Cryptlins

A bare bulb in a brick basement, and the little monsters that live under it. A virtual pet: each hatches from an egg, runs about, eats, plays, sleeps, makes a mess and looks at you. Godot 4.7 (GL Compatibility), made for phones and the web, and drawn like a PlayStation game.

It lives by the clock on the wall, whether the game is open or not: a full belly lasts most of a day, it sleeps for about seven hours in the twenty-four, and a baby is grown in a day and a half.

It starts as an egg in the lamplight. The lamp warms it slowly, the heat lamp faster, a rubbing finger fastest, and a tap makes it knock back. It cracks twice on the way, an eye looks out of the second crack, and then it hatches. The eggs are all plain eggs, a little rounder or taller by their kind; what is painted on the shell says what is inside:

Egg Hatches a Which is
Mossy gremlin The all-rounder: big ears, a tail, fangs.
Streaky squatchling A young sasquatch, and an ape that goes upright: a head with a pointed crown sunk between big sloping shoulders, a heavy brow over small deep-set eyes, a broad flat nose and a bare dark leathery face; a barrel chest, taller than it is wide; long thick arms that hang to its knees, with big bare hands; short bent legs on big bare feet with five fat toes each. Its hair is short and close, shaggy only at the shoulders, forearms and shins: dark brown, red-brown, near black or grey, plain or with no more than a paler chest or a greying crown. A baby is the same with more hair, a bigger head and bigger feet. It leans into its walk with its arms swinging, and now and then as it goes it looks back over its shoulder without breaking its stride. Slow, heavy, deep-voiced, hungry and shy. It leaves footprints where it walks: deep ones that last a minute and a half on moss, dirt, sand, gravel, snow and mud, faint ones that are gone sooner on flagstones, boards, tiles and straw, none on carpet and none in water. They are only to look at.
Speckled cockatrice A serpent that has a stuffed rooster on its front end. The snake is the creature, and it is the rooster’s tail: it comes up out of the dummy’s back end where the tail feathers would be and curves up and over with its head held high, scaled and marked, with a low red crest, fangs and a forked tongue, and it is the snake that looks at you, eats (reaching round the dummy to do it), yawns and sleeps (laid round the dummy, which has fallen over). The rooster is a dummy, worn like a costume: sacking and stitches, two buttons for eyes that never blink, a beak sewn shut and limp wings, dangled along on its own legs, flopping a beat behind, and hanging from the snake when the two are picked up. The scanner finds the snake’s insides and nothing in the dummy. Struts, crows high, and stares more than anything else does.
Silk-wound mothman Dark and furry with great red eyes, feathered feelers and eyed wings. Fast, squeaky, gets the zoomies, tires quickly.
Thorn-patterned chupacabra The goat-sucker: gaunt, hairless and dog-like, on all fours with its ribs showing, long spines from skull to tail, a whip tail, and a narrow muzzle with the fangs out front. Grey-blue or sickly grey-green, with red eyes. Quick, very hungry, lurks.
Slimy Loveland frogman A frog that stands up. Jumps highest of all, croaks, loves to dance. Water.
Rippled Loch Ness monster A hump, four flippers and a long neck. Slow on land, shy, rarely tired. Water.
Stone slide-rock bolter A whale of the high slopes, and a whale to look at: a long body tapering back along the ground from a broad blunt head, a huge wide mouth with the underjaw jutting and pegs for teeth, small eyes far back, a pale grooved throat, big flat flippers it rows itself along on, a low ridge on its back and flukes that curl over into hooks, grey as scree, blotched with lichen, with stones lying along its back. It has no neck, so it turns the whole of itself to look at you, and it heaves and slides where the rest walk. It does not need water. Lumbering and always starving, until it gets the zoomies.
Frost-bitten wendigo A deer’s skull on a thin dark body with long arms. Never full, keeps to the dark, stares.
Weed-streaked kelpie A water horse’s foal: all legs and neck, with waterweed for a mane and a tail. Fast, springy, gets the zoomies. Water.
