C1 Downloads Images Fixed + Status Update

First things first: If you've looked at the C1 Downloads page lately, you might have noticed that most of the images read "Please upgrade your Photobucket account to enable third-party hosting" instead of actually showing what the breeds looked like.

Rather than deal with this questionable business decision, I opted to just reupload the images via Blogger's natural image uploading function. Now all the images should display properly.

Originally that was all that was going to be here, but I figured I might as well say a few things about my current frame of mind concerning Creatures.

And that, sadly, is that it's completely unchanged from before. My motivation for Creatures-related things is still zero, and for mostly the same reasons. So chances are the silence here is going to remain, though I'll still do my best to make sure all my stuff remains available in this era of dying Creatures websites.

While I'm here, I figured I might as well advertise Pilla's Discord Server, the Caos Coding Cave. I hopped in there a while back, and while it's been just as quiet as the rest of the community (which I'm really not helping much) I haven't really regretted it.

It is worth mentioning it's aimed at Creatures development, though. For non-developing people there's the Norn Nebula server, which I don't have a link to. I haven't joined that server, for reasons I'm not stating in public.

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

The End of an Era

I've got good news and I've got bad news.

Let's get the good news out of the way first: with help from Crabcat at Creatures Caves, I've managed to remember and recover all of my downloads from Creatures @ CU7. Not only that, but I've also backed up all my Norn Adoption Center breeds as well; while that website is currently still up, I felt it was better to be safe than sorry. Now you should be able to find everything I ever made right here at the Realm, in the appropriate Downloads section.

Well, except my Norn Adoption Center adoptions. I suppose I could put those here too if enough people want them, but for now I don't think they're high priority for me.

And now, onto the bad news: I've decided to officially retire from Creatures development.

The thing is that my interest in actually playing the games has been completely abysmal for a while. My tastes in video games have changed a lot since I've started this blog; these days, I'd much rather be playing something with a good story and characters, or failing that at least fun combat and bosses. Creatures just doesn't cut it anymore.

Furthermore...I've said it a million times before, but I'm going to say it again. The community just isn't what it used to be. A lot of the old timers, including a lot of the community's best developers, haven't been around in ages and may never return. What's left just doesn't seem to display the same kind of spirit. It's not overly motivating, to say the least.

This isn't to say I'm abandoning the Creatures Community. Even if I don't intend on developing any more, I still like being a part of the Community and will do my part to support it. Heck, for all I know someday I'll find a way to reinvigorate my passion for this game and start churning out stuff once more. It's just looking really unlikely I'll ever make another addon for this game, or even update this blog much after the fact.

...Well, I do have one last surprise in the works. I don't know when I'll finish it, but hopefully it'll be up soon. Keep an eye out for it!

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.

An Update for the New Year

To wrap up 2015 for the Realm, here's the yearly Chione update. Sadly it's yet again something pretty minor, and I won't blame you if you're getting annoyed at all these minor updates. However, you'll probably be happy to hear that this is the last infrastructure update. The next update, whenever it may be, will likely be much more substantial.

But for now, here's Chione V1.2 (it's occured to me that this should probably be version 0.X because the metaroom's technically unfinished, but meh). The biggest change this time around is the addition of doors to replace some of the Pillars of Teleportation. In accordance with my recent findings on CA links, this should make it easier for creatures to navigate around the room. I've also rearranged the remaining Pillars so that they're solely used in the caverns.

What's in store for the Realm in 2016? I'll make an update about that sometime in the future, but for now I'm feeling pretty burned out on Creatures and want to focus on other things.

Until the next one, folks. I'll see you in 2016!

Artemia Sea Update #2

It's only been one post since the last Artemia Sea update, and here I am with another. Okay, in reality it's actually been a while since the last Artemia Sea update, but given how infrequently I've been posting it certainly looks recent. 

