Pax Albiana

Has it really been nearly two years since I played Creatures 1? Strange how so much time can pass, and yet when I return, it feels like it's been maybe a week. Anyway, when I started the game, pretty much everyone was clustered on the island, so I decided to move some Norns around. Some were more reluctant to leave than others; Cassius continually tried to wrest control of the mover from me to return to the island, but I eventually got him over to the beehives. Eudocia, Gaius, and Augustus were boated over to the Grendel Tree without complaint, and Aurelia rode over to the lighthouse without any fuss either. Eventually only Oriana remained on the island.

Eudocia, who has been quite good about taking care of herself - sleeping and eating on her own - laid an egg in the Temple, surrounded by a gaggle of Norns (and the Grendel), a few of whom made a couple attempts to go down to the deathcap, which I swiftly intervened in.

All around Albia

After double checking that I'd already taught Aurelia all her vocabulary, I injected my better bees and beelacanth updates into the world, and set about planting the flowers in the jungle and near the lighthouse. Then, as usual, I looked over the Observation Kit and went to tend to whoever had the lowest life force - in this case, Julia, at 30%. She was in a small cluster of Norns on the island, so I broke the group up and shuttled them over to the mainland, but scattering Norns is easier said than done. Making matters worse, at around 20% life force, she got pregnant! Thankfully, I was finally able to get her to eat something, and once she started, she scarfed down several more pieces of cheese.

Meanwhile, Verania was also pregnant and hovering at low life force, but there was nothing I could do about that, so I instead turned my attention to Eudocia, the one Norn still on the island, whose life force was now the lowest on my list. She, thankfully, didn't put up much resistance when I asked her to eat. It's amazing how some creatures are so difficult and others so easy to work with. After that, I made my rounds. Verania laid her egg in the treehouse, then took the cable car over to the windmill. Julia laid her egg in the temple at almost the same time, while Augustus looked on. Cassius played in the garden, and Secundus rode the raft back and forth underneath.

Bees, Beelacanths, and Flies, Oh My!

Having finished my improved version of the bees and hives update, as well as my improved beelacanth, I'd like to go into detail about the changes I've made to the code, which means lots of rainbow-highlighted CAOS scripts. If anybody reading this post happens to be colorblind, I apologize in advance. To the anonymous commenter who wanted more CAOS code: you're welcome.

Sharing the love

Well folks, we're officially caught up on the backlogged journal entries! Norns of the Round Table is now live. To celebrate, I streamed today's session in Discord for a group of friends, who had never heard of Creatures before, with a cheatsheet I'd put together to help them identify my Norns in the corner. To my immense surprise, I actually had a small audience! Unfortunately, the first hour of the show wasn't the most interesting, as it consisted almost entirely of trying to convince Tiberius to eat. It was pretty hilarious, though; everyone was cracking jokes about him being on hunger strike, and there was a small commotion in the call every time he picked up a carrot (and inevitably dropped it moments later).

Julia's life force also slowly waned over the course of the session, so when Tiberius decided to take a nap, I took the opportunity to isolate Julia and convince her to eat some honey. Unlike Tiberius, she only took a little bit of coaxing, and was soon happily munching away. After some time I noticed that Tiberius was still asleep, and his sleepiness drive was still high. I gave him multiple doses of Wake-up Pill to no avail, and sensing a bug, decided to quit and relaunch the game. Unfortunately, at this point, "unsticking" Tiberius led to his immediate death.

At this point, I excitedly dove into genetic analysis of a replacement, only to realize just how much baseline knowledge and understanding of Norn biology I had really built up as I floundered to figure out where to even begin explaining to the folks on Discord what we were looking at.

Bee nightmare script, annotated

 [Originally written July 12 2021]

I started by examining the official beehive upgrade script. It includes scripts for both bees and hive. I started first with the hive, and found that most of the scripts are fairly simple. The push script looks complex and frightening at first, but on closer inspection they’ve just crammed multiple statements into the same line. Split up for readability and annotated, the script is long but not so frightening.

The biggest problem here is that this is the push script, which should feed the creatures in accordance with similar vendors, but instead it dispenses bees. I suspect this is so that you get bees upon clicking the hive, so when I swap the scripts, I’ll either have to disable that feature or find a way to conditionally react differently to the hand.

Then I moved on to the bees themselves. Whoever wrote this monstrosity should be keelhauled. 

