How About a Contest?

So I got around to adding the edits mentioned in my last post into my base C3/DS genomes (well, my base chichi norn and grendel genomes, anyway), as well as an additional edit to enable them to process lactate (it's not a full-on cycle as it is in the CFF, but it ensures that lactate won't hang around for the entirety of the creature's lifespan). They're now ready for use in a proper genetic breed. The problem is that I can't come up with an idea for a breed. I suppose I could just "doodle" and get something that way, but that takes a while. Instead of ruminating on it for ages, I decided instead to involve the community.

Sometimes when I run low on ideas, I like browsing TCR or the adoptions section at CCaves to see if there's a particular individual who might prove inspiring. For this contest, I want you to upload such creatures. If your submission wins, it'll become a full breed.

So here's the rules:
*This is for C3/DS only - no C1 or C2 submissions!
*Find an interesting creature in your worlds. Appearance and species doesn't matter much, though since I don't have an ettin genome ready quite yet ettins aren't as likely to win as norns and grendels are. That's not to say an ettin can't win, however; an ettin certainly can if it appeals to me enough.
*Upload this creature to either TCR or CCave's adoption center, along with a brief description of how you imagine the breed based on your submission to be like. Do take care to ensure that the breed's features are actually possible in-game! You're not going to win if your breed relies on eating walls (for example).
*Only one submission per user! Also, you will have to upload a completely new creature for the contest - I won't accept already uploaded creatures.
*This should be obvious since I'm basing the breed on a creature, but just to make sure: the result of this contest will be a genetic breed - it will not have sprites of its own! I don't have the patience to make a full breed, not to mention my art skills are pretty bad, so I will not make a full breed unless you want to make the sprites for me.

I hope that explains everything, but feel free to ask questions if something isn't clear (which is always a possibility with me).

Submissions will be open until August 28 or until submissions die off. I'll post the winner a few days afterwards. Here's hoping I'll get some interesting creatures!

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.

Creatures 1: Matchmaking Time

Elise didn't take long to awake from her nap. As soon as she did, I lead her back down to Mephiles and tried this whole thing over again. Once again, the two seemed rather reluctant to socialize - this time around, Mephiles decided he wanted to be the antisocial one.

Eventually, however, I brought down the ball from the computer area, and for the first time they had a common interest to focus on. For a while, they were content to stick together and play with the ball. It was rather cute to watch, and I was happy that they could agree on something.

After a while of this, I decided to take away the ball again. Elise's response?

Yep, she decided to run away again. This time after Mephiles kissed her quite a few times. He clearly wanted to go somewhere with this, but unfortunately she had other ideas.

It's probably worth noting that they're both children at this point. Whether they got there naturally or because they got aged up a little by excess stress is beyond me.

After this, I decided to let them go their own ways. Elise wandered out into the garden before taking another doze (playing with that ball must have worn her out), blending almost perfectly into the garden background in the process. Meanwhile, Mephiles contented himself by playing with the spinning top.

Once she woke up, they finally managed to get together for longer than a few minutes before one or the other ran off. Mephiles tried kissing Elise again. Her response this time was...to slap him a few times. This girl really didn't want anything to do with him, even if he was the only other grendel in the world.

They separated again a little while after this when Mephiles got distracted by the Baobab. I decided to teach him the word for "weed" since he was looking at it, but I didn't manage to intervene before he decided to take a bite out of it. Great going, Mephiles. Great going.

Then I noticed the teleporter nearby and decided to warp Mephiles to the computer room so he could work off the effects of the Baobab while perhaps getting a nap.

Success was made. He quietly lay there for a couple minutes, and then took a nap himself. 

While he was sleeping, I took Elise on a trip to the temple, teaching her the words for "weed," "herb," and "bigtoy" in the process. Unfortunately, the flibbertygibbit didn't do a whole lot to reduce the ever-present NFP. 

Then Mephiles woke up. This time, I decided to warp Elise up to the computer area instead of bringing Mephiles back down. That way, they wouldn't be able to go far if one of them tried retreating from the other. 

The result...was one big slapfest. I'm guessing the small area aggravated their fight-or-flight genes something fierce, and the only thing around to hit was each other. Even with the violence, however, I heard a few kisses, and for once Elise decided to wear a different expression other than that perpetual frown.

The whole affair must have been something good, in fact, because after a while of it Mephiles flashed a big grin at the camera. Elise was still playing hard to get, if her exclamation of "run" was anything to go by, but at this point I don't think either of them cared. In fact, the slapping was probably good for Mephiles in the long run - rather than getting fed up like Elise (and other grendels from my base genome), he gets food from being slapped. It still hurts, but it's also good for him in the long run, and as you can see he probably appreciated it. 

Eventually, I decided enough was enough and used the teleporter to get them both down to an area where they had more space.

And much to my pleasure, they decided to remain together rather than promptly separate again. At last, they saw it fit to remain together. And at last, they stopped frowning (even if Elise was still a little grumpy). Granted, Mephiles did back off a little after this picture was taken, but he didn't go far. 

Frickin' finally. Next update will see if this relationship lasts, and perhaps a new grendel will join in the fun....

Creatures 1: Moody Grendels

Thankfully, no more errors got in the way of Mephiles's rebirth, and everything went off without a hitch. Mephiles certainly looked pleased at his second shot at life, at any rate. Unfortunately, that smile would be the last one he'd wear for quite a while. 

I managed to teach him a few words while he was still sitting there twirling about, but it didn't take him long to pick up a proper interest in the learning computer. Teaching him his words went just about as smoothly as it did the first time around, although this time he took a significantly larger interest in skipping ahead. 

Once I taught him everything in the learning computer and the words for "hand" and "food," I quickly closed and restarted the game to ensure I wouldn't lose progress this time before going to check on Elise. 

Thankfully, no crashes occurred this time. I found her out in the temple, eyeballing the pianola. She wasn't much in the mood to play some music, though. Given her state of mind, she probably could have used some. 

With both grendels hatched, the next plan of action was to get the two of them to meet. Elise returned to the garden on her own accord, while I made sure Mephiles was filled up before bringing him down to meet Elise. Some more playing around from the both of them, and they crossed paths at last...only for Elise to walk right past Mephiles without paying much attention to him. 

The good news was that it didn't take long for her to properly notice him. The bad news was that things then promptly took a turn for the silly. 

Instead of playing with Mephiles as I hoped, every time he came into her sights Elise decided the better idea would be to turn around and run. Mephiles tried to show her he meant no harm by giving her a kiss, but she wouldn't listen. He expressed his sadness with a plaintive "Get yes Mephiles," a.k.a. the C1 way of saying "me very sad." I'd be sad too if the only other person I met was insistent on running away from me!

After a while, they separated. Elise decided to stomp about in the garden and attempt to beat up the carrots, which didn't go over so well for her, while Mephiles just skulked around the incubator. Meanwhile, I watched all this perplexed over what to do and developing a healthy dislike for the Need for Pleasure drive. 

I did notice that Elise was fairly tired and sleepy by looking at her drives in the Health Kit, and so I decided that she might be in a more sociable mood if she got a nap. Since the garden was a little distracting, I got her over to the teleporter and warped her up to the computer area. 

Much to my relief, she responded by lying down for a while, before finally dozing off. 

Will Elise and Mephiles ever get along? We'll find out in the next update.