Nevermind Bugs

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Nevermind bacteria. I’m only a week away from moving my things and I’m not sure I’m willing to deal with the stress that comes from the bacteria in this game. I just wish it weren’t so outright deadly. I don’t die every time I catch a cold or get a fever, y’know?

Anyway.

The norns have taken to getting themselves injured and the two boneys are faring well on their own.

By now, all the norns but Five Cheese were Old and Impartial Relation and Flawless Color were as well. All the other Grendels were adults and Bethany was on her way to adulthood herself and she’s shaping up to be a very happy grendel. At 32 minutes she’s a youth. While I’m excited about any eggs she has, I’m also nervous about the imminent deaths of my norns and the remaining Generation 2 Grendels.

Still, better to press on knowing that I’ve got 12 norn eggs, 4 grendel eggs, 1 norn and 1 grendel waiting to be welcomed into the world.

I felt sad for Wide-Eyed Payment since she wouldn’t be able to lay her eggs. Her pregnancy didn’t seem to cause her any discomfort, however. The problems didn’t stop, though. Lowly Adjustment, my old Civet norn, was caught slapping Five Cheese. They’ve all taken to slapping each other but they don’t seem to be slapping back to defend themselves. Naturally, this meant I had to take Lowly Adjustment to the rehab area that I set aside. I set him in the room and was almost instantly met with two pregnancy notifications. It looked like Gifted Waves was going to be a daddy! Bethany laid both of her eggs very quickly and I scooped them up for storage.

Lowly Adjustment was returned to the Norn Terrarium very quickly when I realized that he wasn’t moving because he was so bored. Naturally, he did the first thing he could think of to entertain himself. He jumped off the top level down to the second.

Brilliant.

Bethany still had two eggs left to lay before she could retire from having little ones and I was exicited to see who the next father would be. My heart sank a little when I realized that she was the only Adult left in this Terrarium. The only other male Grendel who could still breed was Tuatara, who had a bad gene. Bethany would only lay two eggs. I decided to cherish them anyway.

I dreaded another slew of deaths was coming soon and I was right. As of writing, Flawless Color has just died. She felt a lot of pain from the slaps of other grendels in her last hour alive. She was one of the more interesting looking Grendels of the bunch and she very quickly became a mother of four when she reached adulthood. I’ll miss you, Color. At least you had Bethany nearby to keep you company.

I was worried that a norn would be next so I headed to the Norn Terrarium and found this.


These two old norns were still kiss-popping by the elevators. I’m lucky to have such happy and loving norns. Everyone loves each other! There were a few long-lasting friendships, as well. The closest was probably Sour Drink and Five Cheese. Just after this photo was taken, Sour Drink suggested Five Cheese eat a seed and they headed down the elevator together to push toys and eat seeds.

Then, suddenly, Five Cheese’s blonde hair turned white!

I can’t say I was expecting the change to happen while she was on screen but I was expecting this to happen soon all the same. I didn’t mean to get into the shot this time but I think it fits anyway. I love you, too, Cheese.

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Feeling Brave? Might Regret That

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I was starting to get a little bored and was worried that my creatures were 1) too unthreatened and 2) that the game would be more interesting with hardship of some kind.

No, I didn’t set out to kill my creatures. I added bacteria.

Bacteria that I’d hoped wouldn’t attack so quickly. I was worried about Claire because of the Fever Toxin. It very quickly took hold in her body and in an instant, she was gone. She picked up Histamine B at the very end but I managed to put her in a safe corner of the terrarium before any other grendels could get sick. Viggo, I wasn’t especially worried about because Grendels have a natural immunity to certain Antigens and I think Antigen 5 is one of them. Not shown here is the Carbon Monoxide that was building up in his system as well. I removed his bacteria with a quick spray and those dangerous numbers started to lower again.

After all the excitement (and the unfortunate death of Claire) Viggo started to make a slow but full recovery from the Antigen. Macabre Desire, however, ended up dying not of disease, but of old age.

He was always hilarious to watch. He never did get the hang of drinking potions when he got angry but would always dance and yell about it instead. He’ll have his children to carry on his memory. Naturally, Thin Desire was next.

I was starting to feel a little depressed about this world by now. I deleted all the bacteria again and installed Macrobacteria instead, as was recommended to me by Grendel Man and ylukyun. Then I hatched another Amarok Grendel. Meet Bethany. She’ll be our new female.

I rushed to check on the norns since Scandalous Laborer seemed to be in pain. I checked on her to find Loving Wren slapping her in the top right corner of the world. The two of them and Lowly Adjustment all seemed to have gotten quite old.

