Grendels: The End

This was written after the months long gap in posts. Even after that gap in blog posts, I was surprised by how well I remembered certain individuals. Puddle was the darling little baby who found the forbidden fruit first and Arroyo was one of the grendels who laughed in the face of physics. The grendels didn't notice the time gap, and didn't seem to care that their world was in the wrong season. To them it was an eternal pool party, from sun up to sun down.

The Aquanornia group was spread out on two levels, with Lagoon joining Gulf as soon as I opened the world. Spring, Arroyo, and Firth were fond of kisspopping while Lagoon and Gulf preferred to give each other some space most of the time. Meanwhile the Oasis group was still in two separate groups. Even after an hour, Fjord was still with his parents, Creek and Loch. Meanwhile, Ocean was still with her parents, Bay and Puddle. Cove was there as well, enjoying the sun and butterflies fluttering about. Even old immortal Balmora was as happy as an eternally bored grendel could be.

Everyone was entering the the ancient stage, so I decided to up the population limit a bit. Almost immediately, Ocean was expecting an egg from her father. A few minutes later, Creek and Fjord were expecting, as well as Puddle and Bay. Unfortunately for the Aquanornia group, I hadn't increase the limit that much. So they didn't have any extra children. They had spread back out anyway, apparently driven into the depths by Balmora's constant vibraphone playing.

All was quiet though, so I decided to record a few minutes of each group. I realized around three minutes in that Fjord had decided to visit the Aquanornia group. Gulf also died during the video. She didn't die of old age. I don't think she was eating that well and starved. How did the rest of the group do in the face of death? Spring didn't wait around for it. In the last minute of her life, she visited to the Oasis. Puddle and Bay, meanwhile, did wait for death and died within a few second of each other. The rest also didn't move much, and enjoyed the company of their friends. In the end, I was left with five grendels of various ages and 20ish eggs to hatch.

 

The remaining grendels, Fjord, Lagoon, Loch, and Ocean, as well as half of the eggs will be moved to a different world at some point and the other babies will probably be uploaded. Balmora, meanwhile, rushed into the warp room with her vibraphone babbling about some concert in an old castle. So maybe we'll see what she is up to later. All in all, I really enjoyed watching this generation and I'll eventually get around to writing about the next one as well. Next week is the CCSF, and I joined the blog carnival. So expect a lot of rambling from me!

Grendels: Getting Old

These lavender grendels didn't always die from eldritch entrancement, sometimes they just didn't like eating. Delta died of starvation, and I wasn't surprised. He and Bay had a mutation that made eating seeds useless for them and both of them had problems remembering to eat in the past. I would have been worried for Bay, but he had a happy smile on his face and plenty of food near him. So the only way he would starve would be to ignore all of the food around him. With Delta's death, Fjord was born. He quickly dove into the group of adults and it took a few seconds before he came out for this screenshot. He was Creek and Loch's baby, so I moved him over to his parents group. They immediately welcomed him with hugs and kisspops.

Meanwhile in Aquanornia, everything was fine. Firth and Spring were still on the top level, Arryoyo and Lagoon were checking out Mere's old area, and Gulf was off on her own still. Balmora had finally decided that pushing unpushable plants was a waste of time and instead filled the air with her wonderful vibraphone songs again. Almost as soon as she did, Lagoon took the elevator up to the top level and started pushing Balmora. Pretty soon a little fan club had formed around her, though Lagoon made it very obvious that she was Balmora's biggest fan.

Besides a newly formed fan club, the world was other wise very quiet for a while. Eventually the main population started entering the old stage and even Fjord was growing up. I decided to celebrate this by burying everyone in ice cream and quirky cookies. They weren't very impressed at first, but some of them eventually gave into temptation and ate some.

Grendels: Eldritch Enchantments

Last time at the Lavender Grendel's pool party, I was flooded with eggs and the group was doing well. This time I started up the world and was surprised to see Balmora away from her vibraphone. Apparently four was a crowd and she had moved on to pushing plants. Also the grendels on the top of Aquanoria occasionally broke the laws of physics and teleported to the picnic table. They were either very interested in the teapot in the background, or they were a bit to big for the area. Either way, Balmora's wonderful vibraphone concerts had given way to plushie squeaks and kisspopping parties. Or maybe they were driven to madness by Mere constantly squeaking her star-spawn plushie. Despite slowly going mad, everyone was healthy.

