September 2, 2015
Just a quick update to announce that the resources section revamp is finished... mostly. There are a few pages that still need some style fixes, but I'd rather they be accessible and a little fugly than completely unavailable. I'll continue to make small updates to that section as I find the time.

February 13, 2015
Today I've added a new agent, Albian Autumn, an add-on for C1toDS which adds falling leaves and autumn colors to your world that appear in time with the in-game season.

Monday, December 1, 2014
Today I bring you what I hope will be the first in a series of useful, free 3D resources: the Generic Ettin Head, a pre-made, pre-rigged 3D model of an Ettin Head. I've been wanting to offer this sort of thing for a while for those of you who want to make their own 3D breeds, but maybe need a little help getting started. If you want to make an Ettin breed, hopefully this will help you get on the right track!

Sunday, November 30, 2014
I know there's been very little activity here for quite a while, but now the Breeders Beware update is finally complete! The site is now located on my own domain, Ghostfishe.net, and the design has been revamped. The following changes have been put into effect:

• The Worlds page has been updated: The Freedom Project, which was released for last year's CCSF, now has its own page and all the other metarooms have been spiffed up.
• Metarooms with easter eggs, like KT, Devil's Reef or Primordia Redux, now have spoilers listed—ranging from vague hints to outright telling you the answer. Always wondered what the recipes for the KT cauldron were? Now it's easy to find out.
• I felt like "Development" and "Resources" sounded too interchangeable, considering that they're completely different things. So now we have a Gallery which shows old "in progress" pics, concept art and the like, and Resources which contains all the tutorials and developers' tools.
• The Gallery has been updated with a lot of newer stuff. Did you know the Devil's Reef lighthouse was going to be animated at one point? The animation didn't make it into the metaroom, but I couldn't scrap something like that!
• The Resources page now has several new tools and tutorials:
  
  • The Agent Attributes and Behaviors tutorial not only explains what these properties do, it has a calculator to help you figure out what features an existing ATTR or BHVR includes.
  • The Classifier List goes over all known classifiers in C3/DS, including ones not normally mentioned (eg. Bacteria) and unofficial designation (such as clothing dummies).
  • The CAOS Categorical documentation for Docking Station and Creatures Village.
  • The Bounding Box Tutorial covers both what bounding boxes are and how to troubleshoot bounding box related errors.
• There is now a Chat page that you can use to log on to Creatures Community Chat!

I have no new agents, metarooms or breeds to contribute to Breeders Beware 4.0, but rest assured there are still plenty of projects in the works. I'm just not rushing to get them out by a certain time (which has been the case for most of the past years' CCSFs).

If you're curious, you can still see the older site designs here: [1] [2] [3]

Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Great news today, I have two new releases! The first is a new breed, the C1-style Wildkat Norns, which can be found on the Breeds page. The second is a new resource for developers: a Javascript tool that will generate a PRAY file for your egg agent. Just type in a few parameters, like the breed slot and genome name, and let it do the rest of the work for you! You can find it under Resources.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012
So, here's my annual post-CCSF update. I've taken the opportunity to redesign the Agents and Breeds sections, which will hopefully give them a smoother, more user-friendly look. The Dustdevil Grendels, Creature Counter Version 2 and Primordia Redux have also been added to their respective category pages, and I've linked to a few other goodies on the Agents page.

Tuesday, November 06, 2012
I've been quiet for a while haven't I? Usually that means I'm working my behind off on some new Creatures stuff, and this time that's exactly the case. I've had two really big releases planned for the CCSF, as well as some little ones.

We're only a third of the way into the CCSF, and there's been some great releases so far. In particular, Generalflame has finished her Fairyfloss Norns, and Jessica has released the Coconut Dolly she won in the last CCaves Survivor game so that everyone can enjoy it. I've also re-released my old Primordia metaroom under the name Primordia Redux. There are a lot of other great releases this year, and more still on the way!

