Creatures Caves

That's hilarious but also very interesting. Right now Norns/Grendels/Ettins can't actually see each other at all. Their vision is extremely simple by our standards, and it's highly debatable whether they experience the qualia/sensation we call 'sight' at all, or anything analogous to it. Instead they have a range of perception which seems to be about 500 pixels to the left and right (unknown how far they can 'see' up or down, but from gameplay experience it seems to be the same range, since they can rise up or drop down to find food and I've seen them moving their heads to track moving things they're looking at when the thing goes up or down.)

Within that range, they can actively pay attention to one thing at a time, with the unconscious parts of their brain generating this by comparing how stimulating various nearby objects are with the Creature's current drives. So they have an unconscious or at best semi-conscious awareness of all the things within that 500-pixel range and a conscious awareness (such as anything is conscious for Creatures) of one thing at a time.

They are set up to distinguish individual Norns from each other on the basis of name and behavior ('I kisspop with Mary. Kisspopping is fun. So I like Mary a little more. I kisspop with Mary again. I like her more. Now I love Mary.' 'Sam hit me. Being hit hurts. I dislike Sam.' Basically is how this forms.) They can sense whether other Creatures are their own species or not, whether they are the same sex or not, and, if the appropriate genes/etc. are set up to make use of the ability, they can distinguish their own parents, siblings, and children (though Gen1s see each other as siblings, which can be problematic if you want to use these genes to discourage inbreeding).

But they can't perceive what sprites they have themselves, much less what other Creatures are using. They also can't perceive their own or others' color genes. Those are entirely for the benefit of Hands (players). So they have no awareness of the fact that 'looking similar' or 'not looking similar' is a thing, much less to have a preference about it. And as far as I'm aware, it's not possible to edit the genome to make that happen, either. I might be wrong tho'.

Still, it's too bad, because it would be very interesting to simply give them the ability to detect what sprites and colors other Creatures have and see what happens, if they develop any distinctions or preferences. We could even do things like make intentionally racist or 'colorblind' or diversity-celebrating genomes.

I did play a much simpler Alife game once, a couple years ago, where the organisms were able to detect each others' body plans and colors and compare those to their own. The player was able to make them either seek out similarity or difference or ignore that metric altogether. (There were other things you could use to guide the organisms' behavior.) It would definitely be interesting, from a realism/consciousness perspective, to give Creatures the same ability, if it were possible.