Creatures Family Trees at Discover Albia
Over the past few weeks, I have been brainstorming ideas to showcase better family trees for my Creatures 1 and Creatures Docking Station Norns. There is a real risk of cluttering up the screen… Especially since I love to include extra details! However, I would be very interested to learn what is actually important to readers when looking at a family tree. Creatures is a bit complicated in its mixed family lines, which often don’t foster easy paths from one generation to the next. Our little furry friends are also very rarely monogamous!
The family tree for my Creatures 1 Norns (and Grendels) is open to more information, such as life span. Those in C3/DS are exported prior to death, based on the rules in place with the world concept. Many of these Norns head off to CreatureLink for adoption: The other reason for family trees is to give adopters a pretty good idea of where these Creatures come from. They’re all related, somehow!
One element that keeps haunting me is the use of images. They’re clearly vital to understanding how different appearance genes have been passed down, but with the way Norns procreate, including images takes up an enormous amount of space! A fairly decent alternative is linking to the posts here at Discover Albia that involve the Norn or Grendel in question. This allows someone to get a quick glimpse or an in-depth account of the Creature’s life, while the family tree remains fairly uncluttered.
Feel free to comment on the current Creatures 1 family tree. Any and all feedback is most appreciated! Thanks!
Oh dear, I wish I could be of some help. I’m still trying to figure out how to draw a family tree for my C1 Horse Norns but the best I could come up with is drawing it by hand or drawing it in MS Paint and I don’t think that was quite what you’re looking for. ^.^;
With the mix of different Norns in your world, I think your family tree is way more tangled than mine. Ahaha! I’ll keep thinking of ways. Drawing sketches of it just to get a clearer view might be a place to start though (though you’ve probably long ago thought of that too.) :)
SpringRain (Also, I’m finally up to about February 2012 Blog entries in this! I loved watching your Creatures videos and especially the special challenge with the DS/C3 World)
No worries! I actually use a spreadsheet to keep track of my Creatures 1 Norns. It’s not pretty, but it works for me! I might just add something that’s a step up from the spreadsheet… If it helps readers, that would be great! I don’t think it can be any worse than not really understanding who’s related to who. Ha!
Thanks for reading and watching! I should have a new video up within the next couple of days about the C3/DS world. Next alpha couple is just about ready to be chosen!
Yay! I love your videos. They’re so fun and entertaining. There are always a few Norns that I’m secretly cheering on and a couple who I just want to hug for feeling sorry for them. Ahaha! X3
Thanks! I’m also the same way: Part of me cheers on a few top contenders, while another part kind of cheers on a few who are abused by the group. I have a couple of those now, come to think of it… I should have the video up today: Sorry about the slight delay! I had a bit of a sore throat, and I figured it would be best to showcase a decent voice. Ha ha!