In other news, today also marks the release of Halo 4, and I've created something special to celebrate: a wearable MJOLNIR helmet for Norns. You can find it on the agents page.

Friday, September 21, 2012
Today marks the end of the Creatures Caves Survivor game, with Jessica of Discover Albia as the winner!

This year's Survivor contest actually has two prizes: while Jessica received her own unique prize, I also went ahead and created a second one which is for everyone to enjoy. The Survivor Radio can be downloaded from Creatures Caves.

Friday, August 24, 2012
I've added a new tutorial to the resources page: the Creatures Clothes Tutorial! If you've ever thought about making wearable clothing for Creatures 3/Docking Station, check it out! Clothing for Creatures involves both body spriting and CAOS coding, so I have filed it under "Miscellaneous".

Tuesday, July 31, 2012
I seem to be making up for lost time with all these frequent updates. No bug fixes today, though I can happily say that I'm almost finished with the Dustdevil Grendels and they will be available this CCSF. I've released at least one breed for the CCSF for the past three years and I'm happy to say I'll be doing it this year, too.

In the mean time, I just updated some of the links on the Links page (Gameware has switched solely to their .com domain, and Creaturetopia relocated to creaturetopia.treesprite.com) and added a banner for SeeYou7.Net, a great site which happens to be in German but is still pretty darn cool.

Also, Rascii has finished the Creatures Caves redesign. Check it out! It's awesome!

Monday, July 30, 2012
I've updated the Portal object pack today because I was notified there was a minor error with the clipboard. Thanks goobers for telling me about it.

In related news, Creatures Caves is hosting a poll to determine the co-coordinators for this year's Creatures Community Spirit Festival. The poll will run for one week, and close on August 6th. The CCSF will be held on the first two weeks of November.

Thursday, July 26, 2012
Just because I'm not convinced the Sabertooth Norn genome was completely fixed, I've reuploaded the Bone Cave and Sabertooth Norn breed pack with an updated version of the genome. If by any chance you were having problems before (eg. with your Sabertooth Norns experiencing homesickness), try downloading (or re-downloading) the Bone Cave and/or breed pack.

There are a few issues with Devil's Reef, like the trilobites autokilling themselves, or Grendels not being able to use the elevator. I am currently working on it; I have most problems fixed and now I am just working on the trilobites. I expect to have a fixed version out by this year's CCSF at the very latest.

If you download something from this site and it doesn't appear to work right, please tell me.

I have had some people who seemed to be afraid to mention that they'd encountered a bug. I am not going to bite your head off if you have a problem. I would be happy to help you figure out, even if it turns out to be unrelated to anything I made. I would be extremely grateful if you point out an actual problem with one of my agents/breeds/etc, because then I can fix it. I really appreciate it when people point out things that need to be changed. I want people to be able to use what I've made and enjoy it.

The only thing I don't like very much is not knowing there was a problem because no one told me about it. I'm happy to help, but I won't know you're having problems unless you tell me. Drop me a line at CreaturesCaves or see if I'm online in CC Chat (I usually am) and I'll get back to you ASAP... even if it's just to assure you that I'm already working on fixing it.

Sunday, July 22, 2012
Breeders Beware now has a favicon (I didn't realize until now that it didn't already have one) and a separate page for news archives, so that updates on the home page can be kept relatively short. I've also created a staff page just for fun.

I know site updates have been few and far between, but in reality I'm working on quite a lot of new stuff, despite real life and work which are also doing their best to keep me busy. Look forward to seeing Norns wearing elf shoes some time later this year.

Thursday, December 8, 2011
Just a few tweaks. I've updated Devil's Reef to make the submarine lift less addicting for Norns, linked the rooms at the top and bottom so Creatures will be encouraged to use the lift for navigation, and fixed the sprites for the oven door and the crunchy fish. I've also given the Robomeerk a new classifier that will not conflict with the Weighted Companion Cube from the Portal object pack.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011
I hope everyone had a great CCSF! We must have seen the most new releases ever, including six new metarooms. Wow! That seems to be our lucky number this year—I submitted six agents for the festival, so needless to say now that the CCSF is over I have a lot to add to Breeders Beware.

