Addressing a Rumor About the C1 Cave Flies
Written onUpdate: Special thanks go to Grendel Man and Jessi for properly testing this rumor out and proving me wrong! Grendel Man took a look at the actual scripts involved, and found that there are two scripts that affect the pianola and either the jukebox or the radio. Jessi went ahead and tested the Cave Fly COB in game on an adult female Norn, and found out that her sex drive rose in response to the pianola. This suggests an injection of alcohol had been experienced. In the end, this rumor was actually true! It also goes to show that other opinions are vital! Thanks again for the information, and for showing that this rumor was actually true! Someone suggested creating separate COBs for the pianola, jukebox, and radio so that we wouldn’t have to deal with the cave flies in order to have this update. Anyone up to the task is more than welcome to take it on. Make sure to read the comments for more information!
Several months ago, Malkin posed an interesting question about the Cave Flies COB for Creatures 1. Apparently, there was a rumor that it also altered the pianola, in addition to adding six pesky cave flies to the game. Rather than testing this theory on my current world, I started fresh with a little female named Valanice. She looked like a mixture of many breeds, but she was merely a standard first generation Norn with some appearance gene edits. She needed to stand out a little bit!
First off, I wanted to test the baseline for another item in the same instrument category. The pianola, jukebox, and smaller instruments are all classified as instruments, just as carrots, honey, cheese, and lemons are all classified as food. It’s a bit difficult to see in this graph, but Valanice had a slight decrease in need for pleasure (NFP) when she played the trumpet, but no other changes. I was also disappointed to find out that Purple Mountain Alcohol was classified as chemical 80, but since it was undefined in the chemical list, it was not possible to graph it. However, I have seen Norns ingest drinks associated with this chemical, and their gait is unmistakable! So far, I had a pretty good idea of what the handheld instruments could do. Next was the actual pianola and what it would do!
Valanice had to journey a little ways to actually find the target instrument. She did not become bored, so I had to hold myself back from tickling her, in order to keep her NFP relatively high. I still was only looking at the baseline, and had not yet injected the cave flies. As soon as she interacted with the pianola, it was clear that it created a different reaction than the trumpet. Not only did her NFP decrease, but her tiredness also decreased. It was also interesting to note that she received the same response whether she was the one who activated the pianola, or if I did it myself. Basically, it looked like the pianola affected any creatures within earshot. A decrease in boredom was the only other mystery, although I assumed it did just that. Valanice just wasn’t bored enough with Albia!
While Valanice was in the vicinity of the pianola, I injected the cave flies into Albia. The reaction to it looked identical to me: There were still decreases in NFP and tiredness. I also made sure to play it numerous times, to see if she would exhibit a different gait that might indicate drunkenness. Nothing happened. I also brought the trumpet back to Valanice, and confirmed that it still acted in the same manner. It dawned on me that this might be something that would only affect the newer breeds, such as the Purple Mountain Norn and Forest Norn. After all, they had some updated genes which could have defined Purple Mountain Alcohol in a more direct way. I set about the task of finding a friend for Valanice who could share in this experiment and test the update as thoroughly as possible.
Meet Graham! Together with Valanice, they formed a pair of characters from one of my favorite computer series. Quite an old one, but a great one all the same! Maybe I’m the only one who knows what it is, though… Anyway, Graham had another interesting appearance, but his genome was otherwise identical to that of a Purple Mountain Norn. It seemed odd that the pianola would only affect a certain breed, but stranger things have happened in Creatures. At least Graham was a very willing participant! That is, so long as he got to take his honeypot along for the ride.
The pianola had exactly the same effects on him as it did on Valanice, and he showed no signs of a drunken gait that would indicate the presence of Purple Mountain Alcohol. However, this graph is not of the reaction to the pianola: Graham had a rather fun time with the trumpet, and he played it about eight times over the course of this graph! It wasn’t much of a substitute for a tickle, though. A single tickle could sharply drop the NFP to a negligible amount, and a short round of tickles was more than enough to satisfy this need. I had hoped to see something happen with the pianola, but it looked like this had just been a rumor. Or perhaps I just missed something: Has anyone tried this out and found anything to the contrary? It would be interesting! Sometimes the effects are found in different ways, via other chemicals.
