the ability to "eat" grendels (I'm not quite sure how she did that without an "eat creatures" agent, and to be honest I still don't).  I did have a list of features for their revamp, but I've lost that and overall forgotten what I was going to do with it. Ah well, it'll come back to me someday. 
Whether or not anything on this list comes to fruition remains to be seen (I hope to at least do the Mermaid Norn revamp if nothing else), but I hope there are at least some people who like at least some of the ideas listed here.