I've added Gaius, the Deep Norns and the Yautja Norns to the breeds page. There's also a new metaroom (Devil's Reef) and several agents, including the Cupid's Halo, Dynamic Blooming Flowers and Portal object pack. I've also added the Longhorn Grazers, Robomeerk and Longhorn Grazer backstory from last year's CCSF. Major updates to the 'Development' page too, including WIP's covering most of the development of Devil's Reef.

...Did I miss anything? :o

Sunday, September 11, 2011
Been busy, busy, busy, working on projects for the CCSF since July. I hope to have some neat stuff out this year... including a lot of small things, but also a new breed and a metaroom called Devil's Reef. Nothing helps get you in that creative mood like the CCSF, eh?

In the mean time, I've also been fixing up some of my past releases. Today I finished up that add-on patch for KT, The Bone Cave. Tomorrow... who knows what I'll be working on? So much to do before the CCSF!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
I have been busy busy! Working on the patches for my previous downloads, the Deep Norns (and their metaroom), collaborating with other folks, and many other things. But I return bearing exciting news: CCSF 2011 is nearing the end of the planning stage. There's currently a poll to help decide what the theme will be this year. This poll will run for one week, so be sure to add your vote!

Friday, June 10, 2011
A few more quick updates. The "Worlds" page has been reorganized to be easier to navigate. I've replaced the "CCSF" link in the main menu with a "Resources" page. This is not a new page, just the Development page under a new name; I didn't think the original title was very self-explanatory. The "Development" link now leads to a page displaying works in progress and screenshots of various projects past and present.

Thursday, May 12, 2011
I'm still alive, and I revamped a few of the pages today. Added a nice splash image to the index page here and some Javascript to tidy things up a bit. There's a new banner for BBW available under the links section and the Breeds, Agents and Development pages have been updated for better functionality.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011
I've revised that ATT tutorial I wrote a while ago to cover more on how to determine coordinates for a project, since that aspect was rather sparse. If you've been scratching your head wondering what to do, hopefully this will help!

Monday, March 14, 2011
It's been three months since the start of the new year and although I had planned on getting all that new CCSF stuff updated, uploaded and available for download, I have been completely swamped with work and other real life shenanigans.

Now I'm finally putting my foot down and I'm going to try to get it all uploaded a little at a time. First off, I thought I'd start my activity for the new year with something that's actually new—if you were hoping for updated agents, you'll have to wait a little longer, I'm still working on those. Instead, I've added a completely new fanfic: The alternate Yautja Norn Story.

This has been sitting on my harddrive ever since I started working on the breed. The Yautja Norn story that was written by sam999 and released with the breed is still the official one—it suits the games so much better—but mine grew on me and so I've decided to post it just for the heck of it.

And remember, for the younger readers, anything with a Predator in it can't be rated anything less than T!

Sunday, July 4, 2010
The Fun In The Sun object pack has been released! Let your Creatures celebrate Summer with a new variety of waterside toys, available on the Agents page.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010
There's a new tutorial under the Development section called the Hungry Critter Tutorial—just look for the gold star. Two breed previews have also been added to the list on the Breeds page: Gaius and the Yautja Norns.

Sunday, March 21, 2010
Just a quick update. I've added a few more links on the Agents page to a few agents which I've found to be really neat.

Thursday, February 11, 2010
Today I present not one, not two, but six new agents available for download on the Agents page. These agents form a collaboration between myself and Norngirl and are the fruit of her (considerable) creativity and artistic talent and my coding efforts. These new agents are:

1. Caterpillars. Two types, Fantazy and Ordin. Both grow up into—well, I don't want to spoil the surprise. Let's just say it's something really neat. I can guarantee you don't have any caterpillars in your game like these guys.

