The CCSF 2023: Posthumous Thoughts

 As of this writing, the CCSF 2023 has reached its conclusion. By virtue of only having properly returned to the community a week before it was set to begin I didn't actually submit anything...well, not formally at least. I did release a test version of my standard norn genome. 

I'll admit I was really harsh on the tradition around the time I fell out of the community. I was just running on nostalgic memories of how great CCSF 2006 was to experience as a teenager, and felt the modern ones just couldn't live up. I even went so far as to dismally predict that there wouldn't be one year after year. I definitely put too much stock into how many "big releases" (read: sprited breeds and metarooms) were released any given year.

So what did I think of 2023? Well...once again, it wasn't quite as exciting as I remember 2006 being, and I still don't think 2006 will ever be matched. The community's quieter now, and more importantly the internet as a whole's just different now.

However, I'm also older and (somewhat but not really) wiser now, and I've realized that's not a great way to look at it. I've decided that rather than just yearning for the past, it's best to just appreciate the present. 

2023 might not have been as big as 2006, but it was still very fun. We got a nice batch of cool stuff. The little riddles given every day were fun to try and figure out (that last one was brutal...but doesn't a puzzle that was built with the community putting their heads together in mind also in the spirit of the CCSF?). Watching Freyla run the CCSF Wolfling Run and seeing what kind of shenanigans happened was fun.

And I've also come to realize just how impressive it is that it's been almost 20 years and the CCSF has not skipped a year yet. The CCSF still feels pretty unique too; I'm not sure if I can think of another fandom that continually runs an event like it. After all this time, the spark's still here. The community's still getting together to celebrate a series that's almost thirty years old. 

So ultimately? I'm glad I was here to experience 2023. I'm glad people are still excited enough about Creatures to have run it. And I hope this enthusiasm keeps going for as long as possible. 

Here's to the next year, folks.

Days Long Past

I've crabbed enough about "how the community isn't what it once was." All I need is a cane, and I'd be a perfect example of the cranky old man yelling at those darn kids to get off his lawn.

But what did the community used to be?

I first discovered the community not long after getting internet access for the first time. Not surprising, since Creatures was my absolute favorite series at the time. This was somewhere around 2006, or so I think (at least a couple months before I joined Creatures Caves). The days of alt-games-creatures were gone, but there was still plenty of enthusiasm to go around. If nothing else, there were a multitude of forums to pick from. 

Then came CCSF 2006. To my younger self, this was the best thing ever. Almost every day of it, there was complete awesomeness coming out. Terra Pluvialis. The Vampyre Grendels. Even the little agents were awesome. Plus there were interviews and tutorials aplenty. It truly was the best of the community coming together.

I think it's this enthusiasm that I miss most. A community full of people of all skills, willing to help a budding developer out. If they didn't lend you their skills directly, they'd at least point you in the right direction. 

In a way, this spirit's still there. A look through Creatures Caves will prove that there's still people making things and posting about their experiences. However, it's so much more quiet now. There's plenty of people posting ideas, but very little with the skills to bring those ideas to life.

These days, a genetic breed is what constitutes a major release. They are cool, to be sure, but they just lack the oomph that something like Aquatilis Caverna had in the heyday I remember. 

The CCSF's been hit really hard. These recent festivals have just felt...dead. The majority of 2018's releases came from two people, and they were all adoption packs and small agents. The coordinator really tried their best to make things exciting, but there's not much one can do to make such dime-a-dozen releases exciting. Ultimately, 2018 was the first CCSF I flat out didn't care about.

As of this typing, there has yet to be any discussion of CCSF 2019. I feel it should stay that way. With how the community's been, it doesn't feel like it'd be worth it. 

Maybe such a decline was inevitable. After all, the series is a relic of the nineties/early 2000's that hasn't seen a new game in almost two decades. Even now modern operating systems have problems running them. There's next to no chance of a new game either, since the current IP holder only wants to crap out awful mobile cash grabs. There's hope of a spiritual successor, but Grandroids feels like a long shot and I refuse to speak of the other.

It's only natural that people have moved on. It'd be so easy for me to move on as well.

Yet, I'm still here. Maybe it's because I'm a manager on Creatures Caves and don't want to give it up. Maybe I'm just that paranoid about the Creatchi bloodlines I've helped breed dying out. 

