Of Games and Doctors.

Breeding Game #1 and other Contest Shinanigans


Over at CreatureTopia.org, I made a forum thread containing a breeding game. You can view it here. I do intend to keep this Breeding Game for my website, and I will make it so people can have entries for it all the time, or if people just want to have fun and try it for themselves. But for not, it's just accessible from the CreatureTopia.org forums.

I do have an idea for another contest, just like this one. It'll contain 5 breeds of norns. Any of the free breeds that you can download from the CreaturesLabs site. So it will be 5 of these: Chichi, Harlequin, Fallow, Siamese, Astro, Magma or Zebra. I'm thinking to go with neutral-ish colours to make it harder, so my choices'll probably be Siamese, Fallow, Magma, Zebra and Chichi.

It'll be very hard. I know that for sure.

I'll also have other contests going on, like wolfing run contests, and even contests for breeding norns with specific abilities, like... breathing underwater, or... say, only able to live in the frigid depths of winter. We shall see.

Creatures 1 Doctor Cheat on Gog.com Creatures 1 (Albian Years)

I recently tried to put the 'doctor' cheat onto my Creatures 1 Albian Years game I got from Gog.com. It worked completely, save for the one problem I had when I tried to hatch a hatchery egg. Which made me a little sad. I didn't take a screenshot of the message, but I will today when I have the chance to, and see if there is any way to fix it, because I really like the idea of having multiple worlds.

[Since it seems that the Gog.com Creatures 1, you can't clear your world-data for some strange reason. I have a feeling it has to do with Vista trying to do save-game data, and this conflicts with the fact that Creatures 1 was made for a Windows 98 machine, even if they DID upgrade it to work on Vista].

Hopefully I can fix that problem soon.

OH. NOTE.

There IS an issue with the Creatures 1 Medical kit. It will come up with an error message, and will not run. The solution is to 'run as administrator', and that should solve the issue then and there.

... and that's it for now on the Creatures front.

I made a hard choice...

Colour Pigment Fix Norns

I have finally come to a decision about something, and it wasn't that easy to make. I have decided to go ahead and re-do my colour-fix project. When making it, it took so much work to do because I didn't do enough research first. My process was this.

1. Edit genes so one "Pigment Bleed" is effected
2. Import Male & Female eggs and put away
3. Save Gene
4. Edits genes so two "Pigment Bleeds" are effected
5. Import Male & Female eggs and put away
6. Save Gene
7. Edits genes so three"Pigment Bleeds" are effected
8. Import Male & Female eggs and put away
9. Save Gene
10. Hatch norn
11. Name according to gene
12. Take Photo
13. Export.
14-37. Repeat 10-13 5 more times
38. Import all the norns
39. Take screenshots of all their photos
40. Export Norns
41. Crop and Save each image seperately
42. Sort all files to according places
43. Do steps 1-42 for the next 24 combinations

See... Now that was killer. In my lesson I learn that 1, T1 and T2 norns were rather dull. T1 you couldn't see anything much and T2 usually ranged in dusty-pinks and greys. I'll stick with T3 norns, do it all over again, and now that I know how to read the sliders better, I'll be able to write up cool genetic information for my website too.

It also helps that I now know how to read the silly "Rotation" and "Swap" sliders instead of eyeballing it completely. >__> Why didn't they make the numbers more obvious? Or am I just really blind?

So my end package, just one, will have 25 different colour combinations, and 50 norns. I'll probably end up doing the other combos too, but this makes it so I can get the ultimate brightness (since I found that 4 pigment bleed genes makes a norn genetically brighter, but not nessisarily physically brighter)

Website

I am thinking of doing a basic Creatures site. Not a huge one, but one that is very basic and simple. Just has what I've made up there, and nothing really more. Enough to throw stuff out there and go "Hey! Look how cool this is! :3" XD And for the information I make up for the game. That's all. Before I tried too ambitious of sites, and I feel it's better to be quick and simple.

Expect something when I finish my two on-hold genetic projects~

Urg.

Error

It looks like I won't be able to play Creatures 1 or 2 till I get home to my computer. My mother's computer seems to dislike the Gog.com versions of it. Though I'm not that surprised in reality, because we both suspect her machine had been upgraded to XP when it really should still be a Windows 98 or ME.

Creatures 1's error is that if you try to inject a hatchery egg, the game freezes over completely. I managed to once get the game back, but I didn't dare try to hatch an egg in fear of causing the computer to go into a heart-attack and keel over.

Creatures 2's error is that it does start up, but it tries to open like... 50-million Creature 2's at once, and it seriously hurts my mum's poor old machine. I came across something like this with my computer at home. For some reason sometimes Creatures 2 tries to open multiple versions of itself at once... it's really odd.