Scaly merling A fish that walks: a crest, gill fins for ears, webbed hands and a tail. Dances, stares. Water.
Sucker-ringed Cthulhu spawn A great soft head, feelers where a mouth should be, and wings too small to matter yet. Slow, deep-voiced, hungry, lurks and stares. Water.
Red-capped gnome Small and stout under a pointed hat as tall as it is, with a nose like a berry and the start of a beard. Dances.
Glimmering fae A slip of a thing in a skirt of petals, held up off the floor on four wings and giving off a little light. Quick, shrill, tires fast, never still.
Toadstool living fungus A toadstool that got up and walked: a wide spotted cap on a pale stalk. Slow, quiet, eats little.
Dappled jackalope A hare with a buck’s antlers coming in. It does not walk anywhere: it hops, in small lolloping hops when it is ambling about (a crouch, a spring off its hind legs, down on its forepaws, the back end swinging in under it, and a pause) and long low bounds when it runs, its ears and antlers bobbing after it, and when it is startled it goes straight up. A baby’s hops are shorter and less sure. The most spring of anything here, and the zoomies to go with it.
Starry alien A head too big for its body, long thin hands, and two black eyes with a light far down in each. Stares most of all.
Frosted yeti A yeti of the gentle sort: a huge soft pear of thick white shaggy fur with no neck and sloping shoulders, a dark slate face set low on it (a broad flat nose, a wide mouth, big friendly eyes under a heavy brow), big dark hands on long heavy arms that hang to the ground, and short thick legs. Off-white, paler at the top and bluer below, with its arms and legs a shade greyer than its body; its coat is one solid thing, ragged only at its outline, and plain but for a faint big patch or a pale belly on some. A baby is a ball of fluff with the same face. Heavy, lumbering, deep-voiced, hungry.
Ember-veined Cerberus Three heads on one pup. The middle one leads and the other two follow it round. Always hungry.
Tunnelled mole person One of the people from under the ground: stout and velvety, with spade hands far too big for it, a pink star for a nose and tiny pale eyes. Slow and short-sighted (it does not see a toy or the moving light until they are close), hides readily, and digs far more than the rest, whatever the floor, though it likes dirt best. Wants the lamp low, is as happy with it off, and is never at ease under the bright one.
Long-shanked Fresno nightcrawler A pair of walking trousers: two long pale legs that run up into one small lump of a head, no arms, and two dark eyes with a light in each. White or near it, smooth, with no more marking than a freckle or a sock. It walks stiffly in short steps as if on stilts, stands where the rest would sit, and lies down flat to sleep. Slow, quiet, eats little, stares.
Gold-braided flying monkey The winged monkey of the witch’s castle: long arms, a bare face, round ears, a tail curled up behind it, and wings of feathers or of skin. As often as not it has the bellhop’s jacket, the little round hat, or both, in red, blue, purple or green. Quick, loud and springy. It flies: on its way anywhere it takes to the air for a short hop, and it perches on top of the rock, the log, the gravestone, the cave, the barrel, the crate, the luggage trunk and the perch.
Bristly flying boar A stout boar low on four short legs: a long snout with a flat end to it, two tusks, a ridge of dark bristles down its back, a curl of a tail, and a pair of pale wings a good deal too small for it. It flies now and then, low, briefly and with its wings buzzing, and trots the rest; it perches as the monkey does. Deep-voiced, always hungry, hard on toys, and it roots at any floor (it digs more than most, whatever the ground).
Spade-marked Flatwoods monster Tall, and it glides: a dark pleated skirt with the look of metal about it from its waist to the floor and nothing showing under it, a narrow chest, a round red face with two lit eyes, a great flat cowl standing up behind the face in the shape of the ace of spades, and two thin arms held out in front with small clawed hands. Dark green, near black, purple, teal or rust, with the face always red. It stands where the rest would sit and sinks down into its skirt to sleep. Slow, quiet but for a hiss, lurks and stares.