2. Grasses. Two types, Fantazy and Ordin. The caterpillars each eat the matching kind of grass. In addition, the seeds are edible and the stuff can grow pretty much anywhere (read: any organic terrain type, including underwater—the Ordin variety looks especially pretty in the Aquatic Terrarium). It won't overpopulate but it will give any area a nice lush groundcover.

3. Trees. Two types, Fantazy and Ordin (I'm noticing a theme here). Every part of this tree that a Creature can carry off with them is chock full of medicinal properties. They're also quite pretty, and are required for the caterpillars to complete their lifecycle.

4. A lamp. This one isn't exactly on the same theme as the rest of the stuff, but it is still very neat. I believe you'll find that its soft hum and rainbow colors soothe both you as well as your creatures.

Head on over and check them out!

Sunday, December 27, 2009
It has recently come to my attention that some of my older agents suffered from Rainbow Spew. The sprite files for the Dinosaur Toy and 4-in-1 Plant and the agents that came with the Primordia and Tulu metarooms have all been re-converted to the correct format and are now Spew-free. (The missing catalogue file has also been added to the 4-in-1 Plant's agent file).

So if you play the Mac version of C3/DS and these agents were suffering from Rainbow Spew in your world, hurry over and re-download the improved versions!

Many thanks to Malkin not only for bringing this to my attention, but for beta testing the new files.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Breeders Beware has now been online in its current form for four and a half years. In May of 2010, it will officially be five years old. And I have to say, wow. How the time has flown.

I've been considering this over the course of the past month, and I feel it is high time that the title graphic is changed to reflect that. Hopefully this will help folks know what the site's proper title is as well.

So I hope the new design seems nicer, maybe even a bit better designed, than the last one. You can still see the previous design here, and the original version here.

And as I now find that Thanksgiving Day is less than an hour a way, I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.

Saturday, November 14, 2009
It's the last day of the 2009 CCSF, and boy has it been a good one! A lot of great stuff was churned out this year, from breeds and agents to artwork and even some poetry. I made a few submissions myself, including the Norn Nanny, KT and the Sabertooth Norns, all of which are now available for download on the appropriate pages.

I've also uploaded a new page, the Cheat Sheet, which is a nice long list of cheats for use in C3/DS. Some of these cheats I hit upon myself, and it includes an explanation of how cheats work and how a person can go about "making" new ones. Anyone who knows of a handy cheat or two that isn't already on the list is welcome to contact me and tell me about it!

Thursday, November 5, 2009
Just a bit has happened today.

I've reorganized the development page by topic to make it easier to find things. I've also added a few tutorials, including one I wrote for the CCSF which covers ATT (Creature body data) files.

I have also updated the Worlds section with a page on my Tulu metaroom, including a download link. I hope to have a patch for Tulu, as well as the Louis Norn breed (which the room was created for), up for download soon as well.

That preview page for KT has also become the download page for KT—although neither the metaroom or my Sabertooth Norns are currently available for download, rest assured they will be released later in the CCSF. In the mean time, said page offers a Sabertooth Norn background you can use to decorate your desktop.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009
I am still alive! I've just been busy polishing up KT and the Sabertooth Norns and getting them both ready for the upcoming 2009 CCSF. I've uploaded a preview page for said metaroom, complete with a screenshot and description of the room and some promo pictures.