Sour Drink, Five Cheese and Uptight Kettle all seemed to be clinging to youth pretty well, though. Five Cheese was probably the most relaxed of them all with those powerful Bondi genes to keep her chill.

I just let the game run for a while and did more maintenance on the ecosystems. I popped over to the Grendel Terrarium and found that Impartial Relation was now getting old. Then I got a death notice. Who died?

Sadly, I found Viggo dead in the grass.

I’m not sure what did him in. Was it his genes? Was it the result of fighting Antigen 5? A quick look at the Wiki tells me that Antigen 5 could have attacked any of his important systems. He’s a grendel and should be immune to it, though.

Was it a fatal, debiltating gene? I had no way of checking with broken software so I let the issue, and poor Viggo, rest. I may look into this more in the future.

Then Five Cheese got sick with Glycotoxin. It left her system as quickly as it had entered but now she was dealing with pain and looked very unhappy. Before long, though, she was back to normal again. She had macrobacteria floating around her, but she was happy again and there were no notices in the medical monitor. She recovered fully before long, but not without repeatedly telling me “me love mom”. My heart just broke a little again.

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The Math says No

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Unfortunately, I have to remove Wide-Eyed Payment and her brother Tuatara into the Norn Meso to keep them separated. After I’d finished yesterday’s entry, I spent the night working with Wide-Eyed Payment, doing various maths and experiments to see if she could naturally lay eggs on her own. Turns out no, she can’t.

The good news is that her daughter, Trisha, doesn’t have this negative gene. I’ve exported her daughter to include in the game when I’m ready for the 3rd generation of Grendels. Bye Trish! See you soon!

After removing anybody with this bad gene from the population (just our two purebred Boneys) it was time to move on. Flawless Color had already laid all four of her eggs and it seemed like a good time to introduce a new Grendel to the population.

I asked for a female Dustdevil Grendel egg and got a Tiger Grendel instead. Little did I know, these two occupy the same slot. I uninstalled the Tiger Grendel agent and kept getting Tiger sprites anyway so I moved on and decided to use one of Grendel Man’s genetic breeds instead.

Meet Claire (you’ve probably noticed that I’ve abandoned the Protective Tub agent already. It was hilarious while it lasted!). She’s an Amarok Grendel. You can find their agent at The Realm (link to post). This means a few things.

First, cold doesn’t bother her. She can eat critters and seeds but can “also hit norns for nourishment”(readme). She also won’t hit creatures to alleviate her anger, she’ll hit critters instead, though I’d rather she drink potions. She’s got a lot to live up to being the only female who can lay any more eggs. I also can’t compare her genome in GeneCompare. I wish I could figure out what was wrong with this program. :C

I scanned around to check on all of my creatures and everyone seemed to be fine.

The Grendels were all wandering around, talking to each other and napping. Claire was exploring the upper levels, scooping up seeds and yelling about how angry she was. I instructed her (nagged, really) to drink some potions and she took to watching the awkwood seeds fall from their vine. It’d be a little while before she reached adulthood. At only 9 minutes old, she was still a child.

The Norns were doing well, too. The norns had all paired off into groups. Sour Drink and Loving Wren had taken to going up to the top right door together and kiss-popping while Five Cheese and Uptight Kettle rode the elevator and Scandalous Laborer and Lowly Adjustment wandered towards the hill.

Even the gnarlers were doing well!

That is, until I got my second death notification. Obese Bomb was my second first generation Grendel to die and it stung quite a bit to see her go. I have to admit, she and Thin Desire were two of my favorite creatures and I knew that Des might be the next to go. Rest in peace, Bomb. I’ll miss you.

I took my time here to check on the other elders. They were all in their Ancient life stage now and each of them fathered or mothered 4 eggs. Giants and Tuatara spent their time on the top deck of the  meso talking about seeds, probably oblivious to the death of Bomb.

Meanwhile, Des picked another spot to stand in and hadn’t moved. Just as I handed her a toy to play with, Earthly Giants died. Unlike Obese Bomb, who had a complaining Des to keep her company, Earthly Giants got to spend his last moments with his son Tuatara.

I had a moment of silence for the couple and spent time with Thin Desire and Macabre Desire. They both were sleepy so I encouraged them to rest. Next thing I knew, Wide-Eyed Payment was pregnant with two of Tuatara’s children. Normally, I would be excited except that Wide-Eyed Payment might never get to lay her eggs. This whole endeavor has been very heart breaking.

