So, I ran GeneCompare but apparently it will report different gene numbers for brain lobes so….
I just added the missing tracts and lobes to the “Normal” Plant Norns and hoped it worked.
If you’d like to give these guys a spin, please check out the download available at Creatures Caves! If I missed any steps or glanced over edits to existing lobes and tracts, let me know so that I can address the issue as soon as I can.
Thanks!
Malachite became pregnant but, unfortunately, the poor baby was a still birth.
With the rapid string of pregnancies the last two times, I got to thinking I should slow down pregnancies a bit. As Malachite became pregnant again, I dove into research.
What an unfortunate name. In any case, I’ve moved her to the Norn Terrarium to be with her parents. While they frolicked (And the Chameleon ettins mercilessly pummeled each other) I edited some Chameleon ettins. I nearly missed the good news. Another Dragonfly Demon Ettin!
Momentous Meat is our first boy in a while, I think. That said, I was starting to get a little tired of coming back to check on new babies. The DFD ettins were far and away better than the vanilla CFE Chameleon ettins but they still breed way too often.
Eventually, I gave up and decided to start with my work in progress instead.
Here are my first two ettins. Gray Basket is a vanilla colored male and Watery Cushion is a female “Pink and White” variety. Unlike the “Color Chameleon” variety of the original genome, these guys are supposed to keep their birth color for their entire lives.
These are the next two. I’m not especially worried about them passing the IQ test since I’ve gotten pretty used to this genome making it in my tests so here’s hoping things go smoothly. I realize I don’t -always- test for my nurture worlds but this is as much a test bed as it is a nurture world.
I taught them their vocabulary with the Vocabulizer and showered them with food, including Dream Eaters and Tribbles. An edible critter dispenser would be lovely but I don’t have one in my game, sadly.
Thankfully, the game was pretty quiet. Instead of the constant mating and death that I had with the other Ettins, I had relatively little complaining, more eating and much, much less slapping. I had a while to wait before any of them were old enough to breed as well. They did spend quite a lot of time pushing toys, though. Every few seconds I would hear the Nornchi dolls or Robot toys being played with.
The abundance of food and availability of the toys didn’t do much to encourage travel but at least the little ettins were happy. I am sad to report that a few of them didn’t like each other. Vast Distribution and Hapless Parent are happy to share their dislike of each other but I’ve seen creatures change their minds about each other in the past. Hopefully this would be one of those cases.
Eventually, everyone spread out in the meso. Vast Distribution favored the top level, Hapless parent the middle, and Gray Basket and Water Cushion stuck to different halves of the bottom level. I did notice that they liked to rest – a lot. It wasn’t uncommon to have all four of them sleeping at the same time.
Just as they’d spread out, they managed to find their way to each other again. It could be because they’d all reached the Youth stage, though. They weren’t ready to breed yet – they’d have to wait til Adulthood – but they still had the instincts. Gray Basket was the first to reach adult hood, followed by Watery Cushion. I paired them together and immediately, they produced twins. I had only just set Gray Basket down when the notifications popped up. Anxious to see the babes, I decided to wait to see them before I went to bed. Naturally, this was just after I made the longer pregnancy edits. This pregnancy was going to be a long 8 minutes.
While I waited, Vast Distribution and Hapless Parent also decided to have an egg.
A suspenseful 8 minutes later, these two emerged.
First came the girl.
Then came the boy.
And finally, the other couple’s baby. For your convenience and mine, I went ahead and grabbed their parents pictures for comparison.
I know it’s harder to tell in parents with similar colors, but I think they blended alright, just like colortrue creatures are supposed to.
I’ll have to do more testing and this group will probably be deleted. I’ve found a lot of issues in this short session that I’d like to address soon. I hate to say it but I think the ettin nurture world project will have to be set aside for now but another project has definitely arisen as a result of giving this type of world a try.
Unfortunately, two of the eggs didn’t make it (accidentally deleted them with the egg hatcher…. *cough*).
Then, moments into the move, Patty was mercilessly beaten to death by Lydia, her mother. Lydia, who soon became pregnant again. Anyway, time for a quick census.
Here are the first four ettins, on the left and their offspring on the right. After this picture was taken, Rhonda gave birth to this little girl.