Thanks, I hate it! I went through and added linebreaks and indentation for readability, then annotated the whole thing. You're welcome.

scrp 2 10 3 7 loop  anim [01R]  rndv var0 0 1  doif var0 eq 0   doif obv0 le 0    gsub hunt   endi   doif obv0 ge 2    wait 10    gsub hive   endi   rndv var0 -1 1   addv obv0 var0  else   rndv var3 10 20   reps var3    rndv var0 -10 10    rndv var1 -1 -5    mvby var0 var1    rndv var4 1 4    wait var4   repe  endi ever subr hunt anim [01R] setv var0 posl setv var3 post rtar 2 4 14 doif targ ne 0  setv var1 posl  setv var4 post  setv objp targ  targ ownr  setv var6 var1  setv var7 var4  subv var1 var0  subv var4 var3  setv var5 var1  doif var5 lt 0   negv var5  endi  doif var5 lt 2100   divv var1 200   divv var4 50   reps 50    reps 4      rndv var2 -5 5     mvby var1 var2    repe    rndv var2 -2 2    mvby var2 var4   repe  else   divv var1 600   divv var4 60   reps 60    reps 10     rndv var2 -5 5     mvby var1 var2    repe    rndv var2 -5 5    mvby var2 var4   repe  endi  setv var0 posl  setv var3 post  subv var6 var0  subv var7 var3  divv var6 30  divv var7 30  reps 30   mvby var6 var7  repe  targ objp  doif touc targ ownr gt 0   rndv var9 0 5   doif var9 eq 0    mesg writ targ 1   endi   targ ownr   addv obv0 1  endi endi targ ownr reps 20  rndv var0 -5 5  rndv var1 -5 5  mvby var0 var1 repe retn subr hive anim [01R] setv var0 posl setv var3 post rtar 2 8 1 setv var1 posl setv var4 post setv objp targ targ ownr subv var1 var0 subv var4 var3 setv var5 var1 doif var5 lt 0  negv var5 endi doif var5 lt 2100  divv var1 200  divv var4 50  reps 50   reps 4    rndv var2 -5 5    mvby var1 var2   repe   rndv var2 -5 5   mvby var2 var4  repe else  divv var1 600  divv var4 30  reps 30   reps 20    rndv var2 -5 5    mvby var1 var2   repe   rndv var2 -5 5   mvby var2 var4  repe endi setv var0 posl setv var3 post targ objp setv var1 posl setv var4 post targ ownr subv var1 var0 subv var4 var3 divv var1 10 divv var4 5 reps 5  reps 2   mvby var1 0  repe  mvby 0 var4 repe setv obv0 0 retn endm

ENTER SCOPE SCRIPT Endless loop {Flap wings animation  Pick random choice of 0 or 1  If choice is 0  {if obv0 is 0 or less (obv0 = fullness)   {run the hunt subroutine   }   if obv0 is 2 or more   {wait for 10    run the hive subroutine   }   Pick random value   adjust obv0 accordingly  }else (if choice is 1)  {pick random number of repetitions   For that many times...   {pick random vertical value    pick random horizontal value    move by that amount    pick random amount of time    wait that amount.   }  } } HUNTING SUBROUTINE (when bee is hungry) flap wings animation record x position record y position target random beelacanth if target exists {record x position of plant  record y position of plant  set object pointer to point to this plant  target bee again  save plant x position  save plant y position  find x distance to plant  find y distance to plant  record soon-to-be-absolute x dist to plant  if it's less than 0  {negate it to make it positive  }  If absolute distance is less than 2100  {divide x distance by 200   divide y distance by 50   for 50 repetitions   {for 4 repetitions    {pick random value between -5 and 5     move toward plant in x, random y    }    pick random value between -2 and 2    move toward plant in y, random x   }  }else (absolute distance is more than 2100)  {divide x distance by 600   divide y distance by 60   for 60 repetitions   {for 10 repetitions    {pick random value between -5 and 5     move toward plant in x, random y    }    pick random value between -5 and 5    move toward plant in y, random x   }  }  record new x position  record new y position  find new x distance to plant  find new y distance to plant  divide x distance by 30  divide y distance by 30  for 30 repetitions  {move toward plant  }  Target beelacanth  If the beelacanth touches the bee  {pick random value between 0 and 5   if that value is 0   {beelacanth pull script   }   target bee again   add 1 to obv0  } } target bee for 20 repetitions {pick random value  pick random value  move by random values } end subroutine HIVE SUBROUTINE (when bee is full) flap wings animation record x position record y position pick random beehive record beehive x position record beehive y position set pointer to beehive target bee again find x distance to beehive find y distance to beehive save soon-to-be-absolute x distance if it's negative {negate it to make it positive } if absolute x distance is less than 2100 {divide x distance by 200  divide y distance by 50  for 50 repetitions  {for 4 repetitions   {pick random value    move toward beehive in x, random y   }   pick random value   move toward beehive in y, random x  } }else (distance is more than 2100) {divide x distance by 600  divide y distance by 30  for 30 repetitions  {for 20 repetitions   {random value    move toward hive in x, random y   }   random value   move toward hive in y, random x  } } find new x position find new y position target hive get hive x position get hive y position target bee again find new x distance find new y distance divide x distance by 10 divide y distance by 5 for 5 repetitions {for 2 repetitions  {move toward hive in x, no y change  }  move toward hive in y, no x change } set obv0 to 0, bee is no longer full end subroutine end script

Next I looked at the push script for the bee, which brought me to a conundrum. Creatures 1 makes no distinction between good critters and bad, and the majority of critters are neutral or good. Therefore, the bees are the oddballs that break behavioral expectations. You can’t expect a Norn to understand that carrot beetles are okay to play with but bees are not. So my options are to either make bees invisible to creatures, or try to make an entirely new object category. I wasn’t sure if that was even possible, so I threw together a test COB (using the unused microscope sprite). Sure enough, Betty the Beta Tester was able to process this as a new item type!

