The Grendel Garden

Recently I managed to set up a wolfling run world, in order to start up a new project. I could just post a picture and a description, but that'd be a bit boring. So instead, have a video:

It's a wolfling run world (well, technically a feral run, but I don't interfere all that often) set in Veridia. I wasn't aiming for anything in particular with the room setup, other than maybe encouraging the grendels to move around more.

Most of the food sources come from the Garden Box. There's four permanent patches; three large patches on Veridia's lower level (apples on the right, explodonuts on the left, and carrots in the middle), and a small patch of mushrooms growing up in the egg hatching area. There's also a number of seasonal patches. In addition to the Garden Box, there's also a few potted plants and vendors scattered around, mostly in the upper level. There are no non-permanent food sources.

The participants are grendels, based on the ChiChi Norn genome. Every ten generations or so, I export a sixth of the population (six males or six females, depending on which gender has the majority at the time) and replace them with fresh firstgens that have additional genes I'd like to add to the main population.

At first, the population only had some edits to make them more grendel-like, but currently I can say that they breed rather quickly and have the same aging rate and lifespan as a banshee grendel. At the time this video was recorded I was trying to breed in resistance to crowding, but so far I'm not certain how that's working out.

Their appearance is a mixture of standard C3 Grendel, Banshee Grendel, and Mask Grendel sprites. I did try introducing Zwergbunt Grendel sprites, but they didn't seem to have stuck.

The max population is 24, and an Ovicidal Machine keeps the amount of eggs around that limit as well. I plan on continuing the run until generation 100.

Since recording a video like this really isn't a problem for me, I'm thinking there'll be more videos like this eventually. However, most of them won't be as long as this one. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd like to hear them.

On a completely unrelated note to all of this, I'm almost to 100 posts on this blog (took me long enough). I may or may not have something special planned for the 100th post....

Until the next one, folks.

P.S.: The music in the video is Agniratha, Imperial Capital, from Xenoblade Chronicles. It's a great game with a great soundtrack; if you have a Wii and come across a spare copy, I highly recommend picking it up.

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.

Creatures 1: Mephiles the...Fake Out?

When I last left Elise, she was sitting by the learning computer after just completing her words. Since I wanted to hatch another grendel soon and that she'd only distract the newcomer if she stayed, I decided to lead her elsewhere.

Past the greenhouse and herbs we went. I might have been content with leaving her in the garden, but I didn't want her playing with the bees. My original thought was to take her to the island, but there was a food patch at the foot of the Grendel Tree not far away.

A nice big patch of Muddy Swamp Carrots and Mushrooms would probably do it for Elise's food concerns. I brought down the ball from the upper levels of the Grendel Tree, and Elise was all set for now. I believe I've fixed the "Starch Glitch" present with Muppetboy's Carrot Variations, so that shouldn't be a problem.

After she was settled, I decided that it would probably be for the better if I got rid of the Bees and Hive Upgrade. I did so, in the process also removing the Shee Seed Launcher (the Beelacanth relies on the Upgrade for reproduction) and the Cloud Layer Butterfly (who relies on the Beelacanth).

After that was done, I opened up the Genetics Kit and got to work on the next inhabitant.

And soon enough, a little male came to life.

This is Mephiles...or rather, this was Mephiles, for reasons we'll get to in a moment. Besides his black pigmentation, he can get nutrients by being pushed or hit by other creatures. He also lacks the gene that normally makes creatures sleepy in dark areas (although C1 doesn't have a real concept of light and dark areas anyway).

Besides that, I also made a few changes to my base genome before making him. For one, I got rid of the Antioxidant-to-aging reaction. More importantly, I made it so that the brain and all its related receptors and emitters are unable to mutate. Hopefully, this will prevent crippling mutations from occurring further on down the line. That being said, Elise does not have these additional edits since I hatched her before making them, so some might sneak through.

I did the same things for Mephiles that I did for Elise; I lead him up to the computer to teach him his words. For the most part, he was fairly agreeable, although he did sometimes move on to the next word before I could finish teaching him the previous word. Afterwards, I made sure he was fed and occupied, and then went to check on Elise.

I found her playing on the Desert Island. Unfortunately, almost as soon as the camera centered on her...the game crashed. When I reloaded it, Elise had gone back to the Muddy Carrot Patch, and Mephiles was never born. Thankfully, I didn't have to re-remove the Bees and Hive Upgrade and associated COBs.

Rather than attempting to re-hatch him, I decided to just play with Elise a little more.

In the post-crash world, Elise decided to head back to the Incubator rather than moving forwards to the Desert Island. I'm not sure why; other than that she had a high need for pleasure.