Hoof-printed Jersey devil The long head of a horse, with the horns and beard of a goat, on a long neck; the wings of a bat; short arms with claws, held up against its chest; two goat legs on cloven hooves; and a long tail that ends in a fork. Dun, grey, rust, near black or tan, with red or yellow eyes. Quick, loud, springy and hungry. It flies as the monkey does, less often, and perches on the same things.
Banded Mongolian death worm A fat blood-red sausage of a worm, blunt at both ends and ringed from one to the other, with a round mouth full of teeth at the front and no eyes at all: the only light it has is down its throat, and in the dark that is all there is to see of it. It has no limbs: it crawls in a ripple, lies where it is to sleep, and digs a good deal, whatever the floor. It likes sand under it and the heat lamp over it, and it is no water kind. Slow, deep-voiced and hungry.
Shaggy yowie The hairy man of the Australian bush, and not to be taken for the squatchling: short and very wide, a heap of long shaggy hair the colour of rust or sand, with no neck and no crest to its head; a wide flat bare face set low between its shoulders, small eyes far apart and a mouth most of the way across it; arms so long that it goes with its knuckles on the floor; short bandy legs, and big feet that turn out. Plain, or with a paler front. A baby is the same with more hair and bigger feet. Slow, deep-voiced, hungry, hard on toys, and it keeps to the corners.
Moon-pale phantom kangaroo The kangaroo that is seen where no kangaroo should be: pale as ash, faintly lit from inside and only half there (the room, the floor and whatever stands behind it show through it, least through its face and most through its feet and the end of its tail, and it throws no shadow), lean and upright, with big haunches, long feet, a heavy tail down to the floor behind it, small forepaws held up in front of its chest with the fists closed, a long narrow head on a long neck, tall ears, and eyes that glow red, green or blue. It hops everywhere as the jackalope does, but in a manner of its own, on two legs: it sinks on its haunches, springs off both feet together with its body tipped forward and its tail coming up to balance it, and comes down rocking back upright (hops = "roo", _hop_roo()), higher than the jackalope goes. Squared up to another of them in a scuffle, or to the toy, it boxes. Quick, springy, keeps to the edges, stares.
Leathery kongamato The breaker of boats: a small pterosaur, with no feather or hair on it anywhere. A long beak carried dipped, with teeth standing out of the sides of it; a crest sweeping straight back off its skull; a small upright body, paler down the front; wings of bare leather, each a single sail of skin on one long finger, with three small claws at the wrist; short legs on three long toes; and a long thin tail held out stiff, with a vane at the end like the blade of an oar. Red, rust or near black, with the crest and the vane red on a dark one and black on a red one. Loud, quick and hungry, and it stares. It flies as the monkey does (short hops on the wing, and perching on what the monkey perches on), and it fancies the water dish and the rock.
Scalloped mermaid The half-and-half sort, and not to be taken for the merling: from the waist up a small person, with a big round head, big eyes, thin arms, and a bodice of scales or of shell; from the waist down one thick scaled fish’s tail that lies back along the floor and round to one side of it, with a fin down its back and a wide two-lobed fluke at the end. Its hair is what varies most: red, gold, black, white, weed green, pink, blue or brown, to the shoulder on some and to the floor on others, with a scallop shell or a starfish in it on two in three; its scales are sea green, blue, violet, coral or olive, marked like any coat. It has no legs: on dry floor it sits up on its tail and hauls itself along on its arms, slowly, bunching up and stretching out as it goes, and wading in the pool its tail comes up out of the water behind it and now and then slaps down. A baby is round, with a stub of a tail. Under the scanner it has ribs above and a fish’s backbone below. Slow, shrill, stares. Water.