Not long after I had a new version of the bee and hive upgrade: one where the bees are a new type of object, and where the hive behaves similarly to other vendors (getting the hand to get different results than creatures was just a matter of a simple doif from eq pntr statement in the push script, where I triggered the pull script instead). Also, I made two versions; normally the bees at the hive have eyes but the ones that roam do not, and I made a version where they all have eyes.

Of course, the updated hive and beelacanth go hand in hand, so next on my to-do list is updating the unruly beelacanth, and I won't be releasing the beehive update until that's done!

Peaceful times in Albia

 [Originally written July 10 2021]

Albia has given me a break from the chaos, instead allowing me to peacefully make my rounds and convince whoever had the lowest life force to eat.

That started with Julia hovering at 30%, and I couldn’t get her undivided attention with other creatures around, so I pulled her up a lift into the treehouse where I argued with her for a while. Once she got the point, though, she readily ate several pieces of food, and I released her back into the world. Next up was Tiberius, who was… much more difficult. Frustrated with his refusal to eat food, I tried getting him to push the vendor, to no avail.

My attention was drawn away from him by Eudocia, who was pregnant, and her life force was dropping quickly. She was hanging out on the island with Marcellus, Verania, and Secundus. Once again, I couldn’t get her to cooperate with others around, so I lured her onto the boat and over to the jungle, where I was able to get some food into her.

After this, I started eyeing the beehives. I have been meaning to make a better version of the “upgraded” beehives, after all. But I’ll split that out into a separate post!

The king is dead. Long live the king!

 [Originally written June 19 2021]

So it’s been about half a year since I last did anything with Creatures, as I’ve been occupied with the entire Dragon Age and Mass Effect series, as well as a nasty bout of depression. The antidepressants finally seem to be kicking in, though, and I finally had the mental energy to deal with the chaos of Albia. Initially I just made my rounds through the world, getting my bearings and figuring out just what was going on when I left off six months ago. I noticed I still hadn’t re-injected the underground mushrooms, so I did that, then checked in on each creature.

Eudocia laid an egg up in the computer room near Verania. Julia was pregnant and hanging around on the island with Quintus, Augustus, and Gaius. Tiberius was in the kitchen, and Greg was in the garden playing with Marcellus. I spent some time trying to coax a few creatures with low life forces to eat, and various Norns moved around. Julia laid her egg. At one point I noticed a small group of Norns riding the lift down to the deathcap, so I intervened, pulling the lift back up and leading the herd back to the safety of the garden.

It was then that Julia was marked sick in the observation kit. I immediately jumped over to the island to see what was up. She had come down with a case of Antigen 7, Histamine B, and Unknown Toxin 3. And she was standing right next to Augustus and Marcellus. “Ah boy, here we go,” I said to myself. I didn’t even try to lead her away from them; it would have been an exercise in futility trying to split this little flock, and besides, she was already smearing her germs all over them. Indeed, within moments, they also became sick. I designated the entire island as a quarantine zone and brought over some cheese, and set about trying to ensure their life forces stayed high. This mostly meant focusing on Julia, who was at 55%, because the other two were hale and hearty with their life forces in the 90s.

It only took about 3 minutes to fight off the infection, so it was a fairly minor incident. However, Julia’s life force was still low, and she was proving to be difficult to feed when her friends were around, so I put her on the boat and lured her through the jungle, where she encountered the Grendel. Nothing seemed odd until he spoke: his words were garbled. My first thought was that somebody’s speech had managed to confuse Greg and he would need to be reminded of the correct words. I selected the Grendel.

It wasn’t Greg.

My heart sank. Some time in the half hour following my last sighting of Greg, he had passed away offscreen, unnoticed. Losing him, especially without even noticing, hurt possibly more than losing one of the Norns; after all, Greg had been around since the very start of my Creatures 1 playthrough, through many generations of Norns and several world transfers.

Still, I had no choice but to accept it and move on, without so much as a graveyard entry for him. During all this, Verania laid an egg, which hatched around the same time I noticed the new Grendel. I quickly named and exported the hatchling, and then went to deal with the unexpected newcomer. I named him Secundus, and used the ball to lure him to the computers so I could teach him his words. Secundus proved to be just as quick a learner as his predecessor, and just as obedient.

I brought him down to the kitchen to meet the Norns, a couple of whom had grown into old age, just in time to Julia to lay another egg (right next to Verania for safekeeping). Welcome to the family, Secundus. It never gets any less chaotic.