She was there shortly, and stopped to mess with a piece of cheese (though unfortunately she wasn't in the mood to actually eat it). I brought the ball back down for her to play with since she was bored. However, I decided that the best way to keep that and Need for Pleasure low was to hatch another grendel.

Cue the second take at laying an egg. Rather than hatching it in the incubator this time, I moved it up to the Computer Area and used a COB to unpause the egg. It was now time to wait for it to hatch.

Will Mephiles ever get a proper shot at life? Find out in the next update! Which might actually come later today; that crash was really disappointing.

Creatures 1 - New Beginnings

My Creatures drive is in an odd position right now. On one hand, I really want to get back to the game. On the other hand, every time I attempt to start up C3/DS I run into a roadblock that prevents me from getting far, mostly the fact that I can't decide what metarooms, agents, and breeds to use.

So how did I come up with a solution to this? Well, note that I said "C3/DS," not "Creatures in general."

Instead of attempting to play C3/DS and getting stymied by my own pickiness, I decided to go with Creatures 1. Despite the fact that C1 creatures are nowhere near as self-sufficient as C3/DS creatures are, C1 has the advantage of being much, much simpler. For one, I don't have to worry about what COBs have what behaviors. Coupled with the fact that there's more natural-feeling COBs for C1 than there are such agents for C3/DS, there's enough COBs for me to use comfortably without feeling I don't have enough. Secondly, genetics are easier to work with and not nearly as time-consuming. This is good, as genetics tie pretty heavily into my plans for this world.

You see, I decided to take a page from Keeley's blog, Creatures Great and Small (which is a great blog by the way. Although it's been years since the last update, what's there is incredibly interesting). The first generation of this world will each have some special genetic tweaks to make them more unique (and hopefully have some interesting babies when they get to breeding).

I'm also going to do my best to document this world, despite my horrible track record with such worlds (look at how long ago the last Tevaela update was). It's an odd situation for me; I find it does kinda sap my enjoyment when I have to constantly pause and take pictures for the blog, but at the same time I love the archive that results and people's reactions to it. Don't be surprised if updates about this world eventually stop happening, but until then I'm going to try to update at least once a week.

So, how did my first couple minutes go?

 After creating my base genome for the creatures in the world (which didn't take long; all I had to do was tweak some instincts and stimuli), I had the Genetics Kit lay the first egg. Into the incubator it went, and the incubator hummed to life.

Seconds later, the hatching was complete...

...And out popped a little baby grendel. What, were you expecting norns? Personally, in C1 I find grendels to be much more fun to raise.

Anyway, this little girl is Elise. Apart from her white pigment, she is completely unaltered from my base grendel genome. Don't worry; everyone else will be a little more interesting genetics-wise.

Before going on, let me explain a few things about my base grendel genome. It's based on Slink's Many Colored Grendel's genome; this means that they have all the edits from the Life Kit Norns, such as the Fight or Flight genes. More importantly for this world, it means that they can breed. As previously mentioned, my only changes to this genome were a couple of stimulus and instinct changes. Grendels of this genome should be a little less grumpy and more sociable than normal (though they'll still get rather annoyed if someone slaps them). As well, I altered some instincts (mostly concerning food) to reflect the more efficient (in theory) instincts of the Wood Norns, which hopefully means that they'll eat better.

Back to Elise. I expected her to stand still for a little while after hatching, but she surprised me by being an active little baby. That doesn't necessarily mean she started walking off soon after hatching; I meant that she twirled in place for a little while. For some reason, babies in C1 tend to take a while to get moving.

After some coaxing with the ball, I got Elise into the elevator and up to the learning computer, where I started teaching her all the words she would need.

It didn't take particularly long for her to learn everything despite the ball constantly distracting her. In fact, this picture was taken after she had learned every word in the computer. She proved to have a good start as far as eating went, as well. Of the two pieces of food in the picture, she ate them both before I could completely teach her the word!

While playing with her, I realized that maybe injecting the Bees and Hive Upgrade may not have been such a good idea. Since the bees fly past the incubator area, they caught her attention and naturally she tried playing with them to less-than-happy results. I do like playing with the COB since it adds more flavor to the world (and is vital for the Beelacanth plant to complete its lifecycle), but I do wish the bees weren't so attractive. I guess we'll see what happens as things move on.

And that's all for this update. Tune in next update for more of Elise's adventures and the next baby grendel!

Tevaela: Ms. Annoyance

While I'm still on this playing kick, I think an update about Tevaela is in order. I've decided that updates about this world aren't going to be frequent - instead, I'll sometimes post something about it if I've nothing else to say or report.