What a pretty girl! She looks just like her mother as a child. Sadly, we couldn’t celebrate her life for long because she was killed by her family next to the HLM. Tragically, boredom is reduced by slapping other creatures in this genome.
Soon though, Lydia was ready to give birth again and killed her mate Abner once was she was pregnant. What a violent breed.
Skinny Wilderness was the next offspring and Malachite became pregnant again. I hardly have time to take pictures before the next baby is born. XD
Naughty Guide was the next to join us. I hate to admit it, but seeing these is a breath of fresh air. Not long after Naughty was born, Innocent front was killed by Lydia.
Ignore that frown of her’s. She’s actually the one doing most of the murdering. Honestly, I’m starting to think that starting over would have been a mercy.
For some reason, Emerald started experiencing pain. As soon as I opened the Medical Monitor to solve the problem, the cause and his pain disappeared. I guess it could have been bacteria since no one was hitting him at the time, but it’s still a little concerning.
Then, Naughty Guide and Skinny Wilderness started to experience pain. It killed Skinny Wilderness. Suddenly, it dawned on me! I used evolnemesis’ directions to enable wall bonking! Oops. Still, wall bonking seemed to work. The Naughty Guide had the sense to walk away from the wall and I suppose Skinny Wilderness just kept going. It isn’t wallbonking itself that did her in, it’s the fact that she was literally too dim to stop doing it.
Next to wall bonk was Malachite, who was trying to play with the instrument on the top left corner of the Meso. To save all of the ettins some trouble, I moved the musicola to the middle of the top floor. Eventually, I decided it would be best to remove wall bumping for now because it just caused too much fear in the poor things.
Strangely, things had quieted down after that. Malachite decided it was fun to play with the Meta-Door and the two Ettins with random bouts of murderous intent stuck together alone at the bottom level of the meso.
Even more strange, I tried to patch up a dispute between Emerald and Malachite and as a result of the general pushing, Rhonda and Lydia both became pregnant, even with no male around either of them and these two were born as a result.
Hooray. Just in time to lighten the mood, Barbara, one of the Dragonfly Demon Ettins became pregnant while the four Chameleon Ettins slapped each other by the HLM.
Joyous Connection emerged from Barbara’s egg. I decided then to move the Dragonfly Demon ettins into the Norn Terrarium. It’s a bigger space and should accomodate this giant, growing family better. For their safety I installed Mind Arrows and left the Chameleon ettins to their own devices in the Meso.
Meet the new baby Rhonda! I have to say, I like her colors! Her upbringing so far is no different than her parents’ so far, though. She has trouble managing boredom and actually spends more of her time resting than either of her parents. Her genetics aren’t especially different, however.
An hour in, her parents finally reached adulthood and adopted a red and green color pattern. This really got me interested in Colortrue genetics since I thought this breed was a good candidate for the edits. Rhonda, despite her initially different color started to follow her parents’ colors as she grew up. I was a little sad the color change didn’t seem to stick but that’s how things are.
Rhonda got to witness the birth and soon, she had a sister named Patty.
Sadly, though, she comes from the original Chameleon ettin genome and is pretty… dumb. Like the rest of her family. While her family huddled by the HLM, I decided to check up on the Dragonfly Demon Ettins.
Malachite and Emerald were actually quite self-sufficient. They fed together, advised each other to rest and did some exploring on the upper level of the Meso. It wasn’t long til the two of them got close enough to have their first egg together. And then Lydia had another. With the population limit set to just 6 I wasn’t worried about crowding, but the eggs might get out of hand since ettins tend to be super breeders.
Soon, Malachite was pregnant again. I feel a bit guilty admitting this but I was tempted to remove the Chameleon ettins and play with my updated genome instead. Huddling in a corner of the room doesn’t make for exciting play or writing and the two Dragonfly Demon ettins weren’t likely to match the egg-laying power of dumb, ettin pushing super breeders. Seriously, their pregnancy lasts less than a minute. As if on cue, Lydia became pregnant again, then Rhonda.
Equally tempting was packing up the ettins and moving to a docked world. I opted to do that instead and hatched all of the eggs in preparation for the move.
