The Creature Club:All of my males (all), when they reach breeding age get a big red X over their picture in the breeder's kit and none, even after mating, will produce. What does the red X mean?

How do you do it? I've often tried to tickle a baby, only to have them shift a fraction of an inch and get spanked.

<Putting on Teacher's cap>
It gets a bit dicey sometimes. The major difficulties are as follows:
The dividing line between 'slap' and 'tickle' is approximately the Norns
waist. When the Norn bends or squats, this drastically decreases the target
area.
The hot spot of the hand is at the tip of the finger (no, not THAT finger!),
which points to the left. Much of the time, the Norn I want to slap/tickle
is to the right, forcing me to move the hand to the right, which normally
causes the Norn to react and shift position.
AAAUUUGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!
 I've found early training is a key element in helping to overcome this
difficulty (there's a $5 sentence for ya!!).
When your Norn is first hatched, select him from the menu, open the view
window, bring your hand to a point just ABOVE him. They are extremely
self-centered right after birth, and their view should be on themselves.
Once they 'see' the hand, they will center on it, and reach up for a tickle.
Tickle lightly and move the hand slightly to the side. Your Norn should come
to the hand, and again reach up for a tickle. Tickle slightly and move the
hand to the side. A few more repetitions should teach the Norn to reach up
to be tickled, and that the hand should be moved to whenever it's in view.
Use this procedure to lead your Norn to the elevator up to the computer for
training.
When your Norn does something you want it to do, it's best to tickle for a
reward while it's doing it. That way you not only decrease the possibility
of error due to your Norn's movement, you also make the connection to the
action being performed and the reward given much more reliably.
For slaps, I prefer to move the hand below the 'floor', so that only the tip
of it is near the Norn. With practice, this becomes much more reliable than
trying to guess where 'tickle' stops and 'slap' begins.
For disciplining adult Norns that roam free in Albia, I leave the hand
completely out of sight below the 'floor' level until they do something
wrong, then bring it up just high enough to slap ONCE and quickly drop it
again. Normally, they don't even 'see' the hand when I do this, which allows
them to associate the ACTION with the punishment, rather than the hand. This
also allows me to come over and tickle them in consolation, without
'handaphobia' setting in.
"Alex push weed"   <SLAP!><OW!>"Alex run weed"   <Tickle, Tickle>"Alex come"
"Alex push Dad"   <Tickle, Tickle>
What also might be helpful is if you're running in high color and a high
density setting, is to switch to a less dense graphic setting, like 800X640,
or 600X480 at, say 256 colors. You will not see as MUCH of Albia, but what
you will see will be larger, giving you a larger 'target' area to work with.
<Take's off Teacher's Cap>
Copyright 1998 Kent Ickler Webpage Design: Creatures Club.

President

Last updated:6-12-98