Even the Oasis group was doing well. They weren't breaking any laws of physics, and the rain wasn't dampening their spirits any. With the new fruit sources, they didn't have to move around as much. So they were content to stay in their separate groups. Then suddenly Mere died. She had apparently been so entranced by the eldritch plushie that she forgot to eat. She didn't have any hunger on the hoverdoc, but the Lavender Grendels had some Gizmo genes in them. Even 10 minutes without food was potentially deadly for them. I gave her a parting tickle before turned my attention to the new baby.

Because Mere died, one of Puddle and Bay's babies hatched. Little Ocean immediately went down a level and turned on the sprinkler. She didn't know what to think of the water droplets and watched them for a while before heading to the forbidden fruit puddle. She took a bite of it and said that she was happy. Fortunately for her, this forbidden fruit just taught her vocabulary. Ocean eventually settled down for a nap and I hid the apple again. After her nap, she set off to look for her treasure. She took a wrong turn though and ended up with her parents. I made sure she had her air bubbles before going back to the Aquanornia group.

It was quieter there... almost. Firth and Spring were fond of kisspoping until they fell asleep. The world was at the egg limit though, so no new eggs would be laid until someone else died. I was hoping that would be far off into the future though. I was fond of this group of grendels, even if some did worship eldritch plushies until they starved to death.

Grendels: Flooded with babies

(I've somehow lost my screenshots for this post, so please enjoy some unused ones from the last post instead.) Last time, the grendels in Aquanornia had two children and I decided to look at some of their genomes. Fortunately for them, there weren't that many notable mutations. Unfortunately, two of the mutations they did have were major. Three of the gen 6 grendels, Bay, Cove, and Delta, had this mutation: (top file is the default Lavender Grendel genome and bottom is the mutated version)

554 Different in file 1  36   0 Emb B MutDupCut        128   0 Eaten plant (77) causes sig=0 GS neu=0 int=0, ,,,192 => -31*Hunger for carbohydrate + -37*Hunger for fat + 13*Starch + 13*Fat
554 Different in file 2  36   0 Emb B MutDupCut        128   0 Discomfort (76) causes sig=0 GS neu=0 int=0, ,,,192 => -31*Hunger for carbohydrate + -37*Hunger for fat + 13*Starch + 13*Fat

Instead of getting starch and fat from eating seeds, they got starch and fat when they felt discomfort. I'm not sure what triggers this stim, but I do know that these unlucky grendels no longer got anything from eating seeds. They do have other instincts that tell them to eat something else for starch or fat, but it's a terrible mutation to have in the gene pool. So I went into their genomes and changed the gene back to the proper stim. I don't think this will help them that much, but hopefully this will make sure the mutation doesn't pass on. Luckily, Loch and Lagoons parents were free from this mutation. Arroyo, their father, did have one interesting mutation though:

443 Different in file 1   9   0 Emb B MutDupCut        128   0 I am sleeping (periodic) (22) causes sig=75 GS neu=0 int=0, ,Sensed even when asleep,,224 => -5*Sleepiness + -2*Crowded + -5*Tiredness + 2*Boredom
443 Different in file 2   9   0 Emb B MutDupCut        128   0 I am sleeping (periodic) (22) causes sig=75 GS neu=0 int=0, ,Sensed even when asleep,,224 => -5*Sleepiness + -2*Crowded + -5*Sleepiness + 2*Boredom

Instead of this stimulus reducing tiredness, it reduces sleepiness instead. This likely made sleeping less effective for him, and have even made him more tired then the other grendels. I made a mental note to watch his tiredness closer from now on before unpausing the world.

! spotted the green apple and moved it back to it's hiding spot. No like/love loops for them if I could help it. Immediately after, Spring and Firth had their first child. Loch had apparently had enough of Balmora's terrible vibraphone playing and moved into the Oasis. While watching him there, I noticed Delta and Bay were quite hungry. I found Delta near the temple looking miserable and Bay desperately trying to eat the green apple to satisfy his hunger. So I took them to a separate room and taught them that food is good. Delta got it immediately, but Bay took a good minute of "eat food" before he actually ate food. Both looked much happier after they were done with their little lesson though.

