It really feels like I’m starting over with the games after the extended break I’ve been forced to take. On top of computer troubles, I’ve lost all of my norns and worlds for all of my Creatures games. I suppose things could be worse but, honestly, not by much.

At any rate, I’ve decided to look at this as an opportunity to try playing this game relatively clean, that is, without any fancy addons, agents and the like. I haven’t even bothered to download the tickets for the hand or Encyclopedia Nornica since my tragic data-loss. Honestly, I think going cold turkey from those things might make me a better norn-mommy anyway.

I did download one third-party add-on, though. Today, I’m starting a new world with the Perficio breed. Let’s go ahead and meet our first little one.

This is Trevor! He’s got the appearance of a Horse Norn but, like all of the creatures that will follow, he’s 100% Perficio. The only difference, genetically, between him and all other creatures that follow will be in their appearance genes. Should make for an interesting world, I think.

I taught him “toy”, “food”, “look”, “push” and “pull”. As I cycled through his other words, I noticed something already wildly different from the original norn genome. Trevor’s health actually reached 100%! Fantastic! With vanilla genomes, I was used the genomes rarely making it above 75%. Now, seeing his health over 100% got me thinking that he might be better off with his better genes. From what I remember about reading about the genome, this comes from better chemical and drives balancing, which also kept him from feeling hungry when he didn’t actually need to eat.

I taught him all the words available in the computer and decided to raise him up to about 10 minutes old before exporting him and introducing his new friend. He was very easy to raise and didn’t demand much attention.

Soon, Evelyn would join us. She learned her vocabulary just as quickly as Trevor and soon, she was allowed to explore, at least to an extent. She preferred sleeping and spent more time in the house. Before long, I coaxed her out of the house and taught her the same lesson about weeds and plants that I’d taught Trevor.

It wasn’t long before she was gripped by a wanderlust and she got to learn additional lessons, like how much fun it was to play the musicola in the temple. She pressed it again and again. I was starting to think I’d have a musician in this pair. I noted her age (just 9 minutes) and I led her back to the house to prepare her to meet her partner Trevor. Fingers crossed they get along!