My Little List of Creatures Projects

My main emphasis lately has been on my worlds in Creatures 1 and Creatures 3/Docking Station, but I also have a few other projects. Some are in the works and some are more along the lines of feathery ideas still floating around in my head. I wanted to take a little time to briefly share what else is going on, and perhaps get a little input as to what would be most interesting. Feel free to share any comments!

• Complete the Updated Creatures 1 Grendel: The male life stages seem to be pretty stable, and I have only heard of the foot anchors being a little off for one player. I will be thoroughly testing this out to see if it is, indeed, an issue with my coordinates, or if the Creatures 1 ground is a little uneven with some spots that appear to create floating creatures. The next part of this project is to work on the females. It’s more tedious than difficult, although this leads into the next idea.
• Hold a Contest to Create a New Female Grendel Head: I’m admittedly not an expert when it comes to creating C1 sprites, although fixing them has become a hobby! I am considering having a contest to take advantage of the spriting skills of others in the community, with the ultimate prize being the usage of these sprites. Would anyone be interested in participating and/or voting? An alternative is for me to mock up a few designs and let the community decide on the best C1 female Grendel head.
• Port the Completed C1 Grendel to C2 and C3/DS: Expect this to be further in the future! I have never done something like this before, although I love a good challenge. My intuition tells me that going from C1 to C2 is easier than jumping from C1 to C3/DS, but we’ll see what happens. This could be something for the CCSF 2012, or possibly later. My goal is to see the updated C1 Grendel in action in all of the games eventually, with none of the current problems.
• Compile the Next Genetics Lesson: Those genetics team members took a nice vacation, but I’m carefully planning out the next lesson! It will still be fairly easy, although I plan on covering half lives and explaining how important these can be. This next lesson will most likely be more of a reference than a true lesson, but consider it a stepping stone onto the next lessons! To appeal to some of the more advanced users, a more complex lesson might be coming up sooner than imagined.
• Write the First Chapter of the Tolthian Creature Tales: Way back during the CCSF 2011, I wrote the Prologue for a very involved Creatures story. I have not written a word since, although the storyline has played out in my mind a few times. This could be released during the CCSF 2012, although I hope I speed up a bit from a chapter per year! My goal has always been to write a piece of fan fiction, and this might be more of a personal project than something that everyone will enjoy. Still, I hope it provides a bit of entertainment in a novel sort of way!
• Fix the Creatures 1 Norn Body Data and Sprites: The problems with Norns in Creatures 1 are minor in the worst of circumstances, so I imagine that these fixes would not be on the top of anyone’s wish list. Still, these tiny issues drive me insane, especially the extra floating pixels paramount to the Forest Norns! I doubt these issues mean problems in the converted C2 and C3/DS versions of the breeds, although I would certainly consider porting the changes over if the need arises.

This list might be a little more boring compared to what the rest of the community is working on. But expertise and knowledge starts from these seemingly boring projects: Who knows! Soon enough, I might venture to start creating COBs or entirely new breeds. Although I often poke fun at myself for these tiny endeavors, I encourage anyone thinking of trying something out to take that first step. One little spark of inspiration could be the start of something amazing, either for Creatures or for something bigger. Now to see how long it takes to complete all of these and bring some ideas to life! Better not take me a year… Ha ha!