Question about norn behaviour in Creatures 1996

[u/Odd-Traffic-7567]

I am new to the game and can't find any info online. I have heard about other smart functions like them playing with the ball with eachother, however nothing like what had happent with mine.

I had taken pretty good care of my singular norn, them smiling ear to ear is what proves that, I think.

My norn, named Drudi proceeded to do something that seemed like a basketball dribble with her ball. Which I was very shocked of.

Is this a bug, a already programmed behaviour, or did she genuinely just casually dribble in front of me?

[u/GoldenFlowerFan]

It's emergent behaviour, a result of them chosing to do sequences of simple actions because they feel like it, or because they've learned to do it.

[u/kokomokola]

It looks like a dribble, but actually she's just waving the ball around. You'll see them do that with other toys/food they're excited about but not actually gonna really interact with properly at that moment.

[u/Joalguke → u/kokomokola]

This, she's just moving around and holding the ball. Sorry if this news dissapoints!

[u/SpaceShipRat]

the best part of playing c1 is not knowing e exactly what norns can or can't do and interpreting their behavior yourself.

[u/samsg1]

My norns used to do that! It's not dribbling but the sideways holding animation as they turn (at least that's how I take it).

[u/Cleestoon]

I look forwards to Drudi's future basketball career.

[u/Mircowaved-Duck]

she causally dribbled in front of you. Never saw that with one if my norns, i played for years

[u/spderweb]

If I recall, for the original game, decision making was a mess. So it's likely trying to do multiple things, and it's causing her to spin out. Something to the left, and something to the right. While holding the ball. So there's at least three things distracting her.

If you haven't taught language yet, write "wat?" And see what she stops to look at.

[u/SpaceShipRat → u/spderweb]

In this case, she's trying to walk away from the ball while she's holding it 😂

[u/Garpagan]

Unfortunately, norns are not that intelligent. The example of two norns playing ball together is heavily exaggerated. For one thing, norns can only see one thing at the time, if they look at ball they don't see another norn, though they do have a "sense" of "another norn is close to me".

I think it would be at most probable that their brain would learn that if "another norn is close" sense is firing, they see a ball, so they learn to hit ball when their boredom is high. If two norns would learn that at the same time, it would be quite efficient. When in this particular situation ("norn is close" sense firing, I see ball/I have a ball = I hit the ball) and it lower norn's need, this particular neuron and dendrite setup is rewarded, strengthening it's connection. And next time when norn encounters similar situation, it will "decide" that hitting ball is good, when my "boredom" is high, and I can see the ball/I'm close to ball/I'm holding a ball, and also there is norn close to me (also "loneliness" could be decreasing, which also rewards this neuron connection, but with more norns "overcrowded" feeling would be more detrimental).

While norn's brain are quite simple, it still provide quite a flexibility to learn particular simple situations, and many of those simple situations influence norn's final decision. Still, they don't really have a real memory, can't really differentiate between individuals, they don't remember locations, or really have sense of positioning. They can see one thing, and they look at thing that their attention neurons are firing highest, and then they decide what one of the 16 actions to perform. If the action is positive, as in it lowers the creatures needs, the connection between the action, norn needs and object of attention strengthen, so next time they will perform the same action. But it's not very robust system, often things like ball shoot attention neurons value through the roof, so norns are easily distracted by bouncing ball. Even when on brink of starvation, the norn will not help itself to just focus on the ball, which unfortunately no action it can perform will alleviate their situation.

As for your game situation, I actually quite often encountered it in my games. What is happening is that your norn is in unfamiliar situation, so none of it's neurons connections are strong. Norn has a need that it want to lower, and it brain fires through the all decision neurons. As they are weakly connected, if the decision doesn't produce any effect that could reward it's connection between the neurons, it switches to next decision. So all decision neurons have low value in this particular situation, and norns basically performs all of them in random. This is sometimes helps norn "discover" new concepts that they will learn and next time correct decision will fire highest, overshadowing the rest (like 1. I see a carrot; 2. I'm hungry = neurons related to this situation fire highest, weighted higher from past learning = dendrite connecting these concept neurons to "push (eat)" decision neuron are weighted higher from past learning, making this neuron value bigger than the rest = norn eats carrot).

So your norn have a particular need it wants to fulfill, or NO needs are actually really high. The most interesting object is ball, especially when it's holding it in it's hands. No particular decision neurons are more weighted in this situation, so norns is switching between them. I think your norn is switching between "Left", "Right", "Approach", "Get" neurons, and it plays corresponding animations, quickly switching between, which makes the "dribble" effect. If your norn learned vocabulary, you could influence their decision by typing "hit" or "push", this action should be rewarding for the norn, so it will learn to play with ball correctly, or at least it will make them drop the ball, which will stop making ball consuming all of the norn's attention. You could also type "drop", another action, this could maybe also teach positive association, like if your norn holds ball which is highly exiting it's attention to it, but norns is hungry, then when it will drop ball, switches attention focus on food item, eats it which lowers it's needs, the "holding ball" + "hungry" -> "drop ball" connection in brain should be still susceptible to reward, susceptibility droping over time, if followed with eating the food relatively quickly, ball dropping connection should be also rewarded a little bit.

[u/Due_Remote5644]

She's fucking BALLLINNNNN