It hatches a baby: small, big-headed and squeaky. After a day and a half it grows up, to a size of its own (0.8 to 1.3 times the usual).

Each cryptlin also has two natures (greedy, playful, shy, sleepy, cuddly, bold, grumpy or restless) that bend its needs and habits and decide how it takes being picked up or pushed, a favourite food, a food it won’t eat, a favourite toy, and its own idea of a good home: the ground it is happiest on, how it likes the lamp, two or three things it likes having about, and one it cannot stand. Its kind leans it one way or another; the rest is its own.

Nothing about a cryptlin is ever written on the screen. How it feels shows in its eyes, its ears, the hang of its head, and a small drawn face that pops up over it when its feeling changes (happy, excited, loving, hungry, bored, sleepy, grumpy, scared, sad, disgusted, poorly). What it shows you of its tastes is written down in the notebook (a row for each thing as it is found out, and nothing on the page for what has not been), and marked with a heart or a cross on the thing itself.

The room and the things in it

Everything the keeper has rides a wheel at the bottom of the screen, as the things themselves: the hub is below the screen, so only the top of the rim shows, with the middle thing highest and nearest, its neighbours lower and turned away, and the rest sinking off the bottom corners. No wheel is drawn: only the floating things, with the room showing between them. The scanner is first, then the broom, food, toys, the egg, things for the room, nests and trays of ground, and the notebook last. A sideways drag turns it, and a flick keeps it running; it stops at the first thing and at the last, and comes to rest with a thing at the top. Tap a thing to use it, or drag it up off the wheel and let go where you want it. What is out in the room is not on the wheel: a thing stood in the room, the nest and the ground that are in use and the toy on the floor leave it, the rest close up over the gap, and it comes back to its place when the thing is put away or another nest or ground takes its place. To put a thing or the toy away, pick it up and carry it down onto the wheel: while the finger is down there the thing is gone from the room and the wheel turns to show its place and makes room for it (Den._offer, Shelf.bring); let go there (anywhere in the lower part of the strip the wheel is in, its corners too) and it is put away, let go anywhere else and it has only been moved. A cryptlin that was sitting on it, tucked into it or wading in the pool is turned out, grumbling (Cryptlin.turned_out). There is always a nest and a ground, so those are changed for another and never put away. A thing that has run out leaves it too, and is back when there is more. The tools (scanner, broom, notebook) never leave it.

The wheel can be tucked away, to see the whole room. A small tab with an arrowhead on it sits in the right-hand top corner of the wheel’s strip, where the rim has fallen well away and it is over none of the wheel’s things (Shelf.on_tab): a tap on it, or a flick down on the wheel, and the wheel slides off the bottom of the screen in a third of a second (Shelf.sunk, eased), the tab going down with it to sit at the bottom edge, above the room left for a phone browser’s bar. A tap on the tab, or a flick up from the bottom edge, brings it back (Den.tuck). While it is away the room is all the room: a tap where the wheel was is a tap on the floor, things are dragged about as ever, and a thing or the toy carried down to the bottom edge brings the wheel back up to be put away on. The scanner and the broom are put back as it goes. An empty room inside a host page with an egg held out on the wheel has no tab, and a wheel that was away comes back for the egg by itself. Whether it is tucked away is kept in the save (tucked). Nothing is said about any of it.

