Status Update

First off, I finally got my new laptop last Tuesday. It's an MSI 683US - in other words, a gaming laptop with a dedicated graphics card. Suffice to say, it's working beautifully - no more random slowdown and noisy CPU that probably wasn't healthy.

As far as Creatures goes, this thing runs C3 and DS (C3 from the Creatures Trilogy, and DS from the free install - I'm not touching Exodus with a 10 foot pole if I don't have to, given all the inconveniences I've heard about it) perfectly fine, along with all the programs necessary for development (in my case, that would be the Genetics Kit and CAOs Tool - I haven't gotten around to installing the Map Editor yet). So once I get around to developing again, there will be no issues.

But there's more - the increased processor can also handle FRAPs and Creatures running at the same time - in other words, I can record videos now as well. I still need to get the hang of editing and whatnot, but once that's done I might record a video of some of my projects (and possibly make promotional videos for the ones I've completed). Just don't expect commentary from me - apart from my not being very fond of vocal commentary in general (with a few exceptions), I'm not cut out for it since I'd trip over my own words 20 or more times in the attempt and the thought of it makes me nervous.

So does this mean the hiatus is over? Well...unfortunately, no. Quite the opposite, actually. The CC is being really, really quiet - the blogs are inactive apart from Geek2Nurse's, and most of the activity at CCaves is due to either newbies, the C4 forum, or both. I've almost no motivation to work on anything for Creatures right now (although I did try to create a better swimming agent while waiting for a chance to hook this thing up to the internet - I didn't get very far, unfortunately).

However, that's not the only reason I'm still on hiatus at the moment - the other major reason is that, since this computer can handle much more than my old one could, I'm playing other games that take advantage of the new processor and graphics card - especially StarCraft II. Brood War was one of my favorite games, and now that I can run the sequel without any issues, I've been playing it practically nonstop. So yeah, the "other games are more interesting than Creatures" reason is still very much in effect.

The final reason for the hiatus: the C4 hype is really starting to annoy me. I  couldn't care less about Creatures 4, and that mindset isn't changing because its release is imminent. There are other games that I'm much more excited about (Pokemon Black and White 2, for example).

Between those 3 things, I can say that this hiatus is going to last for a while (at least for another month). I'm not certain when I'll get around to all the things I was working on, but know that I haven't abandoned them completely. I'll get back to them at some point. 

Metaroom Review: Aquamind

While I'm waiting for the new computer to arrive, I figured I might as well do another metaroom review. The metaroom featured this time is one of my old favorites: Aquamind, by zareb.

Before I properly begin, here's a bit of backstory on the room. Aquamind was one of the first aquatic metarooms to be made, and I believe it was zareb's first metaroom as well. As such, it's not necessarily the most well-put together metaroom and really shows its age when compared to other, more recent aquatic metarooms (Aquatilis Caverna, for example). 

Anyway, when one installs the metaroom and is about to inject it, he/she will notice that it has multiple parts, like the Devil's Reef, C2toDS, and older releases of Aquatilis Caverna. I imagine that this is due to zareb's relative inexperience at the time - the metaroom isn't quite large enough to warrant splitting the agent files. It's also worth noting that one needs to open the CAOs Command Line and expand the map manually before injecting Aquamind - it'll throw an error otherwise since the room doesn't expand the map automatically when it's injected.

The first agent contains the metaroom itself, and this is the sight that greets the player upon entering the room for the first time. As you can see, its graphics aren't the best, but still relatively well done given the room's age. The room is a combination of C2 and original artwork - the shee statue in the middle is the biggest example of the C2 influence. Given that there's two severed norn heads sitting on the torches next to it, I imagine that zareb was going for an evil feel with it.

That's the metaroom without agents. The metaroom once it's been filled up looks a little different.

This bit is the freshwater section of Aquamind once all the parts have been injected. As you can see, the freshwater fish make Ostrova look like fine art in comparison - another sign of the room's age. The tubas are also worth noting - besides a different classifier, they're practically identical to the default DS tuba. I'll get to how the heck they're growing underwater in a little while (for the record, the area that doesn't have fish in it is air).
There's a bug with the lower part of the room here - sometimes, a creature who wanders too far to the right will vanish, probably due to the rooms there extending past the right side of the metaroom.