Meanwhile the Aquanornia group had two more babies. The first one belonged to Arroyo and Gulf, and the second one belonged to Mere and Firth. Arroyo stayed put while Firth and Mere had enough of the other grendels pushy lifestyle. Mere moved up a level to take a nap while Firth explored the rest of Aquanornia. He even met Lagoon and Balmora on the top level. Lagoon had been trying to make friends with Balmora this whole time, and she actually succeeded! She and Balmora had probably bonded over their common interest in pushing things. Speaking of pushing, Mere, Spring, and Gulf all got pregnant around the same time. The Oasis group also had it's first pregnancy! Cove and Bay were the proud parents. A few seconds later and Puddle and Bay were expecting twins.

After a few minutes, Mere was pregnant yet again. Arroyo, Gulf, and Spring had also joined Mere in the middle of Aquanornia. Before I could watch them any further, Creek and Delta were expecting their first baby. Lagoon was also pregnant, with Firth being the father. Then Spring got pregnant. I was flooded with eggs at this point and was quite glad I had the population limit set to 13. If the 12 of them were this prolific, I really didn't need their children adding the chaos. At this point everyone, besides the two babies and Balmora, was around an hour and half old, and had an untold number of eggs. I was quite happy with how they were doing, but I knew was going to stop reporting every baby after this post. So many babies.

Grendels: Smooth Sailing

Between the calming waves in Oasis, and jazz music I had in the background, I nearly missed Puddle living up to her name. She was investigating the only puddle in the world. Entranced by the strange green apple, she stared at it for a few seconds before eating it. Amazed that the fruit didn't disappear when she at it, she stared at the camera and said "Puddle happy!" I didn't teach the grendels their vocabulary. This strange fruit had the horrible effect of teaching her Handish. She was quite happy about this, but I was slightly dreading the "love/hate" loops if some of the other grendels found the apple. Puddle was determined to keep her new treasure though, and tried to hide behind a flower. I let her keep it and checked on the other group.

The Aquanornia group were a close group of grendels, literally. They weren't as spread out at the Oasis group and were fond of pushing each other. Perhaps they had formed a Coralroot Club and were all gathering to celebrate the over abundance of them? Or maybe they were just fascinated by them because their instincts told them plants were entertaining. Either way, they all figured out that pushing each other was very entertaining. Soon Gulf and Arroyo were proud parents of the first egg! Followed by Mere and Arroyo. Arroyo was one of the gen 6 grendels, and I was curious if he had a mutation that made him more fertile. I wanted to check on the other group first.

Back with the Oasis group, things were going slightly terrible. I had forgotten to add a source of fruit for them, and two of them were very hungry. So I lured everyone into the pool with some fruit and added a few more fruit sources to their hut area. I also noticed that Cove was now an adult. Everyone was around the same age, so this meant that everyone would be an adult soon. This was a perfect time to hatch some babies and soon Loch and Lagoon were hatched. After double checking that they had air bubbles, I looked up a bunch of monikers and got to comparing.

Grendel-infested Waters

(Ignore the slight gap in the posts, my crop of cacti were infested by bugs and it always takes more time to squish them then you think it does.) First, here's an update on the Lavender Grendels from the Mobula Ray world. All but one of them died out and the one that survived, Etienne, survived because he was exported. So I hatched a bunch of first gens for him and watched over them carefully. I even rigged up some antibacterial spray to spray every so often. The grendels turned these into toys, but they still did wonderfully. By the time Etienne's generation died, they had 20 children! Etienne had 11 children while another male had 9. Why have I mentioned the grendels here? Because one of the Creatures Challenge over at the Discover Albia forum caught my eye around the time I was deciding what to do with all of these babies. I decided to create a summer-themed world just for them.

Summer to me means water, heat, and way too many insects everywhere. So I created an aquatic world... for terrestrial grendels. Normally this would end up with a load of dead grendels, but through the magic of magic words I could give these lucky grendels air bubbles so they didn't end up drowning. The rest of the world was setup like most of my pet worlds end up, overly decorated and easy to live in. Sadly, the world didn't have space for all 20 of the babies, so I chose 10 random grendels. I also went with the somewhat fitting theme of "random bodies of water" which meant names that went from Arroyo to Puddle.

