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A-Norn looks at breed-making, in an article originally published on HomeCreatures.

A-Norn has been busy working on new breeds for the Creatures games recently but he took some time off, away from those norns to give HC the low-down on the history of norn breeds and what goes in to making them.

Each Creatures game comes with 3 breeds of norn, but ever since C1 was released way back in the hazy days of 1996 people have been striving to change all that, playing with genetics and image files to eventually create new breeds of norn

Creatures 1 was accompanied by three breeds, reffered to by their 'breed slot';

These were, from left to right, type 0 norns, type 1 norns and type 2 norns. For a while after the release Creatures everyone doubted that you could create a new breed of norn, but Lis Morris changed all that. The release of Lis Morris' 'Grorns', norns that used the sprite files of the grendels defied community opinion and begun what was ot become a popular outlet for third party developers.

So what goes into making a new breed?

There are three main steps to producing a new breed;

Making the sprites
Making The Genome
Producing the body data files

All take a considerable amount of time. The sprites are the images the creature is made up of, if you wna toyur creature to have a new appearance then you must edit the sprites.

The genome is the genetic build of the norn, i.e. it's reaction to certain events. If you want to give your creature special instincts, make them tougher or make them eat more, for example, you must edit the creatures genetics.

The body data files, also known as the .atts are tell the Creatures game the positioning of the sprite files that make up the norns. Without .atts your norn would just look like a big jumbled mess!

But Why?

As you can imagine all of this adds up to a lot of work for the developer, so why would anyone want to go to all this trouble? Well, one reason is that the norns that came with each original game are not perfect, they can be improved upon. A Creatures 2 norn for example can be edited so that it eats and sleeps better, or a Creatures 3 norn could be changed to have better looks.

Another reason is that each of us has our own opinions on what Creatures could be like, maybe you would have liked more theming? Well, create a new themed breed to accompany a new themed world and you ahve an entirely different game! Suited to your specifications.

The Problems...

As perfect as all this sounds breed makers have their fair share fo problems. For one there are a limited amount of 'slots' available for breeds in each game. Each breed requires it's own slot to place the sprites and .att's in, and no two breeds can share the same slot. This was a major problem with Creatures 1 because there are only 2 free slots, and when you install a new breed the old one gets overwritten.

In Creatures 2 we were given 26 slots, 9 of them in use by Creature Labs, however the norn slots have all gone now too. The situation is looking similar for Creatures 3, which uses the same system as Creatures 2.

The other problem is that because of the use of chemicals in a creatures genetics many Creatures are incompatible when it comes to breeding. For example, if one breed of norn uses a certain chemical for eating and the same chemical is used to make another breed ill, when the two creatures mate the offspring may get ill from eating!

The Good Points

Yes, there are problems... but there are good points too. With third party norns now and in the future we see, brighter, better and more diversity in appearance, stronger, fitter and smarter creatures, and more interesting special needs and actions.

Here is a list of outstanding breeds I just had to include;

Creatures 1

Grorns - Norns that look like grendels, but are actually norns!

Wood Norns - Originally by Frimlin, these were some of the first to norns to feature altered sprites.

Fairy Norns - They're a little wierd. I think they're cute though!

Creatures 2

MerNorns and Scorpio Norns - MerNorns are sea creatures, Scorpio Norns are fighters.

Kai Norns - Maternal norns that take care of their offspring just like a human would. These norns have some funky sprites too.

Creatures 3

Dale Norns - Stronger against those grendels and a nice blue colour too.

Originally published at HomeCreatures.