Maybe it's because the community's been one of my homes on the internet for so long that it'd be painful to leave. Maybe it's because there's still a place in my heart for this franchise and I still cherish the memories I have.

Most likely, it's all of the above.

As I type this, I find myself wondering about the people in the community now. Are they really happy with this state of affairs? Do they browse what sites of old remain, seeing a glimpse of days long past, and wish they had been here to see it unfold? 

There's still a chance that the spark of life lives, and that it can be rekindled and send flames dancing once more across these embers. Or maybe I'm just seeing things, as a has-been developer who yearns for the days of old.

TL;DR Grendel Man is an old fogey who thinks things were better back in his day.

In other news, I remembered that I backed up my old C3/DS folders, allowing me to transfer my install to my new computer with all my edits intact. With that massive barrier to playing Creatures again cleared, I might take a stab at developing again. What, I don't know. Watch this space.

Until the next one, folks. 

Swimming Agent V3 Uploaded

Just a short post to say that I've now uploaded the Swimming Agent V3 to the Realm. It should be available in the Downloads section, or you could save yourself some clicking and just get it here.

V3 was my sole release for the CCSF 2016. Compared to V2, it makes swimming look more natural, as well as fixes the bug where creatures would "jump up" a level when starting to swim. I think it's an improvement over V2, at least.

As a general status update, I'm slightly more interested in doing something Creatures-related than my last post. I wouldn't expect anything big, or anything at all for that matter, though. Chances are this blog's just going to remain quiet. If I do post something, it's probably going to be something like a metaroom review.

A Long Overdue Update

The first post of 2016, and it's halfway into April. I really need to get my priorities in order.

First things first: Let's get my stuff from the CCSF 2015 up here.

Inspired by CCaves member Lavendel, the Lavender Grendels are a peaceful, flower-loving breed. They come with their own flower agent to make them feel right at home.

Download the Lavender Grendels!

The All-Creature Autonamer and Wolfling Nametagger go hand-in-hand. The former agent is based on the default DS autonamer and uses the same catalogue file, but as the name says it works for all creatures instead of just norns. It also removes the generation-based naming scheme to give you a much greater variety of names right from gen 1, and works with C3 standalone (but I don't know how much that means to anyone).

The Wolfling Nametagger, when paired with Amaikokonut's Creature Nametags, lets you see the generation of a creature at a glance without the need for the Creature History. It's useful for keeping track of a progress of a long wolfling run. 

Download the All-Creature Autonamer!

Download the Wolfling Nametagger!

Now onto some less-rosy news. As most of you are aware, Creatures @ CU7 has gone down. This leaves me in a very awkward situation, since much of my past work was hosted on that website. To make things even more awkward...I don't even remember what all was hosted there!

Eventually I'll try to rustle everything up and put it up here, but until then if you want a CU7 download just contact me somehow (information should be part of the right sidebar) and I'll see if I still have your desired items around. If someone could give me a list of everything I was missing then that would be even better. 

My own interest in playing Creatures is currently at an all-time low; I have been working on one project or the other, but I just haven't been motivated to really finish any of them so there's no telling when they'll be finished and released. Part of the reason for this is just because I've been finding other things more interesting or pressing (like dabbling with hosting RPs on other sites or trying to come up with a way to earn money). 

There's another reason for it, however, and that reason is that the community is not very well off right now. The wounds left over from that schism last year still haven't healed, and we're losing a bunch of formerly stable websites. Furthermore, there's a decisive lack of developers in the community. Considering the Creatures Community is primarily based on mods, that's a very bad thing. 

On the bright side, Grandroids is making good progress (or so I've heard; I haven't been following it very closely). There's also Creatures Family, but I wouldn't get my hopes up for that one. 

So what do we do? I think the best idea, not only for myself but for the other developers in the Community, is to increase the knowledgebase. As I said before, the Creatures Community is primarily mod-based. The old mods are fine and dandy, but we need people constantly making new ones. 

Those old tutorials aren't going to be around forever, and when they're gone it's going to be much more difficult for newcomers to learn their way around developing for Creatures. So what we need are some more tutorials, not only covering the old ground but also touching upon things the old tutorials never covered. 

