Wolfling run


 * This page is about the play method. For the German Community aktion, see Wolfling Run 2003/2004/2005.

A wolfling run (sometimes incorrectly referred to as a wolfing run) is a method of playing in which the player does not intervene in the lives of their creatures, resulting in a natural selection of creatures. There are four types of wolfling runs:


 * Strict: The player hatches eggs in a world with no additional COBs or agents. The player does not interact with the world at all for a period of time.


 * Relaxed: The player sets up the world before the run, adding any COBs, agents, and/or metarooms as they like. Once the eggs are laid, the player ceases to interact with the world for a period of time.


 * Global: Commonly abbreviated to GWR. This requires Docking Station. A group of players set commonly-defined rules and set their Warps to only allow warps to members of the group.


 * Forum: Creatures are sought from the community and set loose in a world together hosted by the game-master, or GM. The GM updates the submitters of the creatures of the world's progress in a forum thread, often with pictures. A forum wolfling run may be either strict or relaxed.

History of the term
The term originated from the Uplift novels by David Brin, in which the term refers to intelligent races that achieved space travel without the shepherding of a patron race. Denise Voskuil's FAQ about wolfling runs (also available at The Truth About Grendels) traces the use of "wolfling run" to a post on a.g.c. in May 1997, made by Aznin, a member of the US EAP. This date puts it at approximately 6 months after the UK release of C1.

Rowena considered the term "wolfling run" to belong to members of the US Early Adoption Program, or at least to those runs which held to specific guidelines (January 1998) - however, it has fallen into more general usage.

Hand visibility
In C2, the ability for the hand to become invisible to creatures was included. This could potentially be used in wolfling runs to allow players to observe without themselves being seen. Dylan created an agent called HandSight for C3/DS with a similar functionality, Chani created an agent for DS called Hand Hider as well. Do not confuse this with the Invisible Hand Bug, where the hand is invisible to the player.

Wolf Control
The Wolf Control utility was included with Creatures 3 (1999) and Docking Station (2001) with a fast ticks mode to make it easier for players to run the game wolfling style. Prior to this, players typically ran the game "wolfling style" in the background, ignoring it, or overnight, with varying results. This technique was even used to check the Creatures 2 genome.

Unofficial tools and utilities
Several unofficial tools and utilities have been created to assist with wolfling runs. The ability to change the population limit was an unofficial feature that players would install addons for, but this ability was officially allowed for in Docking Station.

C1

 * Wolfling Monitor - a utility for C1 and C2 with helpful features.
 * Terra Nornia - had a larger population limit.

C2

 * Wolf Control (C2) - a utility for C2 with helpful features.
 * Life Guard (C2)
 * Underwater Egg Hatcher (C2)
 * Egg-Sitter (C2)
 * 40 Norns

C3/DS

 * No Hand Holding, Grettin Toggle and Hands Off - agents created by Kezune to remove certain functionalities of Creatures 3 and Docking Station to make the games more similar to C1 and C2.
 * Wolfmate
 * Devthing
 * Ghostcam