Whilst I was sleeping (that’s the trouble with being in the UK – we always miss out on short-term announcements and pick up the messages long after the specials are gone), Petables came out with ten Preview Turtle packs. Of course, by the time I’d got there they were long gone. As I suspected that new releases would be made again while I was asleep, I figured the only chance we might have was for me to get into my dusty wallet. I bought one of the starter packs instead. And now I’m going to show you the hatching process – whoopee!
Pic 1 : The Petables Turtle Starter Kit - 4 eggs, food, and tools with HUD
The starter pack for Petable Turtles is only L$270 (although you can currently fork out four times as much on the pay thingee, and presumably get four packs). It comes with a small bowl, four random eggs (you can accidentally cross-breed the turtles but apparently this is a bad thing, so the starter eggs are going to be from different genetic families), and four small food packs – enough for a week for each of the four turtles.
There is also a hud, a turtle clock and a colour predictor. And a good set of notecards to get you on your way, which is easy anyway. If I were Pacific, I’m sure that as a fellow writer she’d be congratulating Petables and Matthew Anthony for the documentation on the turtles – having good written documentation and support is really helpful, and even I could find my way with these eggs.
There are similarities here with sionChickens because the eggs come in a stand, and clicking them will start the hatching process. You can see in my second picture that I got two green and two blue eggs, with one of them already unboxed and ready to hatch in my picture 2a. Like the sionChickens, it takes two hours to hatch the eggs into turtles.
Pic 2a : Setting out the Petable Turtle eggs for hatching...
Following the instructions, I used this time for star gazing, and setting out the food bowls near the turtle eggs. What I wasn’t sure about was where to initially place the eggs. Should they be near water, I pondered? Or would the poor little baby turtles wonder into the Linden waters and disappear?
I decided to place the eggs half way up from the shore, hoping for the best. This seemed best, particularly after I told Pacific what I was up to in her absence from the Island, and she freaked out. She then went and plurked (something she hates to do, so I know I hit a jealous nerve) and Matthew kindly answered her plurk. He told her that Turtles can go on land and sea, but they don’t swim, they simply walk along the bottom of the sea. So maybe this position will be okay.
I also was a little worried about prims needed. We are currently experimenting with sionCorn and have a prim Zooby baby out with some high-prim furniture (I’m beginning to think of us as the mad scientists of consumer demand amongst Second Life). With only 36 prims to spare, I wasn’t sure how many prims each turtle might like, so to be safe, I went and deleted some of the palm trees and furniture around. My absent niece is going to regret giving me Edit rights over the land and prims, I’m pretty sure.
Pic 2b : Oh NO! Can turtle eggs be harmed, especially by clumsy seals?
Used to the crushability of a sionEgg I also found myself catching my breath when a walloping scripted seal ran over the eggs. Could he harm them?
Pic 3 : The Petables Turtle Hud, showing a newly bought egg general tab details.
While waiting I played around with the Turtle Hud. This is the mainstay of the Turtles, giving all the information on the turtles and eggs. Here, in my third picture, I’ve taken a screenshot of one of the tabs – the General one, after clicking on one of the green eggs. As you can see, it will be hatched in 112 minutes, and the breeder is the developer of the Petable Turtles, Grim Hathor. Presumably the next generation (they can mate after five days of age, according to the notecards) will see my name come up as the breeder.
While at the store I also bought some special food you use for stopping hatching of newly laid eggs. And while looking at the hud I received an empty turtle box through. These boxes, plus the egg stands appear to be available through the options panel in the HUD – free accessories, that’s something worthwhile for a start. I have no idea what the box is for – do you put your turtles in them to sell them, or just to transport them in, or to breed in?
That’s as far as I understand at the moment during this beta testing period.
I’m really excited about this beta preview of the turtles, and of the concept. If everything goes well, I can see Pacific falling in love with them when she gets back to Second Life, and maybe even halving our chicken population or getting rid of the corn, you never know. In the meantime, I get to name the first turtle babies.
Pic 3 : Oh come on...hatch damnit! (Proverb for the Turtle Keeper - A watched egg doth not hatch)
Pic 5a : Hatching Stage 1 (2 seconds) a large turtle pops out of the egg!
Pic 5b : Hatching Stage 2 - after 10 seconds - the hatchling turtle shrinks and turns blue to match the egg it came from. You can still see the egg there, before it disappears shortly afterwards.
Pic 5b : Hatching Stage 3 - after about 15 seconds. The hatching process has finished. The egg is gone, and the hatchling turtle sits around resting for a few minutes before it starts to wonder around.
Pic 6 : A closeup of my Petable Turtle Hatchling, Jack
Pic 7 : A proud Turtle Keeper looks over her new Petable Turtle hatchlings
Pic 8 : Which promptly put one of them to sleep.
Addendum :
- The hatchlings came out informing me politely that they weren’t of the same group as the land was. This puzzled me, but after getting hold of Pacific again she told me how to set them to the land’s group on Edit.
- The hatchling turtles are 8 prims each, down on sionChickens by 1 prim.
- I couldn’t decide on many names so they are called BlueGirl, BlueBoy, GreenGirl and Jack (the last after my dear departed Jack, my husband). I think Jack is particularly cute, don’t you?
- They’ve all gone to sleep now that it’s got dark, just like the chickens.
- Pacific made me create a new category for the turtles (with a bit of instructions on how to do it), so you can now find the turtle posts under ‘The Turtle Diaries’ category.
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Hi – I love this blog. Thank you for all the hard work you put in it.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out what the deck of cards are for in the turtle HUD. Can I play poker with them or something??
I’ve spent about 30 minutes reading turtle blogs, trying to find the answer to this frustrating question.