2017s: Lovely Loops

Puma and Tiger found each other again! I was quite happy to see this. They were probably my favorite norns, next to Lion and Ocelot. The rest of the norns were pretty much where they were the last time. Poor Minnow was all alone in the pond area. Caracal was still on the top level of the snow area and Lion and Bobcat were still in the main hallway. I almost though that they missed all of the shivering. Most of the norns had avoided the snowy area since I moved them. Caracal was the only one there and, much to my happiness, she wasn't shivering as much.

Despite me hyping up Lion and Bobcat's rivalry last time, they still liked each other. They also liked pretty much everyone in the world. Lynx was left out of Lion and Bobcat's many declarations of love/like. Puma had still grown fond of Lynx, even in the small amount of time they were together. Also the two groups were close enough to yell that they liked/loved each other through the walls of the spaceships. Because of this, the loops were pretty much a constant thing. They just really loved each other and had to let me know... constantly. Thankfully turning of creatures voices is an option! I think I'd have a silent game if it wasn't.

Puma and Tiger's reunion ended quickly. Puma and Lynx ended up having a child and Puma traveled to the norn home to lay it. Puma had mated with other males before, but Tiger had only mated with her. Maybe one of these days I would get my naturally occuring monogamous pair, but not with this group. Anyway, with Puma gone Scuplin was free to move back in with his other friends. He had strangely avoid the group while Puma was there. Puma's egg was quickly followed by one from Caracal and Lion.

After a few more minutes, I noticed everyone turning grey. Only the younger norns, Sculpin, Minnow, and Lynx, were still adults. Old age wasn't going to slow them down though. Both Ocelot and Puma laid eggs a few minute apart. Organ failure would certainly slow them down though. Caracal, Ocelot, Tiger, and Lion had received some organ damage at some point, and that particular organ was an important one. Ocelot and Tiger had the most damage, with a 20% different between that organ's health and the usual number. They would likely die of old age before that organ failed, but it was still an interesting thing to see.

2017: Moving Day

The norns didn't know it yet, but they were in for an exciting day. The OLS ark metaroom got an update a week ago that fixed my main issue with it, the shiver-inducing snow. It took me a bit, but I finally got the norn's new world decorated the way I wanted. So it was time to move the adults into the new world and hatch a bunch of babies. It would be interesting to see how everyone copes with a new world. Food was in different places and there weren't as many toys. The babies, meanwhile, were stored in a folder for later. They were destined for a wolfling run in the future.

I used moving day as an excuse to age Lynx, Minnow, and Sculpin up a bit as well. They were still adolescents and youths while the rest of the group were quite a ways into their adulthood. By the time the rest of the norns were added, Lynx was almost an hour old and the Undines weren't to far behind him. I put everyone back on the same level they were in the old word, mostly so the drama could continue.

While I was aging them up, Sculpin had made his way up to another level. I think he was a bit scared of the bigger norns because he tried hiding behind a plant when I added the other norns. Poor Minnow was left alone in the pond area. Besides for Sculpin, everyone else acted like nothing had ever happened. I counted everyone's babies and figured out that Lion had the... lion's share of the eggs. Bobcat had only had 5 out of 18 babies and Tiger only had 3. Even as I was writing that, Lion and Puma had another egg. Bobcat wasn't giving up though. A few minutes later, Bobcat and Ocelot had another egg.

While Bobcat and Lion fought over the females in the main hallway, Tiger and his gang were content to stay where they were. They had company and plenty of food to spare. Tiger had gone from snowy loner to the leader of his own group. I even saw Lynx admit that he loved Tiger! Unfortunately for Lynx, Tiger didn't know Handish. The only female not interested in mating at the time was Caracal. She was in Tiger's old area. I like to think she was reminiscing about her past, but she was likely just there for the fruit.


I was curious how everyone felt about each other, so I taught everyone the words for like and love. I regretted it almost immediately. Bobcat and Lion's group started love/like loops. Amusingly, Ocelot and Lion still loved each over. Ocelot only liked Bobcat, but Bobcat loved Ocelot. Also Tiger didn't have a strong opinion of Lynx and Lynx had decided he only liked Tiger. There had been a few slap fights, so I suppose that soured their relationship a bit. Also Puma and Bobcat had another egg, as did Lion and Ocelot. The amusing part about the pregnancies was that all of the eggs were the same color.