Albia grants mercy, but not too much

 [Originally written November 22 2020]

The session started off slow. I loaded in with Greg selected and not much memory of what I’d been doing when I left off, so I bonded a bit with the Grendel, got him to eat some carrots, and assessed the state of the world. Verania was hanging out in the computer room with a life force of 50%, but there’s not much I can do about that since I can’t instruct her to eat. The other creatures were split into their typical social groups: Julia, Tiberius, Lucius, and Augustus were in the kitchen, while Eudocia, Gaius, and Quintus soaked up some rays on the island. Greg decided to join the kitchen gang, and seemed to be having a good time, so I headed off to the island.

Eudocia’s life force was lowest at the time (not counting Verania), at 51%, and she was too busy playing with the other Norns (and eventually Greg, who rode the submarine over) to eat the coconut pieces, so I wrangled her down into the bubble, where I finally convinced her to eat some honey and coconuts. 

With her life force on the rise, I checked in on the next two lowest values on my list, Lucius at 61% and Julia at 63%.

As always, Lucius and Tiberius were inseparable, and much more interested in each other (and Lucius’s odd obsession with going left) than in food, so I decided my time would be better spent coaxing Julia to eat.

I had my work cut out for me. I alternated between trying to get her to eat food directly, which she’d happily pick up and carry but refuse to put in her mouth, and from the cheese plate vendor, which she was inexplicably terrified of. She would repeatedly walk over to it, look at it, and then run away with a sad expression. Eventually I got her to eat some cheese, though she never overcame her vendorphobia. I decided that was a battle for another day, and checked my observation kit to see where I was headed next.

Eudocia had just laid an egg, and the pregnancy took its toll on her, bringing her down to 50%. Her life force continued to dip as I struggled to convince her to eat, and eventually I got her away from the island boys by bringing her down to the submarine bay, where Augustus arrived with her underwater uber. Once I had them over in the jungle, they were more cooperative, though there wasn’t much food around, so I had to bring some over from the garden. That was when I noticed Lucius was flagged as being sick.

My heart sank when I found him still hanging out with Julia (who was pregnant) and Tiberius, and more so when the whole flock migrated out to meet Eudocia in the garden. But I didn’t hear any coughing or sneezing, so I opened up the science kit for a diagnosis. Albia granted me one small favor – there were, indeed, no histamines present. The disease, consisting of Antigen 1, an unknown toxin, and sleep toxin, was not contagious. That didn’t mean I didn’t have to isolate Lucius, of course, since he wasn’t likely to listen with anybody around, so I led him to the treehouse.

I did everything I could. Lucius fell into fits of sleep brought on by the toxin, and eventually started whimpering, but simply refused to eat anything. I watched the antibody graph slowly climb even as his life force drained, but he still hadn’t fought the disease off when his life hit the single digits, and I knew he was a goner. I kept pleading with him, but it came as no surprise when the sickness claimed his life. Such must have been the price for the mercy of noncommunicability. There was nothing left to do but move on, so I checked the observation kit for the status of the world, and spent a little time getting Julia’s life force up to reasonable levels.

But where one life ends, another begins, so it was time to bring another hatchling into the world. Next on my list was Marcellus, son of Julia and Gaius. He has only one mutation of his own, which was autocorrected back to its natural value on opening the Genetics Kit. His mother, Julia, of course, has no mutations, but Gaius passed on both of the mutations he’d inherited: one that links female fertility to anger, and one that adds need for pleasure as an input in the glycogen-to-glucose conversion reaction. I also updated Marcellus’s genome with the life kit changes.

Verania was still hanging out in the computer room, but Marcellus didn’t seem to mind that his classmate was much older than him. He learned what he needed quite quickly before Eudocia arrived via teleporter to escort him to the next stage of his education, where Greg joined to helped teach him his adjectives, as per tradition. After that, I introduced him to the typical array of important nouns, and taught him how to eat food, use the vendor, and follow the hand. He seems a quick study so far, so it’ll be interesting to see how he grows up.

RNG giveth, RNG taketh away

 [Originally written October 11 2020]

There was still an empty population slot in Albia after the plague claimed Flavia’s life, and it left the world heavily skewed male. As such I’ve chosen to break from the ordered queue and skip to a female hatchling to bring into the world – appropriately, Flavia’s daughter. This means, of course, that it’s time for a genetic analysis. The report says Eudocia has three mutations.

Reaction

Gene 078: 019 drive reducer

1 Sleepiness-- + 1 Sleepiness = 1 Reward.
Rate: 8 (max to 0 in approximately 0.4 seconds)

This gene is responsible for both reducing sleepiness and rewarding sleeping. Normally it's active from birth, but in Eudocia it won’t kick in until adolescence. That’s going to be a problem for developing proper sleeping habits!

Receptor

Gene 237: 031 shiver

Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Sensorimotor”, Locus: “Involuntary Action 4^(shiver)”. Chemical: “Coldness”.
Digital: Output = 0 + 255 if Signal > 141.

Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Sensorimotor”, Locus: “Involuntary Action 4^(shiver)”. Chemical: “Coldness”.
Digital: Output = 0 - 255 if Signal > 141.

This one’s not as bad as it seemed. My heart sank when I saw the inverted flag, thinking it would probably make her shiver whenever she’s not cold, but no… It actually means she’ll never shiver, because the output will be either 0 or -255 (which gets clamped to 0).

Receptor

Gene 305: 041 sleep when v. sleepy

Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Sensorimotor”, Locus: “Involuntary Action 5^(sleep)”. Chemical: “Sleepiness”.
Analogue: Output = 0 + ((Signal - 230) * 255).

Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Drive levels”, Locus: “Tiredness”. Chemical: “Sleepiness”.
Analogue: Output = 0 + ((Signal - 230) * 255).

I’m not actually sure what to make of this one. Normally, this gene basically forces a creature to pass out if it gets sleepy enough. In this case, that effect is removed, but on the other hand, a high sleepiness level will make her feel very tired, which may encourage her to rest (and then to sleep) anyway.

Also, I have, of course, updated the genome as I did with Augustus. Actually, it turns out I missed a few things when tweaking his genome, so this time around I made the same changes plus a few more:

• Removed the punishment output from #059, #058, #062, #064, and #068 
• Added 1 hunger-- output to #142 
• Removed hunger-- output from #144 
• Removed hunger output from #145 
• Added 8 Activase output to #146
• Added receptor and emitter tied to floating locus 2 (set based on Glycogen, output Hunger based on locus)
• Added gene to convert adrenaline and activase to fear-- and anger--
• Tweaked #292 so adrenaline reacts with ageing

Eudocia turned out to be a very inquisitive little Norn, shoving everything she could into her mouth – including weeds. Well, everything has a price I suppose. After learning that food and herbs are good and weeds are bad, we attempted to move on to adjectives – but young Augustus had other ideas! With the single-minded purpose of a Norn on a mission, he called one lift, rode down, grabbed his new playmate, boarded the other, and rode back up! After wrangling Eudocia back down to finish her lessons, I released her to the company of her friend in the garden. The world seemed stable enough so I reintroduced the hootch hider and moved on to the next task at hand.

I decided this was to check in on Greg. He was still with a cluster of creatures on the island, and I figured it was time to bring him home. I lured him (and Julia) onto the boat and back over to the garden, where he received a warm welcome from Eudocia. His life force was down to 48%, so I got him to eat a few carrots, and then reintroduced him to the ball, much to his delight. He then demonstrated proper sleeping habits to both of the young Norns.

If Greg is Gallant, then Julia is Goofus. Upon meeting the youngest child in Albia, instead of teaching her a valuable life lesson, she just slapped her. Thankfully, this was one of those wonderful rare cases when it was clear who was doing the hitting and there was nothing blocking me from getting in there to set the aggressor straight!

Meanwhile, back on the island, Verania was exhausted from the effort of laying her first egg (tucked neatly behind her), courtesy of Gaius. I was rather worried about this pregnancy – I wasn’t sure Verania could hold up to the stresses on her body, given her tendency to neglect her own needs, and I feared the child would inherit her handicap. I couldn’t resist taking a peek at the genetics – and I’m relieved to report that she didn’t pass her crippling mutation down!

I felt this was the appropriate time to shepherd Gaius and Quintus off the island, so onto the boat and into the lift they went – both napping the whole way down! They were gathering their strength for their next move, once they’d lulled me into a false sense of security with their easy compliance. Well, it worked, and lulled I was, so I checked in on the two Norns with the lowest life forces (besides Verania), Tiberius and Lucius.

Unsurprisingly, the problem boys were hanging out together and far more interested in each other than in anything else, including food. Lucius offered a comforting hand to hold after Tiberius was evidently traumatized by my constant shouting at him to “push food.” Both of them steadfastly refused to do so despite my attempts to convince them for the next fifteen minutes, so I changed tactics; I reinjected the cheese tray and began imploring them to push vendor. No dice. Then, after ten more minutes, Tiberius finally sampled a carrot. Something clicked in his little brain, and he devoured several more!

Lucius continued to be difficult, so I took a break to check in on Eudocia, who was all grown up and had just laid her first egg. I also briefly caught Greg near the deathcap but he seemed more interested in playing with the lift than the mushroom. Oh, and Julia had also laid an egg during my struggles with Lucius and Tiberius. Speaking of, the latter tried in vain to convince his friend that food really is as awesome as I said it was! The Banana Norn remained unconvinced of the edibility of the chunk of hardened curdled milk before him. Still, after enough prompting, I got him to eat. I considered this enough of a victory and called it a day.

Island drama

 [Originally written October 4 2020]

It started with a false alarm that warned of true danger to come. Sidonia, Julia, Flavia, and Greg were hanging out on the island, when Lucius was flagged as sick in the observation kit. I left the islanders to go check on him, but he’d just eaten a weed. I remembered the COBs I’d not injected yet and reintroduced cloud butterflies. While I was over there, I found Quintus bothering Tiberius, who really needed to eat, as his life force was at 41%, so I tried to convince him to eat something. 