Thing What it does
Cryptlin Handbook (N) The notebook: “Cryptlin Handbook” is lettered on a label on its cover and across the head of every leaf (Notebook.TITLE). The only words in the game, and they are the ticket-master’s: the notebook he kept on the things in the cellar of Wayside Station, left for whoever looks after them now, in his voice (dry, practical, first person) and a typewriter face. A chapter on each egg and cryptlin in the room (a cryptlin can be renamed or let go from its own): what it is, a line or two on its kind, how old it is and how it seems, and then only what the keeper has seen of it so far, so that a page starts nearly empty and fills. After them one short leaf, “To the keeper”, that says enough to start on (they want feeding and company, the lamp answers to a tap, what is on the wheel can be dragged up into the room, the gun reads what the eye cannot) and has the sound on it. Nothing in it explains how anything works: no numbers, no timings, and what a kind needs is hinted at in its line at most. The keeper finds the rest out by trying. The last leaf is the album (scripts/album.gd): a sepia photograph of every kind there is, those the keeper has a hatched one of ringed and at full strength and the rest faded. A tap on a photograph, or on the small one at the head of a cryptlin’s own chapter, turns up a leaf of lore: the photograph large and a short paragraph on the cryptid that kind comes of, where and when it was told of and what it is said to be (Notebook.LORE). There the arrows go to the next kind’s and the tick is back at the leaf underneath. The photographs are taken once, the first time the handbook is opened (one of each kind stood in a little scene of its own, a kind to a frame, and kept as a flat picture), and nothing is left running. Inside a host page there is a Shop button at the foot of every leaf (a ticket; Notebook.shop, Den.to_shop): a tap saves the game, shuts the handbook and posts {type: "CRYPTLINS_SHOP"} to the page, which is expected to cover the game (CRYPTLINS_HIDE) and take the keeper to the ticket counter; and the keeper’s leaf has one line more, that food, toys, things for the room and eggs are to be had there for tickets (Notebook.COUNTER). Played by itself there is neither. It is sized to the screen with a margin all round, upright or wide, and a chapter has a leaf to itself unless it will not fit, when it runs on over the next once the first is full: the arrows turn the leaves.
Egg One more for the room, of a kind that is not there already. The room holds four, eggs and cryptlins together; with four in it the egg only clicks.
Scanner (X) A radar gun of the kind the police point at cars. Pointed at one of them for a few seconds from a lower corner of the screen (dragged up onto it; or tapped, when it goes to the one last touched, or else the one nearest the middle), a thin light flickering from it: its outline, its bones, a stomach that fills as it eats, a heart for how fond it is, lungs for how rested, a brain for how amused, and notes for how well it is and how at home. Works on an egg too.
Broom A short broom and a tin dustpan, there always and nobody’s to buy. Dragged up off the wheel and over a dropping, a puddle, a heap of earth or the bits of a broken toy, it sweeps it up: a few strokes, some dust, and it is gone. A tap on it sends it to sweep one thing up by itself. It is the only way to clear a mess: a tap on one does nothing to it.
Food: bone (F), toadstool, candy corn, fish, beetle, berries, worm, sausage, turnip, cheese It runs over and eats what you drop, loves its favourite, and spits out the one it can’t stand.
Toys: ball (B), stone, bell, glow orb, tin mouse, rope knot, rubber duck, top It chases and kicks the toy and fetches it back; it plays longest with its favourite. Carry it down to the wheel to put it away. Play wears a toy out (see below). Pick the toy up with a finger and it jumps for it; let go to throw. The last four are each played with in a way of their own (Ball.kicked, Ball._act): the tin mouse is wound whenever it is set down, thrown or pounced on, runs off by itself round the room for a few seconds, ticking, and is run after; two of them after the rope knot take an end each and pull it up off the floor between them until one has it off the other (Ball.pull, Cryptlin._tug), which both are the better for, and one alone only tosses it about; the rubber duck squeaks and is squashed flat when it is pounced on, which a playful, bold or restless one cannot get enough of and a shy or a sleepy one cannot bear (it will not play with it, and jumps when it squeaks near by, unless the duck is its favourite); and the top spins where it is set down or batted, wandering, and is sat by and watched, not touched, until it runs down and falls over.
Things for the room: rock, hollow log, fern, skull, crystal, pumpkin, water dish, signal lamp, pile of bones, toadstool ring, luggage trunk, perch, heap of leaves They stay where they are put. Drag them about, or back down to the wheel to put them away. It sniffs at them and settles beside them, climbs the rock, drinks from the dish. Of the six that came later, the signal lamp (off the line upstairs) is alight and throws a little red light of its own over the floor round it (Decor.GLOW), which is most of what there is to see by with the lamp low or out; it gnaws at the pile of bones; it steps into the middle of the toadstool ring and dances there; it burrows down into the heap of leaves until only the top of it shows, with the leaves flying, and comes up out of it with a bound; the perch is for those that fly to go up and sit on, and the mothman too; and the luggage trunk is one more thing for those that fly to sit on top of. The rest have a sniff at the perch and the trunk and settle beside them.
Shelters: cave, barrel, hollow stump, rag tent, crate, flowerpot Things it can get inside: it hides in one to watch you, and would sooner have its nest there.
Pool About half the floor under water, from the walls to a stony, muddy edge that wanders across the room: the back of the room, or in a wide one either side. It goes over the part with least on it, and whatever stands there is moved out onto the dry. A finger on the water has hold of it: drag it to another side, or down to the wheel to put it away. The water kinds (frogman, Loch Ness monster, kelpie, merling, Cthulhu spawn, mermaid) are not at home without one: they are in and out of it as they like, wade about up to their middles for a good while at a time, and sleep at its edge; with none they beg for water (a drop in the thought bubble). The rest take it or leave it: they keep to the dry floor, come down to the edge for a drink, and if they are carried out over it and let go, or shoved in, scramble out by the shortest way, cross. Nothing else will stand in it; food thrown in floats and drifts in to the shallows where any of them can reach it, a toy floats back to the edge, and droppings are left on dry floor.
Nests: rags, twigs, cushion, cardboard box Its bed. Drag it where you like; it may well drag it somewhere else.
Ground: flagstones, floorboards, moss, checkered tiles, dirt, sand, gravel, snow, mud, straw, carpet A tray of it changes the floor. Snow, mud and straw are loose enough for any of them to dig in, as dirt, sand and gravel are (Den.LOOSE_GROUNDS); the waiting room’s old carpet is not, though a born digger has a go at it.
You It
Tap the floor Calls them over.
Hold or drag on the floor Swings the lamp. It chases the pool of light and pounces on it. (On the water of the pool, a drag moves the pool.)
Tap the lamp (L puts it out) Bright, low, heat, off. In the dark all you can see are its eyes, and before long it goes to its nest and sleeps.
Rub it It purrs. Builds the bond.
Tap it A poke: it jumps (and wakes, grumbling, if it was asleep). Poke it four times running and it has had enough.
Hold a finger on it Picks it up. Drag to carry it; let go to set it down. Some like it, some don’t.
Flick it Pushes it skidding across the floor.
Move the mouse It watches the pointer. Otherwise it watches you.