This update is considerably more substantial than the last one:

• All the flora and fauna will now fall down slightly after being picked up and dropped. This is because they stop functioning completely when picked up, and when one put them in the inventory or some other vehicle they'd unrealistically keep floating.
• Dead organisms will now adjust their falling speed depending on if they're in water or not. Previously, their floating speed depended on where they died; they'd drop like rocks if they died due to drowning in air or slowly fall down if they died of natural causes underwater, regardless of their current room type. 
• The adult jellyfish are considerably less toxic, making them slightly less dangerous to creatures.
• If for some reason a shark dies (normally they can only die when the hand manually changes their attributes and drags them above water), it won't "revive" if pushed or pulled. 
• The seahorses will move a little faster when trying to get to a plant or a mate, and are also less likely to go above the water's surface. 

As always it's available from the Metarooms page of the C3/DS Downloads section, or you can save yourself some clicking and just get it here.

I'm also working on updating the Deep Abyss, but it's not quite ready yet. I'm actually planning on trying to have it completely finished by the time CCSF 2015 rolls around. Whether or not I manage to release anything else then is still up in the air (on top of my usual laziness, I've also got the task of coordinating it to worry about).

Until the next one, folks.

Artemia Sea Update

Here is a small update for Artemia Sea. I received a report that it was being laggy. Upon looking into it, I left out a line of code in the Sea Gooseberries that might have made them tax the system a little more than intended.

While I was at it I also attempted to fix the issue where the sharks and reef fish could be played with by creatures whilst in the middle of their turning animation. Unfortunately I don't think it worked, but try it and see?

You can get the update from the link on the Metarooms page in the C3/DS downloads section, or here.

Until the next one, folks.

Chione Update

For the third year in a row I have a Chione update ready for release. It's looking like it's going to be some kind of odd tradition that'll end awkwardly once Chione's more or less completely finished.

Sadly, there's still no life in this room. Instead, I've changed how the transportation pillars work. Originally, they became invisible after a creature used one to prevent them from speeding past their intended destination. After testing with the similarly coded elevines, however, I found that this method could lead to increased chances of Eat Elevator syndrome should the creature not find what it's looking for at its destination. 

The new lifts instead flash their buttons for a short time before transporting the creature. It still works to make sure the creature actually stays on the level it intended to reach, but by keeping the elevator visible it helps reduce instances of EES. 

This new update can be downloaded from the Metarooms section of my C3/DS Downloads, or you could save yourself some clicking and just get it here.

Until the next one, folks. I'll see you in 2015.

Silence...And an Eventual Return?

It seems like every passing year I post here less and less. Compare my posts during the first year of my blog's existence, and then look at the posts for the following years. Heck, I haven't made a proper post since September (well, excluding that Creatchi rant that I deleted some time ago; it turns out I was worrying about nothing after all and I felt it was a little a too harsh in light of that). The Featured Freak's been ongoing, but beyond that it's just been really quiet here. 

It's mostly because I've just been in a rut lately. Besides the fact that other things have been more interesting (Xenoblade Chronicles especially; I've been playing that game practically nonstop for a couple weeks now), my attempts for developing just haven't been going well. Every attempt at making a genetic breed has just been devolving into a GoM ripoff, for instance. 

Thinking about it now, developing probably is taking a lot out of me. While I doubt I'll ever stop tinkering with genetics or CAOs, the full blown projects take quite a bit of work (especially with my new standards) and oftentimes I wind up with something I'm not happy with. 

The alternative is simply to just play the game, and I've been doing just that. However, setting up a world is still a massive pain thanks to my finicky habits; it seems like every world that I don't end up deleting is just focused on the Meso and nowhere else. 

So what is my plan now? Option 1 is simply to play a different game other than C3/DS; I still have my C1 grendel world and after looking back on the first four updates I posted about it I think continuing it after leaving it alone for so long might be good. I may or may not post updates about it should I start it up again, however; like I mentioned back when I started it I really don't like having to pause the world and take pictures for a post, even if I do like the final result. 

The second option is to focus my development efforts on something less extensive. One thing I've been considering making is a spritemix; that is, creatures who do not have unique sprites or a unique genome, but instead simply opt for an interesting appearance (usually through a combination of colors and a mixture of sprites from various different breeds, hence the term "sprite-mix"). It's been something I've been wanting to try making for a while. 

In addition, I've also been considering just making packs of colored creatures, which while not very original does provide a good amount of variety for other people's worlds. If nothing else, it'd give people some CFE versions of otherwise non-CFE breeds to play with. 

