Gene by Gene, Creature by Creature

With the fifth generation of Creatures 1 Norns chosen from a large stock of eggs, I decided to get things in order a little ahead of schedule. My recent Creatures numbers game resulted in the idea that I could edit the upcoming generation’s genetics, rather than putting the task off for the future. That might sound completely unnatural, and some may question whether it would be more realistic to start over. I’ve grown so attached to this family tree, though! Going back and fixing up old posts for the new site design brings back so many memories I would hate to lose. I’ll be the first to admit that this practice is not ideal, nor recommended, yet it should alleviate a few problems that could start to pop up. Keep in mind that genetic problems are far different from genetic mutations!

All of these changes are designed to be fairly minor, mostly geared towards normalizing some genes to make genetic comparisons much easier. At this point, I often have to sift through simple differences to locate the real mutations. Rest assured that not all of the Norns will be identical, though! I used the Forest Norn genome as a base, since it includes a number of improvements. I also added in a few extremely minor updates of my own. So far, this upcoming generation looks quite promising! Had I started over, my Norns would have included identical updates. Time and time again, there is always something to learn about Creatures! This Norn line is far from a failure, though there have been instances of the floating glycogen receptor and floating hunger emitter not being inherited properly. A Norn without the ability to feel hunger merely from an issue with his or her genes is a far cry from the interesting mutations that often turn up.

Although I am still experimenting with a few possible changes, I intend to make the following genetic updates:

• Appearance Genes: Lock these in place so they can only be inherited and never mutated
• Brain Lobes: Add the changes to the attention and concept lobes from the Forest Norn genome
• Die of Old Age Gene: Normalize all values and remove the unnecessary differences
• Drive Receptor Genes: Change certain drive receptors to remove the illogical reward or punishment

There may be a few other additions to this list eventually, yet this should help with a good deal of potential issues! I am still on the fence about adding the glycogen and hunger floating genes to those Norns who do not have them, simply because I do want different genomes in the population. The instances where only part of the receptor-emitter pair was passed on have been uncommon. Likely that will be a last minute decision! Prepare to meet the Norns very soon!