Yet another update

I don't have a nurture post today. I've been feeling terrible since this weekend and haven't gotten around to playing the nurture world yet. Even before that I was absorbed in some Caos coding and didn't play in the world. There's also been an update to the OLS ark, one that fixes the shivering. So I also need to create a new world for the norns. I might have something on Friday, but don't count on it. Instead of a nurture post, here's an update on some projects.

Look away, it's a spoiler!

Firstly, the new version of the Stinger Norns is done... well I'm done working on them. My interest in them has been nonexistent for a while. The base genomes haven been done for months, but work on the sub-breeds has been slow. I even thought it was my interest in genetics as a whole that was gone. Turns out that isn't the case, it's just the Stinger Norns. So they'll be release around their fourth anniversary sometime in late July. I do have something, hopefully, interesting planned for their anniversary. I won't be saying more then that because spoilers.

Secondly, the caos projects. The Simpler Hoverdoc/Hoverdoc Lite is almost finished. The main part of it is done but I keep finding things I want to change. Another caos project of mine is a monogamy script I wrote for a user on Creatures Caves. It's in a pretty stable state at the moment. I have a few ideas on improvements to it. So it'll likely have one last update to it before I upload it on CCaves. Lastly, there's two agents from last year I'm finally getting around to finishing. I'm not spoiling what they are. There's also a mystery agent but, guess what, I'm not spoiling it.

Lastly, the blog is likely going to be updated randomly once the current nurture world is over. Instead of the regular Wednesday posts, it will be updated whenever I have something to post. The main reason is that I don't have a blog world setup yet. I'm also getting tired of writing about DS. So what ever world I end up writing about won't be a DS world. There's a few interesting C3 agents that I've never tried out. Maybe it's finally time to give C3 standalone a try.

2017s: New Arrivals

Everyone was finally 2 hours old now and everyone, except for Tiger, had more then one egg to their name. That changed as soon as I unpaused the game. Puma was pregnant with Tiger's second egg. Amazingly, she was also the mother of Tiger's only other egg. These two had turned out to be more monogamous then my favorite pair in this world, Lion and Ocelot. Puma didn't even try getting to the norn home and was apparently content to lay her egg near the rest of the group. Everyone was together for a minute or two before they spread out again. Lion and Caracal went to the snowy area while the rest of them stayed in the main hallway. Despite the large amount of kisspopping, there weren't any new pregnancies. So I went off to add a new pair of Undine norns... hopefully with fixed nutrition genes this time.

Minnow and Sculpin were hatched and placed into their little pond area. I also opened the door to their area. The other norns probably wouldn't make their way there, but it gave them the option. At least something interesting would happen then. After the drama of the last few posts, the norns were taking a break. The norns were moving around, occasionally pushing each other, but not much happened for a bit.

Then Lion and Ocelot had another egg together. Ocelot laid her egg at the norn home and then rejoined the group in the main hallway. A second later, it was Puma and Tiger's turn to have another egg. And then Bobcat threw a shivering party in the snow area and forgot to invite Puma. Tiger was the first to leave the party. He either wanted some fruit to eat, or all of the shivering was getting boring. Lion and Ocelot followed soon after. I made a mental note to block of the snow area the next time I used this room. So. Much. Shivering.

Meanwhile, the Undine norns were doing fairly well. Minnow was playing with critters and critter eggs. Sculpin was taking nap on the other side of the room. Minnow eventually joined Sculpin on the other side of the room though. I also moved a few of the snail torchs to the snowy area to see if it helped Bobcat and Caracal. It helped with their boredom, but they were still shivering. I was getting quite tired of hearing the norns shiver.