Whatever the case, I should probably try to post here more often. 

To end things off, most are probably aware that the CCSF 2014 is back in action after technical difficulties killed it for a while. I'm not expecting a whole lot out of it since it took a while to get planned, but what's been released so far has been pretty nifty even if it isn't huge. That being said, you can expect at least one big release; against all the odds I managed to get out a metaroom - a complete metaroom at that, not an empty place like the initial Deep Abyss or Aquanornia Revamped were. I'm rather proud of it too, so I hope you'll enjoy it whenever it gets released. Not to mention my version of the Spam Norns was released on Day 1. I'll be posting my CCSF stuff here once the festival's over, as I did with last year's and the year before that. 

Secondly, depending on how things go I might actually be able to get out a bonus release before the festival's over; I am working on a breed now and so far it's coming along swimmingly (if for no other reason than that one big thing that kept bothering me for past projects, the idea to keep the breed as close to the official breeds as possible, is a non-issue since among other things it makes heavy use of an unknownase chemical). Failing that the next Featured Freak should be up soon. 

As a matter of fact, I was going to post a tutorial about something, but I decided to post this status update instead since the introduction was getting a bit like that. That should hopefully be up soon; I just need to take some pictures first. 

Until the next one, folks.

The CFF and Future Releases

You guys know that future birthday release I promised in my last post? Well, when I said "by the end of the week"...I really meant "sometime early next month." I don't have a good excuse for slacking off as much as I have been; I really don't. Anyway, provided I can win this grappling bout with my own brain, that release should be out soon. I'm toying with some ideas; I might go with one of them or just finish up the thing I was working on. However, there is one thing I know for certain, and that is that there's a new set of features set to become permanent fixtures in my genomes from here on out.

As some of you might be aware of, there's a new project underway to improve the C3/DS genome under the name of the CFF. To be quite honest, my initial reaction to this project was jealousy. Half the things going into this genome feel like stuff I should have figured out ages ago. It was bad enough that it was a good part of the reason why I haven't been as into Creatures recently.

After thinking about it some more, however, I realized that improving the default genomes really isn't my niche. In fact, I think I'm not good at doing that at all since the way my brain works doesn't usually alert me to potential problems in need of fixing. No, I'm the guy who makes cool and kooky breeds with the intent of spicing up your gene pool. Why should I be so annoyed about the CFF?

That was about when I got over it. Instead of being all miffed about it, I instead decided to incorporate a few CFF edits into my breeds. What are these edits, you ask?

• The Fullness lobe and accompanying tract. It's only two genes, and considering I run a lot of wolfling runs where there's a risk of the creatures eating themselves out of house and home this sounds very useful. 
• The "WILL YOU SHUT UP" edits (as affectionately titled by Kezune). Again, this is an easy edit to implement, and its effects again serve to make sure creatures actually tend to their needs. 
• The Hungry Drive Overwhelmsion organ. This edit's a bit different from the previous two as it involves a lot of genes and can affect compatibility with other creatures (especially considering that in my breeds it's grouped with the Drive Maintenance and Fearly and Painly Drive Overwhelmsion organs instead of being left at the end of the genome like the CFF). As with the previous edit, however, it helps make sure creatures take care of themselves. Furthermore, a few of my past breeds actually had this edit before the CFF did (anyone remember the Enhanced ChiChi Norns? They were the first breed to have this organ, though the version that's in the CFF does seem to work better). 

As the CFF are still a work in progress, I expect to have to update these features from time to time to correspond with new developments (though the two test grendels I have right now seem to be getting along just fine). Since I don't make breeds that often anymore, this isn't as big a problem as it seems. 

While I'm at it, I'll comment on the other features of the CFF I don't plan on incorporating into my breeds.