Left alone it wanders, sits and stares at you with its head on one side, slinks off to watch from a shelter or a dark corner, visits the things in its room, drags its nest about, gets the zoomies, dances, has a good scratch, digs when the floor is dirt, sand, gravel, snow, mud or straw (and leaves a heap), chases its own tail, sits staring up into the lamp or the vent, stretches and yawns when it wakes, and begs with a thought bubble when it is hungry, bored or (a water kind) dry. A few hours after a meal it goes off to a corner and leaves a dropping, which stays until it is swept up with the broom and spoils the place for it meanwhile; it pees more often, and puddles dry by themselves in an hour. A baby goes more often and wherever it happens to be. A grown one, content and left to itself, will now and then get over-fond of its nest the way a dog does of a cushion, and is mortified if it is caught at it. M mutes the sound.

Toys wear out. Every kick wears the toy on the floor a little (Ball.wear, Den.wear_toy): the stone least and the glow orb most, more from a heavy or fierce kind (a bolter, a Cerberus, a yeti) or a playful, bold, grumpy or restless nature, less from a slight kind, a shy, sleepy or cuddly one, or a baby (Cryptlin.rough()). The last four wear by each time one is pounced on, tossed or set going: the rope nearly as slowly as the stone (but a pull at it counts as two for each of the two pulling), the duck much as the ball, and the top and the mouse’s clockwork soonest. It shows: a third of the way gone the toy is scuffed and dull, and far gone it is patched or cracked, sagging, and has lost some of its bounce. Worn right out it comes apart at the next kick (Den.break_toy): a snap, the pieces flying, whichever of them is near by pleased with itself or startled as its nature has it, and the bits left on the floor as a mess for the broom. Three of them with the ball out get through it in about half an hour of play, one alone in some hours: days of ordinary visits. A broken toy does not go back on the wheel. Played by itself there is another of its kind twelve hours later (TOY_AGAIN_HOURS). Inside a host page a bought toy is taken from the stock when it is first brought out (the page is told, as for food and eggs) and is the room’s own from then on, kept in the save whether it is on the floor or put away; when it breaks it is gone for good. How worn a toy is goes with it when it is put away.

The ball and the bones are given once. Inside a host page every keeper has one ball and three bones of their own (Items.GIVEN), and they do not come back: a bone is gone when it is fed, and the ball is the room’s own from the moment it is first brought out, like a toy that was bought, and gone for good when it breaks. used in the save is how many of each have been had. More come only from the page’s stock (ids ball and bone): a count the page sends is added to what is left of those that were given (Den.left_of), the given ones are used first and the page is not told of them, and -1 is no end of them. With none left the wheel simply has no bone or no ball on it; nothing is said. A save from before this keeps a ball that was on the floor or put away as its one (Den._keep_own), and one that had neither is given its one, and its three bones. Played by itself nothing has changed: there is no end of food, and another ball twelve hours after one breaks, as for every other toy. The test panel has everything, as ever.