To that end, I'm planning on creating a Tutorials page here eventually, covering everything I know about genetics and CAOs. It'll cover the basics, but also go into more advanced topics (for example, receptor-reaction pairs). It's probably going to be a while considering how lazy I naturally am, but if I can ease the frustration of potential newcomers and keep the CC alive that much longer than I think I'll do my best. 

That's all for now. Until the next one, folks.

CCSF 2015 Final Day: Touchdown

The CCSF 2015 is finally over. Despite everything, I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out, and I'm happy enough people submitted stuff that they did. I hope everyone else found it an enjoyable enough festival as well.

Go check out the final releases, and if I missed you for the Credits, please tell me!

While the CCSF is over, the Community Wolfling Run still has one more day to go. Tune in tomorrow at 5 PM US Eastern for its finale!

CCSF 2015 Day 6: Semifinal Hurrah

It's almost the end, beautiful friends. The penultimate day, the penultimate batch of releases...and also the start of the last two weeks before Christmas, although that's not particularly relevant to anything.

The releases are all up now, so go check them out!

Also worth noting is that it's the next to last day to participate in c1anddsaddict's Winter Wonderland Decoration event! Be sure to check it out and get your entries in soon if you're interested!

And finally, the Community Wolfling Run is still ongoing! It'll start each day at 5 PM US Eastern time, and keep going until all the original contestants are dead. This means it'll likely outlast the festival, but hey. Consider it to be a parting gift.

CCSF 2015 Day 5: The Home Stretch

Two days 'til touchdown, and the "X's in the Y" running gag has come to an end. That's sad, but hopefully all these nifty submissions will keep those frowns turned upside down!

Go check out today's releases, and stay tuned for the remainder! Also keep in mind that even this late in the festival that I'm still accepting late submissions. Got something you want to show? I'll take it so long as it isn't offensive. 

The Community Wolfling Run is still ongoing! To clarify, it'll be starting at 5 PM eastern each day until all of the original contestants have passed on. 

CCSF 2015 Day 4: Brain's in the Woods

These "X's in the Y" titles are starting to get difficult to come up with, but that's besides the point.

Today marks the halfway point of the CCSF 2015! It's hard to believe how fast it's flying by, even with the fact that it's only half as long as previous festivals.

All of today's releases are on site now, so go give them a look!

Also worth noting is that the Community Wolfling Run has started today! It'll keep going until all of the submitted contestants die off, so until then keep an eye on KittyTikara's Twitch channel for the stream.

CCSF 2015 Day 3: Summer's in Winter

Day 3 of CCSF 2015 is here, and with it comes a nice sampling of fun, useful, or otherwise interesting things. I've also went ahead and filled up the Downloads section so it's not empty, as well as created a gallery article so all the wonderful artwork has a place to itself (although it is kind of empty at the moment...). 

Go check out the Community Wolfling Run (hosted by KittyTikara) and Winter Wonderland Decoration (hosted by c1anddsaddict) events if you haven't already! The more entries the merrier, I say. And not just because Christmas is coming around the corner.

CCSF 2015 Day 2: Past's in the Future

The latest batch of releases is now up on the CCSF website! Go check them out if you haven't already.

The title will make more sense when you see the main release of the day. Or maybe it just makes sense to me because I'm often strange like that. Either way.

CCSF 2015 Day 1: About Time

It's been a while and a few headaches in the making, but the CCSF 2015 has finally started and is underway!

Day 1's submissions are already up on the website, so go check them out. And stay tuned for the submissions of later days too; this festival might not be the largest of the CCSFs, but I've still a few nifty releases I'm itching to share with you all.

Visit the CCSF 2015 website!

CCSF 2015 Community Wolfling Run Details

News about the Community Wolfling Run is in!

It will be hosted by KittyTikara, and will be a mixed species run for C3/DS.

Please send all creatures to kittytikara(at)yahoo(dot)com.

As for eligible creatures, here's what KittyTikara's own words are on the subject:

I'd prefer no one send in any super breeders, violent creatures, immortals, or Geats. Besides that people can send whatever creature they want. If they don't have any creatures to send in, I'd be happy to create one for them.