Meanwhile, Flavia laid her egg on the warm sands of the beach, and continued partying with her friends. As the egg cracked, Flavia told the others about how tiring being a mom was, even before the egg hatched, and Sidonia warned her to flee before the emerging hatchling saw her! They had nothing to worry about, though, as I exported the child immediately.

Then I heard a tell-tale sneeze. Oh dear. I wondered if someone had eaten the campanula plant… but no, this was the real deal. Sidonia had come down with a case of Antigen 0, with an unknown toxin along for the ride. I was able to shepherd the other three creatures away to the bottom level of the island before it could spread, so there was that at least. 

I spent 14 agonizing minutes trying to convince Sidonia to eat a carrot between turning around incoming movers and occasionally breaking up slapfights in the underground and trying to convince Flavia to eat as well – though she wasn’t sick, she hadn’t recovered from her pregnancy and her life force hovered at 30%, even as Sidonia’s steadily dropped. It was no use – Sidonia collapsed with the carrot still in her hand.

Saddened by the loss, I turned my attention to Flavia, whose life force was still low. As the world seemed stable and I didn’t want to keep fetching carrots, I reintroduced my fixed coconuts to the world, and set about trying to convince Flavia to eat them. Julia went up to the surface to greet Verania, who had come over at some point after Sidonia’s passing ended the lockdown on the island. Meanwhile, Greg, ever the obedient and well-behaved Grendel, continually demonstrated eating for Flavia, to no avail.

After about ten minutes of effort I gave up for the time and went to check on the boys in the garden. They greeted me with smiles and blank speech bubbles – I’ve been seeing that quite a bit, especially lately, and I have no idea what’s causing it. They seemed happy enough though, so I left them to it and returned to the island. Verania sat on the beach ball, looking quite shocked at the contents of a honey jar Julia brought over – in actuality she’d been frozen in that position for quite a while. Meanwhile, I continued trying to get Flavia to eat. Then, after quite a bit of coaxing… she finally ate some honey! I lavished praise on her, which started a cycle, and she began wolfing down food. Her life force steadily rose, and with that problem solved, I was ready to deal with the empty space left behind by Sidonia.

Augustus could finally re-enter the world – with an additional round of genetic updates. After some digging, apparently Purple Mountain Norns don’t use the hunger management system the Ron and Forest Norns use, so none of my creatures have it. Still, I’d like to introduce this improved genome to the world, so I’ll begin phasing it in by adding it to every new creature from this point on, including Augustus. Discover Albia has an excellent article on the genes involved, which I used as a guide for modifying the genome. The changes amounted to the following:

• Removed the punishment output from #059 
• Added 1 hunger-- output to #142 
• Removed hunger-- output from #144 
• Removed hunger output from #145 
• Added 8 activase output to #146
• Added receptor and emitter tied to floating locus 2 (set based on Glycogen, output Hunger based on locus)

Please note that I did leave in the mutation Augustus inherited on #145. I only changed the second output from Hunger to <NONE> to match the Life Kit genomes.

Reaction

Gene 145: Glycogen -> Glucose

Standard: 1 Glycogen + 1 <NONE> = 3 Glucose + 1 Hunger.

Life Kit: 1 Glycogen + 1 <NONE> = 3 Glucose + 1 <NONE>.

Augustus: 1 Glycogen + 1 Need for Pleasure = 3 Glucose + 1 <NONE>.

Augustus turned out to be a quick learner, and had soon mastered both computers’ vocabularies as well as the nouns I taught him along the way. 

That was more than could be said for some of the older males in the garden, who apparently missed a couple words, so I wrangled them down to the drive computer for a remedial course.

That was when I noticed that Flavia was listed as sick – and in a way, I’m thankful for that, because Greg was also ill, and I might never have noticed had Flavia not drawn my attention. Unfortunately, I wasn’t paying nearly enough attention – I hit the Grendel Button to select Greg so I could keep an eye on his life force, since I could monitor Flavia in the Observation Kit. 

What I failed to notice was that the Observation Kit was somehow paused, and this mistake would cost me dearly. I thought her life force was much higher than it actually was, and Greg and I were equally shocked to see her keel over. What’s worse, I misclicked and missed my chance to give her an entry in the graveyard, but I had no time to kick myself over it; the Grendel’s life force dwindled to 34% as the virulent cocktail of chemicals raging in his body took their toll.

I had already lost two Norns to sickness today, I wasn’t about to lose Greg too! In the struggle that ensued, I was very thankful for his obedient nature – he needed every chunk of coconut or piece of cheese he shoveled into his mouth to keep his glycogen levels stable as he fought off the disease! I just had to keep them coming – and at last, we emerged victorious!