Since Queenie decided to integrate herself into the main population, Artura went and took her place out in the swamp, since she had developed a sudden hankering for mushrooms.

Watching Warpish the early riser interact with the other norns has proven to be incredibly amusing:

Warpish: Come on Himiko, let's make love!
Himiko: Get away from me!
Bonita: Lol.

Warpish: Actually, I think I like Bonita better.
Bonita: Oh crap. Oh no no no!

Queenie: Thank you, Artura, for getting me away from this nonsense.
Warpish: How about now, Himiko?
Bonita: Hey, guys! Come and get me too!

Bonita: *Calls the elevator again*
Queenie: Just as I was about to get out....

*Insert "girls' night out" music here*
Himiko: Let me in too!
Bonita: On second thought, this wasn't such a good idea.
Artura: Phew. That was a close one.

(In case you were wondering where Matoko was in all of this: she headed over to the swamp. She's a youth now, but seems to have dropped the color changing - she's still the same color she was as an adolescent).

Bonita: Screw this, I'm outta here.
Queenie: Finally, peace and quiet. Oh look, fresh creeper growths!
Himiko: This isn't good enough; I want to go higher! *Winds up going back down*
Artura: Stupid clingy elevators....

 Bonita: Heeello, Queenie!...
Queenie: Oh, shut up.

*Some time later....*

Warpish: Oh, we're all youths! I know, we should have an orgy! :D
Everyone else: D:

Next time, I expect that someone's gonna get pregnant. Most likely Warpish.

Okay, I got kinda carried away with the characterization there, but those were pretty much my thoughts while I was watching this. My mind goes to some odd places at times.

Tevaela: Posthumous Update

Okay, not "posthumous" per se. I haven't deleted Tevaela if that was what you were thinking - it's merely sleeping. Last time I popped in, the norns hadn't moved from that garden and didn't move from it during the entire time. Since I doubt you want to read much about norns who don't wander, I got disinterested and started up something else, which I'll cover in a later post. In the mean time, here's what happened the last time I opened the world:

 Warpish finally displayed a sign of her weirdness by aging to youth much faster than normal. Awash with hormones, she proceeded to annoy the crap out of the other norns (who still have a ways to go before breeding age). Matoko also decided to take up being slappy as a hobby. I'm trying to get her to knock it off, but she's always behind another norn when she starts up and stops before I can get to her. Okay, that has nothing to do with this picture, but I didn't manage to catch her in the act to take a picture.

Yes, this looks like D'Artenegan is being a gentleman and bringing Queenie a flower. In actuality, he grabbed the flower before Queenie showed up. Then Queenie starting beating the heck out of him, apparently trying to tell him to pick up a more manly hobby than gardening in her own special way. D'Artenegan, being the robust norn he is, didn't have much of a reaction. Maybe he was trying to offer Queenie the flower. Okay, I'm rambling. Moving on.

Himiko decided that she needed some solitude, and became the first norn in a while to use the elevator. She didn't go far, unfortunately - after this picture, she went back down and joined the others again.

Just a group shot I decided to take. Queenie, Himiko, Bonita, and D'Artenegan appreciate their moment of silence (though Bonita's a bit crowded), while Warpish continues to be a pest and fail to understand that 1. the others aren't old enough to breed yet, and 2. she's trying to kisspop another girl.

And another group shot to end the post, taken some time after the previous. It seems everyone except D'Artenegan and Queenie decided to pair up, and Warpish finally stops attempting to breed in order to get a bite to eat.

Lot shorter than the previous Tevaela update, huh? Like I said in my previous post, I'm not sure if I'll pick up the world again any time soon. I'm finding other things to be more interesting at the moment (both Creatures-related and not).

Tevaela: Getting Comfortable

First off, this post is a major image dump, and I apologize for that.

Bonita was the first of the females to meet D'Artenegan, riding the lift right on up to meet him. It was a relatively peaceful exchange.

Queenie, in pursuit of the red-and-white bouncing ball, left the rest of the group and headed over the swamp. She would prove to be among the most adventurous of the first generation.

D'Artenegan, after his meeting with Bonita, decided to take a cue from her and headed up further into the treetops. Here he takes a nap, storing energy for the endeavors to come. 

Himiko and Artura got along well enough. In case you're wondering, I do have Vampess's altered Creature Breeding script installed, so these two have a way other than slapping to interact with each other directly. I do find it odd that two norns of the same gender still kiss, but whatever.