• The inhibin cycle: I have a theory that the inhibin chemical was just a leftover from early on in development. Notice how libido lowerer accomplishes something similar, but for both sexes. I think inhibin might have been planned to be used early on, but then got shafted in favor of libido lowerer and the developers simply forgot to remove the genes related to it. Not certain if this is actually what happened, but it seems plausible to me. True or not, this is one of those edits that looks nice, but isn't really necessary. It really doesn't do anything to help creatures survive, which is a big part of my goal when gengineering, and also has an effect on compatibility with creatures without the edits (considering I'm adding a new organ I might as well minimize the damage otherwise). Plus I prefer fast-breeding creatures anyway as those make wolfling runs go faster.
• That being said, the removal of that broken Testosterone receptor IS something I'm incorporating, as it's actually harmful to some degree.
• The lactate cycle: This does help creatures survive, unlike the inhibin cycle. However, I'm still leaving it out. For one, lactate isn't something I'm overly concerned about as it only has one source in default C3/DS creatures (muscle toxin). Secondly, a good chunk of my breeds are amphibious anyway so drowning is a moot point. And as with the inhibin edit, it has an effect on compatibility (though not to a huge extent). 
• One more thing about this edit: The version of it as it exists in the CFF involves use of an unknownase chemical. I'm planning on seeing if I can get a version of the cycle to work without use of that chemical at some point in the future, and if I succeed that will be the version of the cycle that shows up in my breeds. Until then, I might just make it so Lactate actually decays at a decent rate so it doesn't hang around for a creature's entire life. 
• Most of the other planned edits (responses to CA levels, alcohol having an effect on the liver, etc.) just sound like flavor edits to me - that is, their sole purpose is simply to make the CFF more similar to creatures from previous games. That really isn't something I'm interested in having in my breeds. Unless one or more of them really does help the CFF perform much better than the default C3/DS creature, I'm probably going to ignore them.

And that's all for now. 'Til the next one, folks.

The 22nd of July

Today is my 22nd birthday, as many are probably aware of by now. While it hasn't been anything spectacular, I did have a preliminary celebration of sorts on Saturday, so I'm fairly content with whatever happens today. But onto something more Creatures-related.

If you've been following me for a while, you probably know that I have a tendency to make and release things on my birthday. I didn't intend to make this year an exception...but sadly, it appears that's going to be the case. As of now, I have nothing new to show. I was too tired last night to work on anything new, and I've been too occupied with other things *coughAnimalCrossingcough* to do more than a hastily-made thing today, which I don't feel like making. So sadly, there isn't going to be a release today.

HOWEVER. That's not the end of the story. Believe it or not, I AM working on a proper release. And I WILL have this release out by the end of the week. Compared to some of my past works it's not going to be really spectacular, but I do hope it'll be enjoyable regardless. 

Now that that's out of the way, I appreciate all the well-wishes I've received so far (special mention goes to Jessica for giving me a shout-out in Discover Albia's latest update). It's been a while since I've really been into Creatures, but I do not intend on abandoning the series or indeed the community surrounding it anytime soon, and I hope it all continues well into the future. 

And now for some general status updates: Freak of the Week, as you might have guessed from there not being a new freak for over a year, has properly ended. However, that's not the end of me posting featured adoptions here. I'm planning on retooling the feature into the Featured Freak, which will be updated once or twice a month as opposed to once a week. The first Featured Freak will be up either sometime later this week or at the beginning of August. 

My C1 grendel world isn't dead, but it is resting. First off, I just haven't been in a Creatures mood for a while now and decided that I wouldn't force myself to update it constantly if I really didn't want to. Now that my drive is starting to return I've been focusing on C3/DS again. I might post another update about it in the future, but don't get your hopes up. 

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

On a Lack of Interest

So I've been thinking about why I haven't been playing Creatures lately and why I haven't had much of an urge to do any developing. I guess part of it is that the community has been rather inactive as of late (although granted, it seems like everyone is horribly busy and/or sick right now, not just the Creatures community), although that's definitely not all of it as I'm finding Creatchi to be more enjoyable than the actual game right now. 

I've come to the conclusion that the biggest problem is the way I tend to play the game. 

I'm not the sort of person who can just inject a few metarooms, some agents, and then hatch some creatures and get to playing with no issues. No, I have to gut every single metaroom to remove any creature-unfriendly agents or navigation and replace them with fitting creature-friendly substitutes. This sounds simple on paper, but more often than not every world I attempt to create turns into a coding project. 

Creating a new agent/metaroom every once in a while? That's fine. I can do that. Having to code every single time I want to start a new world? Not so much. 