So... Only choice? Uninstallation of both programs. Oh well.

Genetics Development

I had an idea for some sort of genetic breed. I'd use, once again, the CFE Chichi as a base. I figure that this is the safest to go, since everyone can get Docking Station, as it is free, and it's more likely someone won't have Creatures 3. Anyway...

My idea is for a "Brood Norn". I want to make a norn that'll only give birth ONCE in their life, then loose the ability. Their breeding is very specific, and I will try to see if I can get it so they give birth to more than one egg at a time. I know a norn can give birth to up to 10 eggs, so I want to range that they give birth to around... 4-5 at a time, and have room for development that they give birth to more though the generations.

I figure this'd be interesting to try to do.

Update : This doesn't seem to be possible. Oh well. :[

Creatures 1 and 2 and an Update

It looks like I haven't so far, been able to finish my two genetical breed projects for Docking Station and Creatures 3. Because... I've been spending my free time (and not working time) playing Creatures 2 and Creatures 1. Also, I have to further delay the projects by some degree. It looks like it won't be till the weekend AFTER next that I can do it. Because... well, I won't be on my computer that has Docking Station and Creatures 3.

But I promice it will be by that weekend at the LASTEST. So expect a release on December 5th for both genetical breeds, as well as a basic site that they are hosted and explained.

For now? I'll have fun playing Creatures 2 and 1. I'm sure that I'll be able to get it working on the other computer... Oh yes. I am very sure.

And right now, I am uncertain if I should do the "hybridization" or not. It seems to be pretty 50/50 on people's opinions of how a creature behaves. Though I have thought of something interesting for the Norn/Ettin. Is that they take and horde food from one place to another. I'm sure that'll prove to be very interesting indeed. I'll figure out more things etc. etc.

I should ask for their lifespans as well.

Anyway. That's all I can post for now.

Confirmed.

It is confirmed now that Gog.com has a working-version of Creatures 2 that runs on Vista. Confirmed. I have purchased, as it was extremely cheap, and I have run it on my Vista machine. So far I have indicated that :

1. 3rd party breeds work - as long as they don't require a .exe to run. Currently thinking of a fix. (Eg, the Boney Grendels)
2. Genetics Kit does not work. But only because it can't find the C2 folder as it is now in :
c:/Program Files/GOG.com/Creatures Albian Years/Creatures 2 - Should be easy to fix.

Edit : The Creatures Remastered Patch solves the Genetics Kit issue

Right now I am estatic. But I'll stop playing because I have work to do. I can't play games all day. This game'll be a present to me when I do good work. XD

Anyway... ta ta for now!

Is this for REAL?

At long last, creatures fans who have been suffering in the hands of Windows Vista, and the poor excuse for compatibility that Creatures 2 had for it... we might have a breath of relief. We might finally be able to PLAY the game now on our Vista maches both 32 AND 64 bit.

A site, GOG.com, has uploaded the upgraded versions of "Albian Years", "Exodus" and the Creatures Spinoff to their site. Showing screenshots and exclaiming they did have compatibility with Windows Vista!

Is this too good to be true? Is it? It might be hard to say... we could see... Maybe it's all a lie. Like cake. I do not like it when cake lies.

Here's some links:
Creatures : The Albian Years
Creatures : Exodus
Creatures : Village
GOG.com Main Page

Here's a promising quote:
"4. All games are Vista and XP compatible.
Thanks to our handsome programming team, the classics are now Windows Vista and Windows XP compatible. Now you can use your lightning-fast PC to unleash the full potential of those games you just couldn’t play properly on that busted old 386." - From Here.

I AM going to try to get these games. I am. I shall report my findings as soon as they come. Stay posted.

Grenorns, Grettins and Ettorns... Oh My!

I have a great new idea for various genetic-breeds that I can do for the Creatures games. Of course, I'll be doing it in Docking Station / Creatures 3 first. But I want to do hybrid genomes that are an honest mix between the two genomes. So we can have real hybrids between creatures. Well, real enough save for mis-mashed sprites and their header saying "Norn" "Grendel" or "Ettin".

This is what I want to do:
[Note, some of the names are known to the Creatures Community already, and some I made-up and modified]

Grenorn - Norn with Grendel characteristics
Norndel - Grendel with Norn characteristics

Grettin - Ettin with Grendel characteristics
Etdel - Grendel with Ettin characterisitics

Nettin - Ettin with Norn characteristics
Ettorn - Norn with Ettin characteristics

Grettorn - Creature with Ettin/Norn/Grendel characteristics

I think what I'll do, is for each of the sets I'll provide a 'norn' and a 'grendel' of each set. I don't know yet if that means... Grenorns are just the norn versions of Norndels... or that they are actually honsetly different and I'll provide norns and genomes for grendels and norns for each one. I'll see. Depends on how hard it is to do.