Bonita sets out on what would prove to be the biggest wandering of the early stages. In this tunnel, she rests and feeds on all the munchrooms that decided to grow in it. Those munchrooms are really, really adaptable. 

Back at the garden, Matoko reaches childhood (and changes color in the process) and Warpish continues to bumble around without eating much. I'm not sure what Matoko got herself into here - I thought her pain might have been genetically induced, but she recovered nicely later on. 

Queenie finds the amber stump, eats the amber it was dispensing, and proceeds to play with it. The egg layer next to her is non-functional, but it might not stay that way for the entire run....

Matoko and Warpish continue to stick together, perhaps seeing a kinship in their status as high-generation creatures. Warpish also learns that edibles are good for staving off hunger at last.

Bonita finds the lowest of the biodomes, where she proceeds to sample all the nutritious goodies that are laying around. If you look closely, you'll see the C1 Deathcap tucked in behind those pairs... I decided to inject the C1toDS Badplants to make up for the lack of the C2 deathcaps. Bonita was smart enough to leave the deathcap alone.

Warpish hits childhood at the norn-typical time of 9 minutes. Blame the import cloning for the lack of a birthdate. 

D'Artenegan also hits childhood at the highest level of the treehouse. I expected him to ledgejump at some point, but he proved me quite wrong. 

Queenie is among the last of the babies to hit childhood, and changes color to a bright yellow. She still doesn't see a reason to return to the gardens.

D'Artenegan decides that he would like some companionship and climbs back down from his treetop penthouse. Meanwhile, Bonita tries to figure out how the elevators work (she kept bouncing up and down thanks to how the lifts are coded). 

Bonita finally gets the lift to go back down to the ground level, as well as finally getting D'Artenegan to feel dirt underneath his feet. 

He takes a liking to Himiko, and is perfectly happy to simultaneously proclaim his happiness with her. 

Wayward clouds float into the valley where the norns call home. I'd call them fog, but last time I check fog doesn't snow. I really hope this little bug gets fixed in C2toDS's future releases....

Four out of five females in this picture get spooked by some unknown force. C2toDS is a rather scary place, apparently. Either way, they soon calmed down. 

Whatever it was also spooked D'Artenegan, who at this time decided that he liked it better flying solo. 

Also like the girls, he calmed down quickly and decided to pick one of the newcomer bleubells (they normally grow on the left side of the valley - I guess some seeds managed to get down to the bottom). He dropped it after a while, with the plant being no worse for wear. 

The population draws closer together as a cloud slowly descends to the ground around them. D'Artenegan and Queenie continue to be aloof, but at least D'Artenegan likes being around other norns once in a while.

 At this time, my playing was interrupted by this autokill error. Errors of this sort are among the easiest errors to prevent, but whatever. It wasn't game breaking, so I killed the offending agent and moved on.

As it turned out, a lightning bolt coming out from the blue was the thing responsible for scaring the norns - I traced it back to this thundercloud. Moe, I know you're trying to pass off the weirdly-positioned clouds as fog, but thunderstorms do not form in valleys!

Regardless of how plausible the thunderhead was, it at least got everyone close enough for this little group shot. Queenie finally decides to join the rest of the group, and doesn't find it particularly intimidating. D'Artenegan, apparently, would prefer going back to living alone. 

Sometime later, Artura becomes the first of the norns to hit adolescence. Warpish has finally stopped bumbling around and started acting more like a normal norn would, while D'Artenegan takes a few notes from Queenie and finds solace in the swamp area. 

Bonita and Matoko are the next norns to advance a lifestage. Matoko has also gotten a little brighter and now has the same coloration as Queenie. 

Speaking of Queenie, she rather likes the swamp area and hardly minds that D'Artenegan has chosen to wander it with her. While the pear plant growing on the bridge looks somewhat unfeasible, it also looks quite natural there at the same time. 

Himiko hits adolescence, and is currently taking her newfound maturity for a test drive. 

Warpish continues to age normally. Despite her odd ancestry and high generation, she doesn't seem to be all that strange. Matoko continues to stick by her side. 

 D'Artenegan's slow aging isn't that slow - he hits adolescence soon after Warpish. There's about a minute or so difference between the times he changes lifestages and a normal norn changes lifestages, in case you're wondering.

The first proper update of Tevaela ends with another group shot, including Queenie and her beautiful adolescent coloring. They are getting a bit crowded, but given all the food that's lying around it's a fair trade-off. 

For the rest of you who have worlds like this, what do you normally find worth taking pictures of? I'd like some feedback on how to cut down on my picture count so later posts don't have this many images (there's 30 here, in case you wanted to know - probably the highest amount of images I've ever stuffed into one post).