We had a lazy start today. Beside Evelyn nibbling some of the Baobab, anyway. The two ate a few carrots a piece and were pretty healthy. I wanted to introduce a new baby, but I liked the peace and quiet that came with having just two norns. Maybe once they were each a bit older.

bandicam 2015-05-20 11-00-22-445As Trevor made his way towards the hooch vendor, I scooped him up and introduced him to an Albian slide show. Once he tired of that (he rolled up the screen) I lured him up to the bees and there, we spotted Evelyn by the computer. I led her up to the tree house and I used the air tram to lead Trevor to her. This time, the reunion was a very happy one! Both of them smiled as they slapped and kissed each other, like playful kids.

bandicam 2015-05-20 11-10-52-207After a while, Trevor fled the scene to have some me-time but Evelyn didn’t seem like she was ready to leave him alone just yet! I guess I have another pushy lady-norn on my hands! They played chase for a while and I was confident they’d fill the world with eggs once they were old enough. That was still about an hour away, but I was excited all the same.

  • Share on Tumblr
  •  

bandicam 2015-05-16 11-58-53-815When Evelyn made it to the kitchen, I imported Trevor and at first, the two ignored each other. I managed to get Trevor to walk back towards the lift where Evelyn was and, though they were tickling and kissing, they both looked very worried, like they weren’t sure what to do.

bandicam 2015-05-16 12-15-32-301Rather than worry with them, I decided to scoop them up in the lift. The change in location might get their minds off whatever was troubling them, and it seemed to work. At least, Evelyn was smiling now. Trevor still seemed a little worried.

To ease his worries, I took him for a walk through the garden by using the teleporter. As I left to collect Evelyn, Trevor got a hold of some hooch and emptied the can. He fell asleep in a nearby lift and I left to get Evelyn. I’d hoped to reuinte the two now that Trevor was rested and relaxed, but the sneaky little guy retreated underground to the raft below the garden. I guess he was still intimidated by his new friend! Maybe he was just shy?

At any rate, I wasn’t very worried about them. They were still just 15 minutes old and had their whole lives ahead of them to meet again.

  • Share on Tumblr
  •  

MoveIt really feels like I’m starting over with the games after the extended break I’ve been forced to take. On top of computer troubles, I’ve lost all of my norns and worlds for all of my Creatures games. I suppose things could be worse but, honestly, not by much.

At any rate, I’ve decided to look at this as an opportunity to try playing this game relatively clean, that is, without any fancy addons, agents and the like. I haven’t even bothered to download the tickets for the hand or Encyclopedia Nornica since my tragic data-loss. Honestly, I think going cold turkey from those things might make me a better norn-mommy anyway.

I did download one third-party add-on, though. Today, I’m starting a new world with the Perficio breed. Let’s go ahead and meet our first little one.

TrevorThis is Trevor! He’s got the appearance of a Horse Norn but, like all of the creatures that will follow, he’s 100% Perficio. The only difference, genetically, between him and all other creatures that follow will be in their appearance genes. Should make for an interesting world, I think.

I taught him “toy”, “food”, “look”, “push” and “pull”. As I cycled through his other words, I noticed something already wildly different from the original norn genome. Trevor’s health actually reached 100%! Fantastic! With vanilla genomes, I was used the genomes rarely making it above 75%. Now, seeing his health over 100% got me thinking that he might be better off with his better genes. From what I remember about reading about the genome, this comes from better chemical and drives balancing, which also kept him from feeling hungry when he didn’t actually need to eat.

I taught him all the words available in the computer and decided to raise him up to about 10 minutes old before exporting him and introducing his new friend. He was very easy to raise and didn’t demand much attention.

EvelynSoon, Evelyn would join us. She learned her vocabulary just as quickly as Trevor and soon, she was allowed to explore, at least to an extent. She preferred sleeping and spent more time in the house. Before long, I coaxed her out of the house and taught her the same lesson about weeds and plants that I’d taught Trevor.

It wasn’t long before she was gripped by a wanderlust and she got to learn additional lessons, like how much fun it was to play the musicola in the temple. She pressed it again and again. I was starting to think I’d have a musician in this pair. I noted her age (just 9 minutes) and I led her back to the house to prepare her to meet her partner Trevor. Fingers crossed they get along!

  • Share on Tumblr
  •  

It’s been a while since my last post and I promise it’s not because I’ve been lazy. Honestly, perhaps the worst thing could have happened to my data when I backed everything up.

After backing up all of my files onto an external hard drive, my husband and I assembled my new computer, installed all the software and I thought I was ready to go. This process included zero-filling my old hard drive to prevent system errors, which meant that anything that wasn’t saved onto the external hard drive was lost forever. Except…

My external hard drive ended up… well. Kicking the bucket.

As a result, I’ve been forced to start over. My Morrowind backup, including mods that are no longer available online? Gone. My saved games for my Youtube Channel? Gone. Old games that I bought from no-longer-existing companies, like Reflexive Arcade? Gone. All of my petz, all of my guppies and all of my Creatures and worlds? Back-flipping gone.

Rather than get bummed about it (trust me, I’ve already experienced all the stages of grief) I decided to buck up and move on to new things. For example, this is an opportunity for me to play with a mostly vanilla world. I’ll still be playing with fixes, patches and other bug-repelling mods and patches for the Creatures games, but now, I’ll be sort of limited in the number of agents that I have in my arsenal. This is good for two things. 1) It’ll force me to look for agents that I’ll find the most useful and 2) it’ll keep me from creating a monstrously big list of agents to choose from in-game.

It has got me limiting myself to Creatures 1 for the time being, though. As much as I enjoy Creatures 3 and Docking Station, I’d be lying if I said I wanted to jump into playing two games simultaneously right away. For now, though, to help me get back into my blogging routine, I’d like to play with the Perficio Norn breed. It should be fun!

Anyway, regular posting should resume soon. In addition to a computer upgrade and some other new hardware (Intensity Shuttle with Thunderbolt? You bet.) I also got Adobe CS6. It’s a tremendous upgrade from CS3, which I was using before, but I’m still getting used to some of the differences. Aren’t tax returns great? I’ll see you all very soon.

Kez

  • Share on Tumblr
  •