I also updated the links page and fixed the download link to the dinosaur toy on the agents page, which was broken. Thanks to SteelFoot for pointing that out.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Still working away on KT. In the mean time I've gone over and revised some of my other agents. I added reproductive limits for the 4-in-1 plant so it doesn't overpopulate anymore, and nudged the Creature Counter down a little so it wouldn't interfere with Masha's Warpmonitor. Thanks to Norngirl for bringing this to my attention so I could fix it.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009
I'm still busily working away on my projects, especially KT, which I hope to have out by the end of the year at the latest. In the mean time, I've uploaded a page which may help other coders avoid some of the hurdles I've been tripping over lately, like trying to figure out which VERB ID and DRIVE ID integers will give your agent that certain effect you want it to have on Creatures. You can also find a link to it on the Development page.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009
I've added some preview images to the Bai-Loki project pages. These feature slices of the metaroom backgrounds and do not include any critters or other agents, but I hope they will give you a taste of what has been going on behind the scenes here.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Took a break from the Bai-Loki coding and breed spriting and added a new download to the agent page: the Creature Counter.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Another update! I've added some new links to the main menu, linking to four new pages. The Fiction section is where I will host any Creatures fanfiction I may write—I already have a oneshot up, called The Cuttlefish Shee. The Development section lists some very useful resources for agent and metaroom creators. The Contact section... well, tells you how to get in contact with me. There's also a link to the 2008 CCSF.

I have also created a page listing all of the agents I have created, along with their classifier numbers. You can see it here.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
I'm still alive... and I come bringing updates! The Worlds page has been updated with the status of the Bai-Loki Project, which I will continue updating as I work on said project. Yes I am really working on it, as you can now see! And the page for each of the Bai-Loki terrariums now also lists the status of that individual terrarium.

From the Worlds page you can also see the splash image for Primordia v.2, and also download it—the issues that were reported are now fixed, and it even comes with a new critter!

I have also updated the Breeds page with a short blurb about the other two breeds I'm working on, the Deep Norns and Sabertooth Norns, although neither is available for download yet.

And I added the NiGHTS Dolls, Dino Toy and 4-in-1 Plant to the Agents page, so they can be downloaded from Breeders Beware—you don't have to go all the way over to the CCSF site to get them anymore.

That's all for now. Whew, what an update!

Wednesday, July 23, 2008
I've created a new mini-page with screenshots featuring some of the stuff I've been doing in Blender. Some of it is Bai-Loki related, some of it is not; some of the things that aren't related may become full-fledged projects of their own once I finish the Louis Norns. Speaking of which, I'm about 60% finished with the sprites for the male Louis Norn head.

Monday, July 14, 2008
Ghosthande says:
After being left neglected and mostly dead for over a year, Breeders Beware is not only up and running again, it's actually finished. Unfortunately the computer on which all of the old files were kept was stolen. There may still be a few backups lying around somewhere but for the time being I can pretty easily make due without. Here are some of the things I've done:

• Fixed up the PHP to make the site look nicer and work better, and converted the pages that were still written in HTML to PHP.
• Changed the "projects" page to a "worlds" category, since having a projects section seemed kind of redundant when the breed and agent pages already listed projects that related to breeds and agents.
• Added a new critter, the Blackbird, to the Agents page. I drew the sprites, but the coding was done by AquaShee. Thank you AquaShee!
• Updated the Bai-Loki pages (some of those old ideas just don't sound quite as great as they used to).
• The Shadow Norns and Chao Norns are gone and I'm afraid they will not be making a reappearance.
• Fixed some broken links on the links page and changed the news layout a bit.

I've also been working on the sprite set for the Louis Norns. Yes, the Louis Norns; the original sprite set has been lost (R.I.P. little Louis I) but I'm working to make a newer, better, and all-around cuter version. And this one will be coming with a surprise.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Converted the site into PHP, and changed some stuff. Be sure to check out the new Projects section!

Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Happy (slightly late) 4th of July!
Edited the Bai-loki page. Haven't been working on the Louis Norns in a while; I've been busy playing The Sims.

Saturday, June 11, 2005
Gave the updates section a better design.

Friday, June 10, 2005
Worked on the Louis Norns a little more, added a little more information to the Bai-Loki page.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Bai-Loki is partially done and has been for about a week, but I forgot to mention it here until just now!

Tuesday, May 24, 2005
The links and breed pages are finished and the agent pages are mostly done, but Bai-Loki is still doesn't have any information.

Saturday, May 21, 2005
The BBW has been redesigned! See the old design here.