I wasn’t out of the woods yet, though. Verania, standing on the beach above and smiling blankly at me, started to sneeze and cough. She hadn’t caught it from Greg or Flavia; this was a mix of an unknown toxin, both histamines, and Antigen 0, the same one that had killed Sidonia over an hour before. And this time I was completely helpless; Verania is too mentally handicapped to follow commands. All I could do was ensure that food was nearby and turn away any other creatures coming in. I fully expected to lose her too, and prepared for the worst. Yet, somehow, she pulled through!

Julia and Greg decided they’d had enough drama for one day and settled down for a long nap. I agreed with them fully; though I have an empty population slot to fill by introducing one of the exported hatchlings (with hunger management modifications), I think that, and any genetic analysis that may be involved, can wait until next time.

Desperate times and desperate measures

 [Originally written September 27 2020]

I let my test world run in the VM for a while with all the COBs and a few extra creatures to populate it, to see if it broke, but all went well, so that was no good for debugging. Mystery unsolved, I was reluctant to return to Creatures 1, knowing it would be a frustrating battle with my computer, but return I did. I’ve provided the observation kit status for a state of the world briefing; Sidonia is in the world too, and probably around the same health range as everyone else, but not shown because you can’t resize the kit for some reason.

Gaius, Sidonia, and Flavia were hanging out on the island with Julia, making a nuisance of themselves as I attempted to coax her into eating something. I caught Lucius and Greg riding the lift down to the deathcap and promptly pulled them out again before they could touch it. Meanwhile, on the island, Julia had laid her egg, and I alternated between trying to convince her to eat a coconut and doing the same with Sidonia, who I’d wrangled into the underwater bubble.

The egg eventually hatched and was exported, as Julia’s life force continued to drop. You’ve been raised in an environment with non-buggy food items, why are you making this so difficult? Finally, I got her to eat something! I managed to herd the other Norns off the island so they’d leave her alone as I tried to repeat that success, as Julia’s life force was hovering just above 40. Alas, my efforts were in vain – the game crashed, setting me back about 10 minutes.

I tried to debug the issue with the Windows event log, which allowed me to identify the problem as a combination access violation and stack buffer overflow. Unfortunately, without access to the engine source code there’s not a lot I can do to debug these kinds of errors. It led me to suspect that perhaps Creatures 1 doesn’t actually free memory when it deletes an object, so just keeps eating more space when filled with COBs that continually die and respawn rather than recycling, but keeping an eye on the task manager memory chart didn’t shed any light there because it looks like the game just grabs a chunk of memory at the start and sits on it, so I can’t see what’s going on under the hood. Again, without the engine source there’s not a lot I can do – I can see what goes on in the individual object scripts, but what happens on a meta-level is a mystery to me.

Defeated, I launched the game again and assessed the damage. The egg had to hatch and be exported again, and Julia needed to be convinced to eat. That quickly got derailed though because this alternate timeline threw a new curveball at me. Lucius, hanging out by the ugly tomato, was sick, so I sent him up the lift into the… what even is that little dwelling with the clock in the tree? It’s not a treehouse, but it’s also not just a hollow. 

Well, whatever it is, the troublesome Banana Norn didn’t want to stay there alone, so he went right back down and picked up poor Quintus, who was immediately infected. And so it began. Had this entry been a video rather than a written log, the next fifteen or so minutes would have been sped up and set to yakety sax. It was like my Norns were conspiring to give me the hardest time possible, and I don’t mean just refusing to eat. Oh, no, the whole time I was bouncing between the two ends of the skybridge, playing tug-of-war with the lifts and shooing creatures this way and that. Even Greg got in on the chaos, and despite his brief trip up to the treehouse, he luckily wasn’t infected; that would have made my life so much harder since I can’t view him on the Observation Kit and need to jump back to the button by the incubator to select him.

And I wasn't just trying to keep the uninfected Norns from going up and the infected ones from going down (both occurrences the entire population seemed intent on making happen), but also to shoo curious creatures away from the deathcap, which they had all simultaneously developed an obsession with. Thankfully, nobody got a bite in! I had enough on my plate with the lift-juggling! 

Lucius gave me a real hard time even without his constantly pressing the lift call buttons; Quintus ate well and kept his life force high, but Lucius dwindled to about 13% life force and I just could not get him to eat – or obey at all for that matter. He kept lurking by the call button in the tree trunk, which I was worried was going to lead to him either going down into the crowds that had formed around the base, or fishing them up in the lift. I tried to get him to follow me away from it, but he started ignoring me, so in desperation I gave him a whack in the hopes it would get his attention, but it just made him afraid and he started to run away every time I called him. That would have been workable, since I could have herded him away from me just as easily as leading him, except that Quintus was very obedient about following me. Trying to wrangle them together was a nightmare!

As if all this wasn’t enough, the game crashed again. Record scratch, end yakety sax. On reopening the game, I found it had set me back about seven minutes – long enough to be obnoxious but not long enough to be before the sickness started. Resume yakety sax for another twelve minutes of madness. And then… almost as suddenly as it began, it was over. I was so caught up in the chaos that I didn’t notice they’d started to recover until the graph was just hitting the zero line. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned my attention to the world itself. Fed up with the crashes and with no leads on what was causing them, I resorted to exporting everyone and wiping the world.