CCSF 2015 Delayed...Again

Due to technical difficulties (read: Grendel Man is a horrible slacker and also needs a crash course in how to set up a website), CCSF 2015 sadly needs to be delayed one more week.

The new start date is Sunday, December 6th. There will be no more delays after this.

Do note that this doesn't mean the Flashmob is delayed - that will still take place on November 29th at 5:00 PM Eastern - that is, tomorrow.

CCSF Crunch Time and Event Announcements

There's only one week before the CCSF 2015 officially begins, and this time around I'm not delaying the event any further if I can help it. Basically, if you're planning on submitting something yet haven't already, now would be a very good time to get on that.

On that note, I've finally decided on a time for the CC Chat Flashmob. It will take place on

November 29, 5:00 PM Eastern

Let's keep at it, guys.

More CCSF News

Good news regarding the CCSF: turns out I won't be needing to relinquish coordination duties after all.

However, I have also decided to delay the CCSF 2015 for both the original circumstances and because I'm just so horribly lazy that everything wouldn't be ready by the original start date.

The new start date for the CCSF 2015 is Sunday, November 29. Hopefully, the extra month should be enough for both me and everyone else who wants to contribute to the CCSF 2015.

In addition, I am looking for someone else to host the CCSF Community Wolfling Run, as I'm a bit overloaded as it is and unable to stream it even though I would like to. If you're interested in taking up the task, please contact me at ccsf(dot)2015(at)yahoo(dot)com.

CCSF 2015 Needs New Coordinator

As promised, here is some more CCSF 2015 news. Unfortunately, it's not good news this time.

Crossposted from Creatures Caves:

So guys, I've got some bad news. It turns out I'm getting surgery a few days before the CCSF's due to start. While it's not all that major, I don't know if I'll be able to handle running the CCSF as a result.

So chances are I'm going to have to pass the reins to someone else. Truth be told, I was rather doubtful of my ability to coordinate to begin with (case in point: details for the community wolfling run and CC Chat flashmob should have been released at the beginning of the month yet I haven't posted anything about them since the polls ended). This is just sealing the deal.

Since it's not for another two weeks I'll still be able to receive submissions and maybe work on the website if it's ready before then, but I likely won't be able to actually make daily posts for the website, run the wolfling run, or basically anything that requires daily attention.

I hate to be such a downer, but sometimes real life is just a *arg*. If you're interested in taking over coordination, please e-mail me at (ccsf(dot)2015(at)yahoo(dot)com.

CCSF 2015 Event Planning

And yet more CCSF news because I have some ready.

I didn't have any ideas for the CCSF 2015 Community Wolfling Run despite it being the number 1 favored event on the final planning survey. So I decided to ask the community's thoughts on the matter through another survey!

CCSF 2015 Community Wolfling Run Survey

This survey will be open until October 1st, so take it while you can!

Next order of business is the CCSF CC Chat Flashmob...and what do you know, I made a survey for that too. It's handy and not reliant on any one website.

CCSF 2015 CC Chat Flashmob Survey

The final order of business is the CCSF 2015 Adoption Sampler. 

There's not a whole lot to say about this, really. Just send your lovable, interesting, or downright weird creatures to ccsf(dot)2015(at)yahoo(dot)com and see them featured in a daily showcase! Creatures from all games are accepted; so long as it's functional and non-offensive it will do. 

That's it for now; let's make this CCSF a good one.

CCSF 2015 Finalized

The CCSF 2015 planning process is now over. Thanks to all who contributed!

CCSF 2015 Survey #3 Results

The final festival will look something like this:

• CCSF 2015 starts Sunday, November 1st.
• It will last for One Week unless enough submissions are sent in to justify making it longer.
• It will be hosted on its own website. 
• The themes are Community Endurance/Longevity, Ecology, and Seasons.
• The coordinator-hosted events are:
• Community Wolfling Run
• Creature Adoption Sampler
• CC Chat Flashmob

Further information about those events will be here in due time. For now, I hope this gives people some idea about what to expect. 

As for me, my workload just increased by a lot. Wish me luck.

Finalizing the CCSF 2015

I haven't been using this blog for much other than announcing CCSF news lately; didn't even bother to announce my birthday this year. I've just been completely uninterested in playing Creatures lately, and certain events around the community have been hurting my interest even more.