Even if I manage to make it past the initial setup, I have to contend with my finicky taste in agents. I generally prefer natural-looking agents, or at least agents that don't look "goofy." However, my brain is extremely particular in what it considers not to be "goofy." Furthermore, even if an agent manages to look good, it also has to be creature-friendly AND fit the metaroom I want to put it in. The end result? There's somewhere in the range of twelve agents I can use without my brain throwing a fit. I can generally fill up a small room (like the Grendel Hideout) without issue, but small rooms aren't good for large creature populations - besides the fact that everyone's likely to get crowded and start beating each other up, a lot of creatures tends to be a major strain on the room's resources. 

So there's not a whole lot of metarooms I can use, either. Notably, the list of metarooms I can't use effectively include the C3 Jungle Terrarium, C2toDS, and Chione (the latter of which is particularly bad, considering I helped make that one). All of this also probably helps explain why I don't find Veridia to be as enjoyable as everyone else seems to think it is. 

Setting up a world should not be this hard, and yet it is. Beyond the fact that I'm probably ADHD, I have no suitable explanation as to why I have to do it this way. All I know is that it blows and I wish I could be more flexible. 

Chione Update Update

My memory is really horrible.

As it turns out, in updating the mapping of Chione, I completely forgot that the Map Editor file I was using hadn't updated the room types from Liam's original mapping. That is to say, while the ice over the lake is now Air and the flat area before the entry cave is now Drained Soil, the tunnel through the lake went back to being Outdoor Concrete (when it should have been Indoor Corridor) and the random Air spot at the bottom of the lake came back.

Long story short, I've updated the room to remove the unintentional reversions. It should be available from the same link as before, but you can also pick it up here.

Happy New *Arg*!

The holiday period has finally reached its end (more or less). I hope you all enjoyed spending time with your families, opening presents, eating delicious food, and whatnot. I know I did, anyway. 

To wrap up the holidays and 2013, how about I release a couple things?

Inspired by (among other things) Clohse's Sea Monkey Marina and Angelneko's Little SeaMonsters, Reef Gliders are amphibious norns who gain the ability to swim at adolescence (as well as a slightly carnivorous diet). They're not overly complicated, but I'm pretty happy with them. 

Download the Reef Gliders!

Next up is a fairly big update:

What? The Deep Abyss again? Yes, but this time with more stuff - this release comes with the plants, finally giving your deep-water-dwelling creatures something to munch on. Make sure to read the readme before installing this version, however - there's important information for those updating from V1 in there.

Download the Deep Abyss!

That's all for big releases, but I also have two smaller updates for you. 

First off is a Chione update. I've updated the mapping a bit - the ice over the lake is now "air" instead of "drained soil" (meaning plants can no longer grow there), and the space right before the surface cave (where the door is) is now "drained soil" instead of "air." Nothing particularly noteworthy, but it does set the stage for future updates (when the ecology starts coming in at last). 

Download the Chione update!

The final thing on the list is an update to my swimming agent. It should help your creatures swim better with less incidences of them being unable to reach objects. Just in time for the release of the Reef Gliders, huh? 

Download the Swimming Agent update!

Finally, here's an update about the blog. I know I haven't been updating it recently despite the fact that I am still playing Creatures right now (and making stuff for it, to boot). The fact of the matter is that I simply haven't had much to say lately. That being said, I might decide to document the grendel wolfling run I've been doing here (for something a little more informative than my bibbles over at CCaves) or maybe even a reboot of Tevaela, since I do still have quite a lot of time off before I have to go back to college. 

For now, just enjoy the releases! I'll see you all in 2014.

Woah, What happened?

I'm still around, yes. In fact, I'm actually rather active over at Creatures Caves. However, you wouldn't know that by looking here, judging by the lack of posts for roughly two months. 

I don't think I need to say that it was the result of a hiatus. However, this hiatus was a particularly nasty one; not only was my will to do anything Creatures-related sapped, my will to do anything productive was sapped. But fortunately, I'm working on getting myself out of this rut and will hopefully get my motivation back soon. 