I ended up with four males and 6 females, all of which seemed to get along with each other. Firth, Arroyo, Gulf, Spring, and Mere were in Aquanornia, while Puddle, Creek, Cove, Delta, and Bay were in the Oasis. Balmora was also taking a vacation there, but she was more interested in the Vibraphone them meeting her new neighbors. How well did the grendels settle in? Find out next time! For now, here's a list of most of the agents used in the world:

Metarooms:
Oasis - Created by Liam and Moe. It needs a lot of work to get it habitable, but it's very pretty.
Aquanornia Revamped - Originally created by Jennie updated by Grendel Man. It's empty but it's very easy to turn into a livable space. I usually use it with Past Seas.

Agents:
Aqua Toys - Created by Laura and TrellyDawn
Beach Ball - Created by Creatures Labs
C2 crabs - Created by AquaShee
Comfort Candles - Created by Jesseth and Kezune
Feuerling - Created by MK Grendel
Garden flower - Creatred by Mea and Grendel Man
GB: Butterfly - Created by Amaikokonut
MW: Air bubbles - Created by Amaikokonut
Muffin basket - Created by Ghosthande
Norndoll Bondi - Created by Ghosthande
Other butterflies - Created byTwilightCat
Oasis Shrimpton - Created by Moe, Ghosthande, and Grendel Man
Sea Garden pack - Created by Mean and Grendel Man
Star-spawn pushies - Created by Ghosthande
Sunflower - Created by Ghosthande
Survivor Radio - Created by Ghosthande
Sprinkler - Created by Geek2Nurse
Tea Time plants - Created by TwilightCat and Bug
Weather generator - Created by AquaShee
Vibraphone - Created by Apollo

Mobula Ray: Grendel Trouble

After attempting to cure a plague of histamine and giving up, I regretted making the Jungle such a hot spot. If old age didn't kill these creatures, the bacteria in the Jungle would. Old age claimed a life first, though. Antonio, the first gen male Grendel, was the first to die around 4 hours and 38 minutes. Since my world was at the population limit, a little gen 5 male grendel hatched. Not a second later, an old gen 1 male Stinger Norn died of starvation. This left the Norn Terrarium group without a male, though there were two or three in the Jungle. Even the stinger baby who hatched was female.

Amusingly, my norn home smell emitter was still active and confusing Norns. A female Stinger named Kanako decided to lay her egg in the Ark's hallway. She really didn't know what to do with herself. She picked up her egg, tried to hit it, but ended up dancing around with a teacup. The newest Grendel joined her for a while before traveling to the Desert. He was the latest member of the Grendel group to make that journey, with Isolda being the first.

While watching the Grendel, one of the gen 1 Stingers, Miai, died. She died of starvation in the Jungle, which had more then enough food. A little stinger male hatched, and I moved him into the Norn Terrarium. And then Tsiyi died of apparently nothing. He wasn't old, diseased, or starving. Living in the Jungle might have gotten to him though. He was one of the sicker ones when the histamine plague hit. I then noticed that there weren't any Grendel eggs.

Slightly worried for my favorite group of creatures in this world, I decided to export the latest baby, just in case the whole population died out. All of the Grendels were older then an hour, and a decent amount of the were in the old stage or higher. There were two or three Grendels still below old age though. I also moved the Jungle Stingers to the Meso, since the Grendels and Norns were getting into little slap-fights here and there. To both breeds credit, neither side had killed one another yet, they just didn't like each other very much.

Mobula Ray: Genetic weirdness

I'll admit, my interest in this world died a little bit when Isolda died. Because of this I decided to stop blogging the world when most or all of the first generation died off. Considering these first gen Stingers were close to the three hour mark, that wasn't far off. Anai Stinger usually live 10ish hours, but I had forgotten to length this version's lifespan. So they had the regular lifespan of about five and a half hours. The Ettins were over three hours old at this point, and the rest of the first gens weren't to far behind. The only surviving gen 1 Grendel, a male named Antonio, was over 3 hours old and already in the old stage.

It wasn't any of the first gens who died first though. Instead it was a second gen Grendel who died of starvation. I was quite disappointed to see that, since the room was filled with food, and I was fond of dumping food near them. There really wasn't a good excuse for him starving. Still, his death meant that there were only three males left, and one of those was the first gen. In another part of the world, Christian, the ex-loner Stinger male, finally had a child named Fidelio. Sadly, that child ended up being a fastager and died quickly.