The saltwater area is less intricately designed than the freshwater half, but isn't any less livable. Apart from the aforementioned creature-disappearance bug, the room is very navigable for swimming and nonswimming creatures alike. However, there isn't any way for creatures to get to one section of the room to another without the hand's assistance - there aren't any elevators or doors that link the areas together.
I particularly like the mountains in the background here - they really add to the overall feel of the room, which just so happens to be Aquamind's strongest selling point. More on that in a little bit.

Just as there's a lack of elevators and doors, there is also a lack of CA. However, just like Ostrova, Aquamind has the excuse of being made long before adding CA was one of the requirements for a quality metaroom. The lack of CA also doesn't affect this room as much since there's no elevators or doors. 

So, how the heck are those mostly unaltered tubas growing underwater? It's thanks to the odd way in which the room is mapped. While most of the underwater areas are indeed fresh/salt water, the platforms in the saltwater area have a small room inside of them that is classified as "wooden walkway," and the small rooms you see towards the bottom of this picture are classified as soil. It's an odd way of mapping a metaroom, but fortunately it doesn't effect the ability to customize it all that much. It's still possible to take aquatic plants from other metarooms and plant them in here. However, the fish in the metaroom will usually die if they swim through the platforms. Again, the odd mapping choice is probably due to zareb's inexperience.

Yes, that odd rectangular thing that was in a previous shot is a vendor, and the food it gives out looks rather inedible. It can be eaten though. This leads to another one of Aquamind's strong points is that it doesn't need outside food sources to be made fully inhabitable - between the fish, the tubas, and this odd piece of food, creatures have everything they need for nutrition. That said, some toys could probably come in handy since Aquamind doesn't come with any.

Aquamind may be rather dated, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's not worth the hard drive space or the time spent to download it. Actually, I'd say it's quite worth the download. Why? One word: Atmosphere. Aquamind is one of those metarooms that makes the mind get curious and start wandering off, making its own stories about how the metaroom came to be. If there's one thing I like in my metarooms, it's lots of atmosphere, and Aquamind delivers spectacularly in that area.

This light close to the top of the metaroom is one of the biggest contributors to the room's atmosphere. Where is it coming from? What could possibly be waiting on the water's surface?

Okay, I'm probably going to sound a little corny from this point on - I apologize for that. 

The only part of the metaroom that is air is this bit, but it's no less atmospheric than the rest of the room. In addition to another light, the clouds from C2 are also very nice touches. Between them, the tree, and the bridges, it becomes clear that this area was inhabited at one point - but by who?

Now we come to what is the most odd thing in the whole metaroom - this odd contraption. Back in my younger days, I always used to call this area the "sphere of time," probably because of the clock in it. This thing is probably the biggest contributor to the atmosphere in the entire room - what the heck was it used for? Is it meant to provide Aquamind's lifeblood? Is it connected to the Shee statue, perhaps? 

Long story short: Aquamind has one of the best atmospheres I've ever experienced in a metaroom - and that is about the highest amount of praise I can give out. 

Summary: Aquamind is a great metaroom despite its age. What it lacks in navigability and graphics, it makes up for in atmosphere and habitability. Your creatures will probably get bored without some sort of toy to entertain them, but there's no shortage of food. In the meantime, the room's design and atmosphere is more than enough to keep you busy. 

If I had the chance to give any metaroom a revamp, it would be this one. If it had ways creatures could get around the area without the hand's assistance, better graphics, and a more original plant, it could quite possibly be my favorite metaroom. 

Final Score: 8/10

One final note: Aquamind is one of the few metarooms that I've made a breed for - the Aquamind Ghost Swimmer, a female of which can be seen in the picture above. I've been meaning to update them for a while, but for the time being you can find them at my Norn Adoption Center section (it's linked to on the C3/DS Downloads page here). 

Aquamind itself could once be found at Zareb's Creations, but as that site has gone down I've uploaded Aquamind to Mediafire here. I imagine that my views on the metaroom are a bit different from everyone else's (I believe Zareb himself considers Aquamind to be a bit of an old shame), but mileage always varies.

Past Seas + Silence Falls Update

Just a quick post to announce that I've found a few more minor bugs in Past Seas and Silence Falls and fixed them:

Past Seas: Fixed the door so that creatures get told to wait when activating it, preventing them from warping back and forth between the areas the door links to. Also fixed the Eelgrass fruits so that they emitted the correct CA (they emitted Fat smell before - now they emit Protein smell like they should).

Silence Falls: I found a typo with the CA management system - the Heat emitters were unaffected when they should vary depending on the time of day just as the light emitters do. This has been fixed.