Infact, I was so tired of them shivering that I created a button to, hopefully, reduce their coldness drive down to a reasonable level. I tested the button in another world first with another 2017 norn named Lynx. He was pretty lonely, so he was soon imported into the main 2017 world. I plopped him in the norn home and waited to see what happened. Tiger had apparently decided to go down a level while I wasn't looking, and Lynx found him pretty quickly. Meanwhile Caracal and Puma were in the main hall, likely looking for Tiger. Bobcat, Lion, and Ocelot were just enjoying the snow area with slightly less shivering. My cobbled together button worked, but not very well.

2017s: Dramatic Norns

Last time there were a lot of eggs and some moving around. Lion and Ocelot, a surprisingly monogamous couple, were separated when Ocelot went to the norn home to lay an egg. Bobcat, the father of most of the eggs, was trying to impress Ocelot and have an egg with her as well. She didn't seem all that interested. Puma was trying to explain to Carcal that the doors to the norn home were always open. Lastly, Tiger was shivering all alone on the top level of a snowy area where he had spent most of his life.

Tiger and Lion were apparently unhappy with my tidy little summary. They immediately moved when I unpaused the game. Lion was confused by his new surroundings and tried hiding. Tiger just joined Bobcat and Ocelot in shivering. A minute or two later, and Bobcat and Tiger went onto the top level. Maybe Tiger convinced Bobcat that his part of the room was warmer? Lion finally found Ocelot again and the two celebrated with another egg. Puma tried pushing a weed in the main hallway and found out they weren't very fun. Ocelot, meanwhile, made her way to the norn home to lay her egg.

After she laid her egg, the females immediately surrounded Lion. Despite all of the kisspopping noises, nothing really happened. They waited until I was brainstorming ideas for another world before they had another baby. This time Puma and Lion were the parents. I wasn't surprised that Lion was the father, but I was sort of unhappy about it. Ocelot and Lion made a nice, monogamous pair for a while. Both Ocelot and Caracal abandoned him after he got Puma pregnant. Maybe he and Ocelot had some version of a Nornish fight or maybe they just missed shivering. So much drama for norns that weren't even 2 hours old yet!

A minute later and Lion joined Ocelot in the right side of the metaroom. She welcomed him with a few slaps and he tried pushing her. Everyone eventually ended up on the same level and moved around enough that I gave up tracking them. There were a few minutes of shivering and kisspopping before Caracal became pregnant with Lion's egg. She paced for a bit before unceremoniously laying her egg in the coldest part of the world and walking off. She wasn't the sort to travel across the world just to lay an egg. A short while later, Puma and Bobcat had another egg as well. Puma actually tried making it to the norn home, but her shivering slowed her down. I think that was the first time she never made it.

Then the world hit another lull, so I inspected everyone's organs with the x-ray agent. Besides Bobcat and Puma, everyone had some damage to one of their organs. One of the genes in the 2017 genome was one that damaged the heart when adipose tissue was high enough. So almost everyone had apparently gotten really fat at some point. Almost as soon as I wrote that, Ocelot and Lion had another egg. I almost thought that Lion and Ocelot were going to get back together. Lion and Caracal sneaking off to Tiger's hill killed that thought pretty quickly. While there, they enjoyed this world's most popular hobby: shivering and kisspopping. They eventually had an egg together, and Caracal even tried to make it to the norn home.

This picture was too adorable not to add! (Even if Caracal is just shivering and not really surprised by something.)

Small update

Whoops. I never actually edited and posted last week's post, did I? A friend was in town for the week. Add in some wonderful allergies and the blog was the last thing on my mind for a while. I'm still not feeling great and I'm rather distracted at the moment. So the next 2017 genome post will be going up Friday instead of Wednesday.

I suppose I could give an update for a few other things as well. I've occasionally been messing around with Caos teardowns and a weird wolfling run setup. The Caos teardowns will probably start going up sometime later this month. I've decided to start with my many buttons of Caos, which are literally just buttons that run small chunks of code. Some of those buttons were used while testing an agent, and those buttons will lead into actual agent teardowns. Eventually, I'll get around to tearing apart my current project, the Simpler Hoverdoc/Hoverdoc Lite. That will be an... interesting thing to write about.

As for my wolfling run setup, I don't have much to say bout it. I could explain how it works or even what has gone into it. That would ruin the surprise though. So here's a few random screenshots from it that don't show anything too spoilery.