But ignore all that. There's a CCSF that needs planning, and the latest poll just closed. Let's get on with that, shall we?

CCSF 2015 Survey #2 Results

And here's the next survey. This one will finalize the theme and events of the CCSF 2015.

CCSF 2015 Survey #3

I've decided not to put the date, length, and location in this survey and just decide on those myself based on personal judgment and the results to Survey #2. 

Sunday, November 1st will be the start date of the Festival. I've decided on this mostly because of tradition and because it'd give people the maximum amount of time to prepare. 

The festival will last for one week, unless enough submissions are sent in to justify a longer festival. Pretty self explanatory here. Given how sparse the last two CCSFs were in terms of submissions, I felt a shorter festival would be best in this case. 

CCSF 2015 will have its own website. My reasoning for this is because Creatures Caves has been attracting quite a bit of negative publicity lately and the atmosphere just wouldn't be able to support a CCSF. Coupled with my previous misgivings about Creatures Caves, I've decided an independent CCSF website would make the greatest amount of people feel comfortable about the CCSF 2015 and therefore actually contribute to it. 

Because of that last one, I'm looking for graphics designers and website coders to help me prepare the CCSF 2015 website. My own HTML skills have kind of degraded since I stopped adjusting this blog's design, and while I can make graphics the CCSF deserves better than what I can make. If interested, contact me at ccsf(dot)2015(at)yahoo(dot)com.

For everyone else, submissions are still open! Send those to ccsf(dot)2015(at)yahoo(dot)com as well. Feel free to use the following form to do so, though you don't need to adhere to it as long as your submission is adequately described. 

Author(s):
Name of submission:
Game (C1, C2, C3, DS):
Type (Agent/Cob, breed, drawing, fan-fiction, etc.):
Description:
Any special requirements?:

CCSF 2015 Survey #2

It's been long enough since I first posted CCSF 2015 Survey #1 that I feel it's time to move on to the next stages of planning for CCSF 2015.

Here are the initial results for CCSF 2015 Survey #1. As a reminder, you can still submit responses to Survey #1 if you wish; it'll remain open throughout the planning process.

CCSF 2015 Survey #2 is now ready to go! This is the more standard one that asks about themes and whatnot.

Furthermore, I've decided to officially open submissions for the CCSF 2015. Please send those to ccsf(dot)2015(at)yahoo(dot)com.

I have my own set of thoughts about the themes and other things about the CCSF 2015, and I'll post those here (copied from the Creatures Caves topic):

"I'm in favor of the traditional November date. It's worked out well enough for the past however many CCSFs, and it'll offer a decent amount of time for people to work on contributions from now until the festival's start. However, I am open to the idea of changing the festival's length; in the past, the distribution of the submissions throughout the festival sometimes got pretty thin. Having a bunch of more tightly packed releases over, say, one week could possibly make for a better CCSF than a bunch of sparsely distributed releases over two.

For the place for hosting it...I would rather not host the CCSF 2015 on Creatures Caves if I have a better option. Although 2014 at least tried to stand out more, the two CCaves CCSFs had massive trouble differentiating themselves from the rest of the site and they suffered for it as a result. Furthermore, one of the replies to Survey #1 made a very good point: hosting it here made the CCSF look like a feature of Creatures Caves when in reality it should be an event that spans the entire community. It's the sort of event that absolutely needs its own website.

Where would I put it instead? I'd love to have it be at www.creatures.org.uk, the traditional hosting place of the CCSF, but sadly I'm not sure how feasible that is. Worst come to worst I can put it on Blogger ala CCSF 2012, since that festival was, at least to me, one of the best, but if anyone has a better idea then say so in the survey.

Finally, the theme. I have an idea of my own I've been pondering ever since I chose to take the task of coordinating: the will to survive.

No, this isn't Darwinism or any other scientific related thing. I'm talking about the community's will to survive. The will that, long after the demise of Creatures Labs, keeps us playing this series, finding new things about it years after its release, and forging new addons for it when it could have died so long ago. We're still talking about it, sharing our findings and the fruits of our labors, and showing off all that we've done with and for it. Years after we've practically been abandoned, we're still alive and refuse to die.

This is the will that the CCSF is a testament to, and ultimately celebrating."