Finally, there's another announcement I'd like to make: the hiatus is still ongoing, but not so much because of other games - it's because I'm getting a new computer soon. The one I'm using now is really starting to show its age (it's noisy, has a tendency to slow down ridiculously at random times, and there's some keys missing/loose). Basically, it'll probably be a while before I get back to development, as not only do I have to set up preferences on the new computer, I'll have to install Creatures onto it and re-add all my add-ons/re-customize my bootstrap folders/etc.

After that's all said and done, I'll resume work on and release a new genetic breed, in celebration of both the new computer's improved performance and Amai's most recent release. After THAT'S done, I'll get back to work on the Sea Garden.

Hiatus 2

Once again, interest in other games has dragged me away from Creatures for a while. I don't know when I'll get around to finishing all my projects - probably around 2 weeks or so. Note that this doesn't mean that I'll be absent from the community - I'll still be around. I just won't be contributing anything, which includes posts here.

On a slightly more distressing note, the name change not only failed to keep the bad traffic away, but the bad site is currently the one contributing the most traffic when it comes to links (as far as whole sites go, Creatures Caves is thankfully in the lead by a significant margin). I'm wondering if the name had anything to do with why such sites were linking here in the first place. Do any other bloggers have issues like this, or am I just unlucky?

The Blog Name has been Changed + Current Projects

As some of you have already noticed, I've finally gotten around to changing the blog's name. "The Realm" was the first name I came up with, but I didn't change it immediately because I figured I could come up with something better. However, everything else I thought of either had the same implications as the last name, didn't fit the blog, or only fit the blog's current theme. So I settled on "the Realm." Yes, it is just "The Realm." Short and simple.

Now, why didn't I announce this immediately? Well, I was holding off on it since I was going to announce it and release something at the same time, but I reckon that everyone would have noticed the name change before I finished the release, so I just announced it now. Instead, here's a list of everything I plan on making/am working on at the moment:

C2 Genetic Breeds

 

Yes, I do have some things for C2 planned. I decided that Creatures 2 deserves a proper page instead of just being a link.

Canny Grendels: In a similar vein to the Canny Ettins of Amy from Flib Dat, these grendels will be based on the Akamai Canny Norns with altered stimuli, instincts, and poses to match the actual grendels. These are being made more as a basal genome for me than anything else - the default grendel genome is difficult to work with since there's a crap ton of issues with it, and the boney genome isn't much better.

Demon Norns: These norns were inspired by the spritemix of the same name created by Amanora. While they use the same sprite arrangement, their genome is completely different. These guys will be based on the Akamai Canny genome and are aggressive, heat-loving creatures with severe weaknesses to the cold and water.

C3/DS Agents

 

Glowflower: Another one of the plants I'm making for Mea. They're similar in appearance to the Iceflower, but increase the light level instead of reducing the heat level. These are actually mostly done coding-wise - they're in the process of being bug-tested and will probably be released soon.

Genetic Radishes: Yet another plant I'm making for Mea. These are similar to the C1toDS carrot in appearance and function, but have the chance to mutate into different colors as well.

The Sea Garden: This is a pack of aquatic plants + a critter to increase the amount of standalone aquatic plants and critters. It's actually going to be a bit larger than originally planned since many of the plants are getting additional varieties. I believe I already mentioned this in a past post, but it is a current project so I decided to mention it again.

C3/DS Genetic Breeds

 

Dendrobate Grendels: That release I mentioned earlier? That would be these guys. They're named after the traditional genus of the Poison Dart Frog, and have behavior to match. Notably, they require moisture (CA 3) to survive since without it they suffocate. They have most of my focus at the moment, and I plan on getting them out soon. Also notably, they'll be the first completely new C3/DS genetic breed I've made in over a year (the Metallophagus Grendels V1 were the last new breed before them).

Sea Monsters V2: Mentioned before, but I'm mentioning them again. These guys will be the proper second version of my Sea Monsters (V1 is available from my Norn Adoption Center page, and V1.4 is available from CU7). Unlike the previous versions, they'll use the Jungle Grendel sprites solely, but hopefully the digestive and brain updates will make up for that. I'm not certain when I'll finish them because I'm completely out of ideas for them outside of the base features of the previous two versions (peaceful, amphibious grendels that crawl around on all fours and need to be underwater to lay eggs).

As you can see, it's a long list, and I don't intend on working on it nonstop. After the Dendrobates and Glowflowers are done, I'll probably take a break before working on anything else on this list. And on another note, this marks the 25th post I've made. Only 75 more posts to go before I've made 100. \o/