Also. I have to decide what norn I'll use for the base of them. It'll be the same norn speices. I'm tossing up between the C3 Bruin norn and the DS Chichi norn. So I shall see what I decide to do for that...

Anyway! I was rather pleased when I thought of this, and I will be using the CFE norns as a base for these genetic breeds too.

Delayed for now.

I have delayed the project due to the large amount of work that needs to be done on it still, and the fact that well... I still have a lot of work I got to do that isn't really creatures related. So aside from actual work, work at home, I can only do this in my spare or free time. I currently don't really wanna do all this at the moment, since it's so huge to work with.

Current goals will be:

1. November 21st - November 22nd : Finish making .gen, .creature and .jpg files for the rest of the 3 packs.
2. Finish readme.rtf files (yes, rtf, not .txt)
3. Make a simple website so that further information is available about packs and for information about the genetics kit. Not a huge site. Just a small and simple one.

Future goals will be:

1. Design a metaroom. Only work on background images, concept and agent images. Post to the CC and see who can help with the rest. (This is the only thing I have time to do, as this is going to be for my portfolio, and is in my recreation time only).
2. Herding Norns Genetics - Hopefully will one day be the base genes for my Pasture Norn Breed Idea
3. Crawling Norns - Basically 'complete'. Will work on packing and fine-tuning it later.
4. Pasture Norns - Modelled in Lightwave 8.5. Made to look like an 'offical' norn breed, somewhere between C2-C3 in looks. Completely new genome that is based off of CFE norns and my 'herding' gene. For my portfolio.

Again, if anyone wants to know, this is purely in my recreation time. I can't work on it 24/7, since I am working on a huge, major, awesome-fun project that will take up time for years to come.

Phew. That's it for now.

Mistakes and a Delayed Finish

Oh man, the pack that I am working on, I had a few hiccups. I completely didn't realize that I had to do 25 combinations, and not just 15. So when I got to the 15th combination, I realize that I didn't get one of the colours that I got when I did a really quick test, and realized, much to my woe, that I actually accidently cut out 10 seperate combinations.

Really foolish of me. So now I gotta do all of them too. So... I have, at the time of this post, 9 more combinations to do. They all take a while too. Between 10-15 minutes per. I'll try to either finish, or do half of them tonight... finish the rest tomorrow, and see what I can do about writing those egg files...

Bah.

Oh the fun, but at least I know it'll look awesome.

PLUS. I found a cool norn colour I didn't think you could get:

Brown. Isn't that neat? I totally didn't know you can do that. Their are actually two combinations that'll get brown. I'll upload all that information later. Promice.

Anyway... gotta get back to work. M'gunna draw a picture for this too. :]

Gene Pack for DS

I've been working this whole weekend on 3 seperate gene packs for Creatures Docking Station. I haven't made any for Creatures 3 quite yet, but I feel that most people have Creatures 3 in conjunction with Docking Station, so I figure there's no harm done. I'll set out to make a pack for Creatures 3 later. But darn... this is taking a long time to do.

I'm 40% done, each pack will have 15 edited genes, 30 norns, and 30 images to go with it. There are THREE packs in total, and I am thinking of doing a master-pack with everything all at once. Plus, I'm going to write a reference file for each one, to explain how the functions of the new simple gene edit work, and why there APPEARS to be duplicates, when there isn't. Man. x__x Lots to do.

For those clever enough, here's a few images of what's coming up.

Just a Test

This is a temporary post so I can get a picture onto Creaturetopia.org. I suppose this is a good temporary place to show a preview of one of my entries into the CCSF2009.


[Edit : 08/11/2009 : I decided to get a better looking picture. The other was a little too pixelated.]

Critter Litter is Launched!

I see, as the Creatures Community still seems to be alive and kicking, the last thing they need is for more people to dissapear. So I decided to do the anti of dissapearing, and formed this blog so that I can actually be an active member of the Creatures Community. I hope, because of this, that I'll be able to post more things within the Creatures Community... and help to keep, because of my small little contributions, the Creatures Community alive and well for a little bit longer. Who knows how long it'll last... but we'll see. I hope for a while yet.

Things that I hope I can accomplish here:
1. Draw Creatures
2. Create Agent sprites
3. Create Creature sprites
4. Design a Norn Breed
5. Complete a Creatures Doujinshi
6. Design a Metaroom

I am not very good at programming, but I hope that one day I can make a metaroom, agents, and Norn, Grendel and Ettin breeds to go with it. That would be a marvelous thing, to be able to sit down and play the game with things I've created, and I hope that whoever helps me, can get that experiance too.

Let's see how this goes!