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Last 2 Generation 2 Eggs

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The norns were all doing pretty well. Uptight Kettle and Lowly Adjustment in particular were forming a great friendship, consisting mostly of chasing poor Five Cheese around. She didn’t seem to mind and kept saying “me happy”. Nothing to worry about here.

After my last entry, though, I set off to work on the Egg Tracker and Family trees and noticed something.

There were still two 2nd generation Grendel eggs left! I realized that if I didn’t hatch these two Grendel eggs, they might not get a chance to spread their own genes. Naturally, I had to hatch them.

This time, thankfully, I have the internet to help me.

This is Tuatara, son of Obese Bomb and Earthly Giants. This male to female ratio problem just keeps getting worse, doesn’t it?

Anyway, onto his genetics.

Tuatara

Emitters

Neutral – 90 39 0 Emb B MutDupCut 128 0 Organ# = 5, Creature, Sensorimotor, Permanently active, chem=Sleepiness, thresh=0, samp=34, gain=4, features=Digital (0)

samp is originally 35

According to CDR, sample rate refers to how often the emitter injects the chemical into the creature. This particular gene injects sleepiness into the creature constantly at a pretty steady rate and the original sample rate is 35. All this means is that the creature will be injected with sleepiness a little more often. This minor mutation shouldn’t hurt little Tuatara at all, just make him a little sleepy a little more often than the other grendels.

Negative – 180 Different in file 1 13 0 Adu F MutDupCut 128 0 Organ# = 11, Creature, Reproductive, I am pregnant, chem=Progesterone, thresh=128, samp=1, gain=2, features=Digital (0)

gain is originally 3

Since Tuatara is a boy, he doesn’t have to worry about this gene at all! Any daughters he has, however, do. The gain is originally 3 and gain is the amount of chemical that gets injected into the creature. Progesterone, the chemical that’s changed here, is the one that helps a female creature lay her eggs and prevents her from getting pregnant again while pregnant. Because it’s lower here, any daughters he has might have a harder time laying their eggs. Normally, I wouldn’t worry about this change except that Wide-Eyed Payment, my Grendel who had trouble laying her eggs, has this gene as well. I might try to remove this gene from the population by way of careful breeding, but I’m curious about how else this gene can evolve.

Anyway, if Wide-Eyed is able to lay eggs on her own (good-bye Preggy candy) then I’ll allow him to stay with the others.

Stimuli

Neutral – 443 44 0 Emb B MutDupCut 128 0 Play critter (86) causes sig=0 GS neu=0 int=0, ,,,0 => -25*Loneliness + 0*<NONE> + 0*147 + 0*<NONE>

chemical is originally <NONE>

This isn’t particularly interesting. Normally, the genes here control what happens when a creature plays with a critter. Since 147 isn’t used, this has no change.

 Neutral – 449  54   0 Chi B MutDupCut        129   0 Reached peak of smell 16 (71) causes sig=145 GS neu=7 int=204, ,,,240 => -124*Comfort + -6*Fear + -5*Pain + 4*Boredom

Originally Degree is 128

This gene controls what this creature feels when he’s ‘smelling’ the grendel home at its strongest. The change here is in the “degree of mutability” or just “degree” in the Genetics Kit. This controls how much more likely and mutatable(?) the gene is. Here, the gene is made slightly more likely to mutate in future generations. Otherwise, there are no changes.

I should add that after looking through her genes, Wide-eyed Payment is an identical twin to Tuatara! That makes sorting her genes out very simple.

There! That was easy. Having the internet around to help makes this much simpler, anyway.

Moving on to our next egg, we have Viggo, another male. Looks like the boys really have to get those girls if they want to carry on their genes! He looks a lot like Impartial Relation, doesn’t he? Well, they aren’t related. 😛

Also, I’d move on to his genes, but I’m still having trouble opening Gene Compare and I’m just not willing to go through and compare his genes in the DDNA analyzer since it misreads the genes. I’m also not willing to compare every gene between him and his two breeds in the Genetics Kit. Sorry guys, maybe another time?

 

As if I didn’t have enough eggs already, Flawless Color decided that I should have two more eggs to worry about. Oh dear. It looks like Flawless Color is done laying eggs. So far (yes, I peeked) it looks like Elite Cap and Clear Glass are both going to be passing on their genes through Flawless Color’s eggs. A quick look at her genetics tells me that she doesn’t have the same problems laying eggs that Wide-eyed Payment does, either.

If the boys are lucky, they can have babies through Wide-eyed and she’ll be able to hatch them on her own. If we’re lucky, this bad egg-laying gene won’t be carried in her baby.

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