Unfortunately, the timing of the hiatus couldn't be worse considering that the CCSF is just around the corner. What I originally intended to do was make four genetic breeds (two grendels, a norn, and an ettin) and a metaroom. What actually got done was one extremely simple genetic breed and a metaroom without flora or fauna. For what's probably the biggest event of the Community, you'd think I would be more driven to actually get this stuff done in time.

However, while my actual submissions to the CCSF may be a little disappointing, that may not be the whole story. If I can manage to get all my ducks in a row by the time the CCSF starts, I may release a thing or two here over the course of the CCSF. That is a very big if, however - it's just as likely I won't get around to making anything more than I've already made.

On a final note, I really need to be more realistic here. Seriously, how many times I said I'd do something on this very blog and then have absolutely nothing come of it? Too many. 

Aquanornia Update #2

So I decided to run a Maraquan Grendel wolfling run to enjoy my recently-created fixes...and found out the hard way that they, and presumably other norn-bodied grendels, have trouble navigating the lowest floor of Aquanornia Revamped once they're adults. In light of this, the metaroom has been updated again.

It's available from the C3/DS Downloads page as usual, or you can get it directly here.

Two posts in one day, whoo. \o/

Aquanornia Revamp Update

After spending some more time with Aquanornia Revamped, I decided to do some remapping to increase navigability. There's been no CAOs or catalogue changes with this one, but you should at least have less incidences of having teleporting creatures, unreachable food items, and the like.

The update is available at the same link as before - you can download it on the C3/DS Downloads Page or here.

Hiatus IV

As so happens when a new college semester starts up, I've completely lost interest in doing anything related to Creatures.

I don't have any major projects going on right now (apart from an easily-finished metaroom and maybe updating the Metallophagus Pack with bugfixes), so nothing much of value is getting lost there. However, "anything related to Creatures" includes Survivor. This is unfortunate since Mahk Mako got a little too friendly with the remaining contestants, and as a result my lack of activity has kinda left that plot thread hanging.

Mea and C1anddsaddict, if you're reading this, go ahead and assume Mahk buggered off and has gone back to his usual "watch and record" style of reporting. I'm not certain I'll get my drive back before the game ends - if I don't, then I probably won't update the column again until the time comes to bid it farewell.

For the same reasons as above, I apologize for the slight delay in getting the next Freak of the Week uploaded. I had to move back in to college Sunday, and as a result it kinda slipped my mind. Which means Mea's Borgetta unfortunately lost a day for her feature here. But she's up now, so anyone who got interested by her Survivor antics can download her and see how she acts in-game. To make up for that, Borgetta might get two weeks as Freak, since I'm not certain if I'm completely willing to make a new Freak for next week.

And that's the update.

So I can Make Videos now....

If you've been on CCaves lately, you might have noticed one of my latest bibbles was this video:

If you've been on CC Chat lately, you would know that this video is actually my own creation. It's nothing too special - just a simple recording test. However, this does open the way for other videos (previews of upcoming agents, promotional trailers for some already released stuff, a little something I had planned for a while).

That said, I'm still a bit of a n00b to video editing (the fact that I really don't have access to a proper video editing program bites a bit...I did have Sony Vegas on my old computer, but unfortunately I wasn't able to re-access the download for it from my new computer without buying it again). As such, I'm not going to be very active in the video-making department for a while.

As a final note to anyone who wants to immediately subscribe to my Youtube channel, here are two things you should know:
1. It's not a channel dedicated entirely to Creatures - it's a general video gaming channel, and in fact the video above was the first Creatures-related video I uploaded.
2. I haven't updated this channel in years, and am probably going to make a completely new channel for Creatures videos when/if I get the hang of video making. If I do anything else with my current channel (not likely), it'll probably be a continuation of what I was originally doing with it (that is, uploading my favorite video game music, making video game music-related countdowns, and doing playthroughs of my favorite games).

So yeah. I'm interested in doing videos, but for now they're going to be a rare occasion. 

Edit: You know that remark I made about not having access to a proper video editing program? Scratch that remark - I just found my Vegas install on my jump drive, and I've successfully managed to reinstall Sony Vegas onto my current computer. Learning how to properly use it is going to be a bit of a pain, but you might be seeing videos from me quicker than what I initially said.

