The Art of Tracing Creatures History
The most recent chapter in the Artemiidae video series set me up for a bit of work with hatching the many eggs that the Norns and Grendels are leaving for me! The easiest thing to do would be to allow these eggs to hatch in their own time, and just let the generations mix together. However, I’ve found that this method usually leads to overpopulation and a rather miserable, crowded world. With the right genetics, though, this is a wonderful way to enjoy C3/DS! I enjoy a little more planning. It can be a royal pain in the neck, taking up precious time and just feeling monotonous… Yet it’s all worth it! It might not be the prettiest way to keep up with a world’s history, but it works quite well for me.
Probably the best agent for this purpose is the Creatures History Update, created by Zzzzoot. It completely overhauls this in-game screen, and provides a good deal of additional information. I recommend it for an improved experience within C3/DS! Its biggest downside is that it exists only within the game: There is no way to access the data outside of the game and take a look at it quickly. Colorless Alfaro was kind enough to pose and lend some of her information as an example! Each event can connect various Creatures together, which can make for an interesting journey. Sometimes it’s fun just to click through to find out who’s related to who! Then again, the operative word is “click” because only one screen can be viewed at a time. Imagine trying to trace back the lineage of a 10th generation Norn… The icons are quite easy to understand, but they don’t show any special events. Notice anything unusual about the life event icons pictured here? Think about it carefully, knowing that at least one other event played into it. If it was possible to go through these screens with the game paused, I think it would be an awesome experience. As it is, life goes on in the background, and if you’re carefully monitoring things in a world, there isn’t much time to enjoy this process. I check it only to confirm the fathers of unhatched eggs, and then I scramble back to find out what I missed!
Although it can hardly be deemed art, I use a spreadsheet to track every birth and death. It’s quite ugly, in many ways! Yet at a glance, I can find important information and know when I want to hatch a new egg. I’m still experimenting with the exact format and data presentation… One always must try and learn new things!
If I can create something that works well and looks decent, I might upload it and keep it updated. Visual family trees can be a nightmare, even though I would love to use one! The trouble is the polygamous nature of Creatures… A group of four males and four females can make one tangled mess. Just imagine what a family tree would look like after a few generations! This spreadsheet takes up time, but it can be accessed quickly. How many children does a Norn have? That’s easy to find. I’m even keeping track of twins, since any type of data can be recorded. Some type of automatic program for this would be awesome, but for now, I enjoy tracing Artemiidae’s history in this way!
I like your idea for the concept of the world, can I use it? XD
It would be good to add the number of generation
Of course! Feel free to create a world using any or all of the concepts around Artemiidae. Underwater worlds are quite fun!
The screenshots only include very small sections of the spreadsheet. There is a sheet for each generation, and plenty of other information not shown here. No worries: Generations are clearly denoted and separated! Right now we’re on the second generation for most, while the Banshee Hydrolisks have made it into the third generation.
I remember using an xls file to create the family tree of my norns. It worked really well. You enter each norn with it’s parents and the family tree is created for you. I’ll have to check at home, if I can find it. It must be somewhere on my harddrive. If you are interested, I’ll send it to you, so you can have a look ;-)
That would be a really interesting file to take a look at! If you can find it, feel free to get in contact with me. I certainly would love to take a look! All of the family tree sites I’ve tried out so far just don’t cut it for use with Creatures. Maybe there’s a way to create something that everyone can use to track family lines in a decently easy fashion. Thanks, and I hope you can find it!
I’ve looked off and on for years for a decent free family tree program and eventually settled for ScionPC. I haven’t used it in quite a whiles, but I remember it being pretty decent. It let’s you pair up anyone and enter anybody as the parents. There’s also a family tree, but it only shows five generations at a time. It’s also not the easiest to use, and that’s probably what made me give up on keeping track of generations.
If you do find a better method, please make a blog post about it. I’d love to keep closer track of my pet populations.
I will definitely share a better method of family tree tracking if I come across it! I was using SpiderScribe for a little bit, but it just didn’t quite fit the needs of tracing a Creatures family tree. Go figure! It’s too bad the creators of Creatures didn’t include some sort of family tree feature for all of the games, since Norns don’t really create nice lines between the generations!