The next world was populated with what I considered the bare minimum: Grendel Friendly, the Grendel selector button, the drive computer, Jessica’s updated carrots, and my updated lemons and herbs. No cheese tray, no coconuts (official or modified), no underground mushrooms, no hive and bees update, no hootch hider, no beelacanth, not even any danged cloud butterflies. I intend to inject the rest of my cobs one at a time, over a long period of time. As everyone arrived in this new world, Greg apparently empathized with my stress level, since he went for a calming shower.

Flavia chose the worst spot to lay an egg – I didn’t even know she was pregnant, thanks to the limited size of the Observation Kit. That would be the least of my worries though, because the nightmare wasn’t over. Antigen 7 heard about the delightful party that Antigen 2 had thrown and it was upset it hadn’t been invited, so it decided an encore was in order. Poor Quintus couldn’t catch a break – he got hit with this one too, and ended up being quarantined in the treehouse again.

Flavia was also infected, but I managed to intercept her in the garden and hit the teleporter button to get her away from the others. Both Norns were contained, but not very well, and having them on opposite ends of Albia made my life much harder than it needed to be! So once again, I was hopping back and forth playing lift pingpong and swearing at my computer screen. Flavia came close to pulling Lucius up with a well-timed button press, but he stepped out of the way just in time. Presumably he had already had enough from the first quarantine! Unfortunately, with his role as the troublemaking sick one unfulfilled, the duty fell to Quintus.

Flavia recovered quickly enough, and that forgotten little egg hatched, drawing my attention away from the Purple Mountain Norn. I quickly exported the baby before she could sample the deathcap she’d been born next to, and went to tend to Quintus. 

He, apparently, didn’t like being the only sick one, so he went down the lift to fetch Gaius, who he promptly coughed on. Gaius was understandably unhappy about this. Sorry buddy, you’re stuck in quarantine with him now!

Greg continued to pick up on my stress, and had taken up drinking! The poor Grendel didn’t have much to eat down there (thanks to the current lack of underground mushrooms), so I took a brief break from tending the sick Norns to lead him onto the raft and up the lift, back into the wide world and well away from most of the hootch. He made a beeline straight for the deathcap, which I guided him away from. Go home, Greg, you’re drunk.

Then it was right back to Gaius and Quintus. “Oogh” is a pretty accurate representation of the feeling of being sick! That being said, evidently Gaius missed one of his vocab words. I’ll need to remember to correct that at some point. It was a good thing I was keeping them on the treehouse side, because the trunk side lift was very popular. Julia brought Verania up to see the sights, and while I managed to send the former back down to the bottom of the tree, the latter stepped off just as the lift left. 

This was a dangerous situation indeed – thanks to her mental handicap, I have no control over Verania whatsoever – she doesn’t even know what “come hand” means and even if she did she probably lacks the capacity to focus on me long enough to follow the command. But trying to focus on getting her out of harm’s way meant not paying attention to the sick Norns, who decided to spread the love – and Antigen 7. 

Quintus apparently handed the sickness baton off to Tiberius on his way out; one Norn healed, another infected. At least Gaius took pity on me and decided to make the quarantine a little easier on me by taking the gondola over to the beehives, where he’d wait out his illness in isolation, so the only one I had to keep an eye on was Tiberius. That would prove to be more than enough! I had to briefly leave him unattended to pull Flavia, who was pregnant, away from the deathcap, and while I was at it I spotted the opportunity to extract Verania from the treetops. 

I returned just in time to catch Tiberius riding the lift down, and I started spamming the call button at the top in a desperate attempt to rein him back in before he could run off. Unfortunately, due to the delay on the call buttons, there was enough time for two other Norns to pile in with him, and promptly get coughed on all the way up – including Flavia! I had forgotten at the time that she’d already had this sickness not long ago, and I didn’t really realize at the time that the other Norn on the lift was Quintus, who had likewise just recovered. I just saw two healthy Norns in the quarantine zone, one pregnant, and panicked. Thankfully, either they had enough antibodies left to grant immunity or Tiberius had gotten over his sickness just in time – as by the time I wrangled the other two back out, he was enjoying the view while recovering.

Meanwhile, Gaius wasn’t doing too well, mainly due to the lack of food where he was. I’d been so busy with Tiberius that I wasn’t shuttling food over to my other patient, but now I could focus on him, with little chance of interruption. I brought him carrots, and thankfully he didn’t put up too much resistance to eating them, unlike some of the other Norns I’d been tending to! He, too, was soon recovering, and rather than leave him up by the beehives, I sent him on the gondola, to rejoin the other Norns. He must have gotten rather attached to his bees, because he fought me for control of the gondola the entire way! I did eventually get him to the other side, though he wasn’t very happy about it!