Slightly weirded out by the Stinger dying, I copied down the fastagers moniker and compared it's genome to the base genome. Before I got very far in it though, I noticed that the Jungle Terrarium couple, Ezura and Sassacus, had a baby. As if that wasn't enough, the newest Stinger baby quickly suffocated to death... on land. So I added her moniker to the list to compare. I also noticed the first gen Grendel had histamine, so I moved him to the medbay to cure him. While doing so, I found Christian trying to eat an elevator. So I moved the both of them to the Jungle and paused the game. I was tired of the interruptions and was dying to know what happened to the babies.

Finding out what happened to the fastager was easy. The initial concentration of life was set to variant 1, which meant that this Stinger was dead when it was born. I debated if I should to fix this in the base genomes or not, and went with yes. This sort of mutation is unrealistic and mildly disturbing. While the first baby was easy to figure out, the second one was much harder to pin down. It didn't have any obvious mutations like the last one. I did eventually find out what happened, and it's even more interesting. File 1 is the baby who died, and file two is the original genome:

 150 Different in file 1 176   0 Emb B MutDupCut        128   0 Organ# = 6, Current Reaction, No Tissue, Unknown Locus: 2, chem=Antigen 5, thresh=0, nom=0, gain=68, features=Analogue  (0)
 150 Different in file 2 176   0 Emb B MutDupCut        128   0 Organ# = 6, Organ, Organ, Injury, chem=Antigen 5, thresh=0, nom=0, gain=68, features=Analogue  (0)

This mutation, if it was connected to a less vital reaction, wouldn't be fatal. It's supposed to injure an organ when the Norn is infected with Antigen 5, but it's mutated to shut off the reaction entirely. If I remember correctly, this sort of receptor setup speeds up or slows down a reaction, depending on how much of that chemical is in the Norn's body or if the chemical passes a threshold. It's been a while since I've messed with receptor genes, so correct me if I'm wrong in the comments. The only thing I know for sure is that the baby dies even with antigen 5 in its system. The only way I got the poor thing to live was by silencing the mutated receptor. Once I did that, her clone was fine.

When I unpaused the world, Ezura and Sassacus had another baby, a healthy female this time. After checking on the rest of the world, I noticed some of the second gen Grendels were getting old. Also that the Jungle was getting quite crowded, with 9 Grendels and 4 Norns. The Norn Terrarium was also a bit full. So I lowered the population limit from 40 to a more manageable 32. Seeing as the world already had 32 creatures in it, any new eggs wouldn't hatch.

And then, like Creatures worlds usually do after such an eventful time, they go silent. Eventually, I got bored and used the airlock glitch on a scent emitter. I think it confused a norn, because Ditte left the Terrarium to come check it out. It shocked her so much, she went grey! Or at least that's what I like to think. Really it was just her unusually short lifespan kicking in.

Mobula Ray: Distractions and Death

Last time, everything was going pretty well. So well in fact, that I felt confidant I could leave the game running while I took care of something else. When I came back Sayo, one of the gen 1 Grendels, and one of the gen 2 stinger males were dead. Isolda had apparently had enough of the heat and Ettins and moved back to the Jungle. Some Stinger had tagged along with her, and now the Jungle had both Norns and Grendels in it. Also Miai and Isolda had their first babies. Miai's baby turned out to be female while Isolda had twins, one male and one female.

Christian had moved down to be with the rest of the Stingers, and Ditte had another female child. It didn't take long for one of the Stinger males, Sassacus and Isolda's male baby, Tsiyi, to move to the Desert terrarium. One of the Ettins, Uda, was still in there. So perhaps the Grendel wanted to keep him mother's childhood friend company. One of the Norn garden gang has also decided to move to the Meso, a mountain Norn named Xerxes.

After a while, Tsiyi moved back to the Grendel Jungle, probably to pass on a message from the Ettin to his mother. The Norn garden gang had another baby, which I moved into the Norn Meso to give Xerxes some company. I was regretting my choice of marks for the grendels at this point. All of the swords tended to merge when they were all together. Also regrettable that I forgot to pause the game when the phone rang and I was distracted for a while.