Status Update

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I've gone back to being on hiatus again, for the usual reasons (lack of interest, reality's getting in the way, etc.) As such, I feel I should probably say something about the state of my projects.

First off: The Sea Garden. I'm sorry to say that, due to a combination of various factors, that it's not going to be done in time for the CCSF. Shades of Past Seas and the 2010 CCSF, I guess. Instead, I'm planning on getting it out for Christmas at the latest.

The pack of genetic breeds that was supposed to go along with it is getting canned. In their place is a single genetic breed that follows the same theme. The replacement breed is in fact almost done; I just need to add one more feature to them and color them in.

In place of the Sea Garden, I've two metaroom updates planned.

One of them is for Past Seas. I've found the lift doesn't tell creatures using it to wait. While this isn't a really big problem since the lift only has two stops, I figured I might as well fix it to stop creatures from pushing/pulling the lift multiple times upon reaching their destination. In addition, I also want to fix the Eelgrass (again) to remove instances of the teleporting plant bug. Finally, I'm also planning on buffing the lifeforms so that they reproduce faster when their populations are low.

The other one is for Jennie's Aquanornia. While we do have Devil's Reef and Past Seas for non-swimming creatures, the former is a bit too thematic and the latter's rather small. Aquanornia, on the other hand, is both sizable and pretty generic for an aquatic area. As such, I've taken it upon myself to fix a few problems with it; such as the lack of CA/CA links and especially the fact that it didn't work with DS standalone (you'll still need C3 installed to use it, though). I also removed most of the C3 life that was originally in it, so now it's essentially an aquatic Biodome. I'm more or less finished with this one - I just need to compile the agent file and it's ready to go.

The final project is a few aquatic Garden Box agents, especially the Gumin Grass conversion that I originally lacked ideas for. In addition, I'm planning on converting some C2 stuff, some lifeforms from Aquatilis Caverna, and all the Past Seas lifeforms.

Apologies to anyone who expected the Sea Garden, but hopefully everything else that I'm releasing should help mitigate that issue somewhat.

I've been thinking....

The hiatus is still ongoing - in fact, it might be a little longer than I thought it would. It might actually be permanent.

Yes, I'm actually considering retiring from development for Creatures. My interest in the series has been the lowest it's ever been in a while, for one - the last time I opened the game, in order to work on one of the genetic breeds for the CCSF, I did some really basic edits, hatched a test norn, went "bah!" and closed the game and kit.

Development in general has been getting rather tedious for me. I'm flat out of ideas, for one, and the ideas I do come up with on my own tend to be rehashes of previous things or stuff other people have done. Plus, given how much stuff I've made, I'm not getting much gratification out of development - it lost its charm for me a long time ago. This is the main reason why I'm nowhere near as prolific as I was back when I was starting out.

Secondly, real life has been demanding. My college classes, despite being few in number, have been really demanding (Creative Writing in particular). Plus, I've been struggling with a few health issues - I had to go to the ER last Friday because I thought I was having a heart attack (thankfully, I wasn't).

Finally, other pastimes have been far more interesting. I've been hanging around the TVTropes forums a lot and using the Character Development Threads there to hone my writing skills, a good thing since I'm planning on making writing a sort of career alongside programming. I also got into competitive Pokemon recently, and I'm having a blast with that (though I kinda suck at it). These things together make Creatures look incredibly boring.

Put it all together, and I'm finding it hard to do anything for Creatures even with the upcoming CCSF acting as a motivator. Even the Sea Garden is starting to look incredibly unlikely, even if I ditch the accompanying genetic breeds.


However, right now I'm only thinking about it - I haven't actually decided if I'm going to do so or not. For all I know, I could get my interest back within the next week or so. If I do decide to retire, I'm going to drop all my other projects and focus on finishing the Flesheater Grendels - since they are my magnum opus and I've been sitting on them forever, I might as well make them the last thing I ever release.

Either way, I am going to be contributing something to the CCSF - I'm helping Nev out with one of her projects, as some of you might have noticed on CCaves. Even if I don't get anything else out, there's that to look forwards to.

I'll let you guys know soon about what my final decision about the subject is.