The two main references that were pointed out to me regarding the cave flies and the pianola can be found here and here. Maybe there is something hiding in the code that I simply overlooked: It certainly would be nice if the cave flies COB counteracted those nasty bugs with a nice update to the pianola! This might also affect the jukebox, although Valanice and Graham didn’t look like they really wanted to go across the world. Indeed, they had heard enough music to last them their entire lives!
Update: Please read the comments section to find out how true this rumor actually is. I was happy to be proven wrong, though! Next time, I’ll know a few other ways to really understand how to test something like this. Thanks again to all those who commented, particularly Grendel Man and Jessi!
It’s a shame the purple mountain alcohol couldn’t be graphed directly. Still, a negative result is better than simply repeating rumours. Thanks for testing it out for me, Jessica! :)
No problem, Malkin! I really was hoping to see a difference, because it sounded pretty interesting. I love hidden things like this, but alas, it was not meant to be! I might take a look at editing the chemical list in C1 to see if I could eventually graph chemical 80. But with no differences in how the other chemicals reacted, I’m pretty certain that nothing changed. I would love to be proven wrong, though! Perhaps someone else tried this out with different results. As I often quote from the movie Mr. Mom, “You’re doing it wrong!” Ha ha!
While I didn’t actually test it out in game, I went and opened the Cave Fly COB in BobCOB.
It turns out the “rumor” is, in fact, truth.
In addition to the cave fly scripts, there’s also the following two scripts:
“scrp 2 9 5 1
anim [12345670] wait 10 sndl radi
stim shou 10 255 0 0 43 5 34 5 38 5 80 30
endm”
“scrp 2 9 4 1
anim [012345R] sndl pian
stim shou 10 255 0 0 43 5 34 5 38 5 80 30 wait 100
mesg writ ownr 2
endm”
The first one is either the radio on the Desert Island or the Jukebox; the second is the Pianola.
On one hand, it is a nice bonus to make up for the cave flies. On the other hand, if CL really wanted to update the Pianola/Jukebox, they could have just made a separate COB rather than shoving the update without any warning into a completely unrelated COB.
In addition to being able to see the coding in BobCOB, I was able to test this successfully in game as well. Although you cannot track chemical 80 in the Science Kit, you can track the effects of it in adult female norns. I’m not sure if this applies to all norn breeds, but many of my female norns will receive an increase in Sex Drive whenever they ingest Purple Mountain Alcohol.
I brought a female norn with a very low Sex Drive to the Pianola after injecting the Cave Flies into my game, and these were the results: http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j230/Klinny/Pianola.jpg
Every time I played the instrument, her Sex Drive increased a little, and then stopped increasing when I stopped playing the instrument again. So it looks like the rumor is, in fact, true!
Here is a crazy idea for you.
Since it has been proved that this rumour is indeed true about the updates to the Pianola, jukebox and radio being hidden with in the cave fly cob. Why doesn’t some of the more skilled creatures cob developers extract the scripts from the cave fly cob and create some new separate updates for the the pianola, jukebox and radio as injectable cobs. After all it wouldn’t require much effort as the base scripts and sprites are already there. And by doing this we could all receive the benefit of the hidden updated scripts without having to use the Cave Flys COB.
I’m thrilled to say that I was wrong! Ha ha! Silly me wasn’t thinking enough to actually try out a proper test, so I apologize for that. Thanks to Grendel Man and Jessi for proving me wrong and showing that the rumor was actually correct. It should have dawned on me to use an adult female Norn… Naturally, my head is all over the place. Ha ha! I’ll update the main post with this information shortly. Thanks again for testing it out thoroughly!
Anonymous: That’s a great idea! I’m pretty sure not too many people (or any) would be interested in gaining these benefits of the Cave Fly COB with the cave flies. I would definitely prefer just one aspect of it, rather than having to deal with them. Cave flies are relentless! This would be something requested of an experienced C1 COB creator… I know they’re out there! It would be a huge relief not to have to deal with those insects. They just keep on coming after you slap them, and their speed is a little maddening.