When I got back, Isolda was dead. She was fine when I last saw her, but a full dose of Antigen 6 was to much for her. Even sadder was the fact that she was pregnant when she died. There was still hope for them though, her daughter had laid an egg and I was also able to use the eggernator to get Isolda's last egg. Isolda's egg hatched into a male named Guregori. He was immediately swarmed by flies. So I moved him to safety and notice that Sassacus had moved into the Jungle as well. And one of the Stinger had twins! Despite the deaths, the Stingers were up to 12 members, the Grendels still had 10 members, and the Norngarden Gang were up to 8 members.

Mobula Ray: Cacti and Ice Cream

 

I loaded up the world again and decided to add come cactus toys I created for a different world. While I was adding some cactus toys I've been messing around with to the Ettin Desert, a Stinger had another male baby. And then one female got pregnant again. I realized that I hadn't added the longer pregnancy to this Stinger genome and wrote down a reminder to fix that. Then I went back to adding cacti.

After I finished adding cacti, nothing really happened for a while. I was getting really bored of watching them until I remembered the ice cream machine and decided to make ice cream for everyone. It works like the quirky cookie maker, and it's always fun to see what mixes together. The main gaggle of Stingers weren't impressed by my creations, and ignored them. Another Stinger had joined Christian at the crypt, and he even grabbed the ice cream. I think the color confused him though, because he just danced around with it before taking a nap. The Norngarden gang were happier to see them and one female immediately took a bite. Isolda was also happy to see them and ate one before I could take a screenshot. The Grendels in the Jungle weren't interested either and were more interested in practicing their crowded dance.

When I went back to check on my Stingers, I found Christian with a different Stinger, Miai, and they had apparently fallen in love. And two more babies had been born, two females. Both of them were from Ditte, who was a baby making machine. She alone had possibly secured the next generation for the Stingers, barring any plagues. Considering I was curing any sick Norns, plagues weren't very likely. The Norngarden gang had only had a grand total of one baby, and weren't looking so good. The Grendels were doing slightly better, with quite a few second gens. All in all, everything looked pretty good.

Another Mobula Ray Update

Considering the large gap between the last update and this one, a small update is probably in order. I honestly don't feel like explaining what happened here, so I'll just say life got in the way and my interest in the games died for a couple of month. Real life has gotten somewhat better, and even if it hadn't, writing for this blog has always been enjoyable. So, as of this blog post going live, The Mobula Ray will likely be updated once or twice a week. I say likely because it really depends on how much editing I complete and how much I'm actually playing the game. Currently the only other world I have is a wolfling world, and writing about the same run every week would get old fast.

With that out of the way, I've reinstalled C3/DS recently. I finally got tired of waiting 5 minutes to import 1 Norn and decided to completely reinstall C3/DS. This has left me without any worlds to mess around in, so I decided to go with my old default of Mobula Ray. In case anyone is wondering, the old Mobula Ray ended up being a confusing whirlwind of hatching, naming, and exporting babies and trying, and failing, to keep up with a large population. It ended up being a confusing mess that was interesting to watch, but a pain to write about and so I stopped working on the world. It did teach me that I prefer blogging about worlds that have already reached some sort of end point.




Which brings me back to the new Mobula Ray world. The world setup isn't as complex as my usual one and it doesn't even have seasonal food sources. It's just a simple docked world with Norn Garden 1 and a few extra agents in it. Even the Creatures in it are gen 1s, with some CFF Stinger Norns in the Norn Terrarium, Lavender Grendels in the Jungle, a random assortment of Norns in Norngarden 1, and two default Ettins that hatched while creating the world. The only thing I've done differently is add familial marks to everyone, with the individual marks only being passed on by females.

Even with a simple setup, I had one interesting thing happen. The group of Grendels already had one of their gen 1 females die of disease, and she only had one descendant, little Isolda. The rest were descended from Sayo, who was much more fertile than the other Grendel was. Isolda had apparently had enough of the Jungle though! She decided to visit the Desert Terrarium and make friends with one of the local Ettins. In the other parts of the world, there were some happy Anai Stingers, which was nice to see considering I hadn't tested them that thoroughly yet. There was one main group of three, and one loner named Christian who decided to camp out near the Crypt. The group in the Norn Garden was also doing pretty well.