More than one

The room holds up to four, eggs and cryptlins together. Played by itself a new game starts with one egg, and the egg on the wheel of things drops in another: there is no end of them. Inside a host page (the site the game is played in) eggs are stock, each used up when it is laid, and the room is never given one for nothing: every account there is sent a parcel with one egg in it, and opening it puts that egg in the stock and brings the keeper down to the basement. A new or emptied room there stands empty, with the wheel turned to the egg and the egg bobbing, turning and glinting on it, until the keeper taps it or drags it up into the room. Each has its own name, needs, age, natures, tastes and idea of a good home, so one room cannot up when it is laid). Each has its own name, needs, age, natures, tastes and idea of a good home, so one room cannot please them all. Food dropped in is for whoever gets there first: a greedy or a bold one pushes in, a shy one hangs back, two at one bit of food share it bite by bite, and one that will not eat a thing leaves it for the others. More than one will chase a toy. They walk round each other as they do round the things in the room, and sleep side by side in the one nest. The marks on the wheel of things are what is known of the one last tapped or scanned.

Each pair has a standing with one another, kept in the save: what each thinks of the other, a little either side of indifferent to begin with by how their natures suit (opposites grate, a grumpy one is hard going, a nature in common or a cuddly one helps). It goes up when they sniff at each other, play chase, go after the same toy, eat side by side and sleep in the one nest, and down when they fight. Left to themselves one will go over and sniff at another, trail round after one it likes (a baby after anybody), or start a game of chase that turns round when it catches up. Two that get on sleep in a heap; two that do not lie apart, or one takes the floor.

Two that do not get on can come to blows: over food one will not back off from, over a favourite toy, over a sniff taken as a liberty, or because a hungry or grumpy one finds another standing too close. It is a ball of dust with the odd limb and star coming out of it and a good deal of squeaking, over in a few seconds; the loser backs off to the far side of the room with a little less health, and both think less of each other. A tap on the scuffle (or a finger held on it, which picks one of them up), food dropped on it or the lamp swung over it breaks it up with nobody hurt. Two that are fed, at home and on good terms all but never fight; fighting alone never takes one below a third of its health; and a grown one does not fight a baby: it cuffs it out of the way, unhurt.

Let go (on a cryptlin’s page of the notebook) asks first, then that one waves and walks off into the dark. No Let go (on a cryptlin’s page of the notebook) asks first, then that one waves and walks off into the dark. No egg comes in its place, unless the room is left with nobody in it: played by itself, an empty room is always sent an egg for nothing (inside a host page it waits for one of the keeper’s own, as above).

Knacks

Each kind has one thing that only it does, out of its own legend: its knack (scripts/knack.gd). It is a turn the cryptlin takes now and then, of its own accord, like wandering off or having a scratch (State.TRICK, with a weight in Cryptlin._decide), with its own antics and noises, and for some a small real effect on the room or on another of them that soon wears off. One that needs something that is not there (another of them at a loose end, a toy, the pool) simply does not do it until there is. No knack hurts anybody, starts a fight or a pairing, or gets round any of the room’s rules; what is done to another is a spell on it (State.SPELL) that runs out by itself, and picking one up, scanning it or anything else that takes it out of its turn puts everything back as it was. Nothing says what a knack is: the keeper finds out by seeing it done, and from then on it is written on that cryptlin’s page of the notebook (“Its knack”, a row that is not there until then).

Kind Its knack
gremlin Goes and gets at the lamp’s cord, jumping for it, and the light flickers while it does.
squatchling Looked at too long it goes still and will not come into focus; then it slips off to where it cannot be seen, with one look back over its shoulder as it goes, and its footprints are what is left.
cockatrice Fixes one of the others with its eye until its own eyes blaze, and that one stands stiff and grey as stone for a few seconds.
mothman Flies up and circles the bulb, throwing its shadow over the room. It does so three times as often when there is trouble coming (one of them poorly, two of them close to blows), and then its eyes glare.
chupacabra Creeps up on the toy, or a thing in the room, gets its teeth into it and sucks. The thing is left shrivelled for most of a minute.
Loveland frogman Does not always trouble to walk to its food: from a little way off its tongue goes out, and the food comes back on the end of it, to be eaten where it sits.
Loch Ness monster Wades out, sinks until its hump is all there is to see, goes across the pool as a hump with a ripple after it, and comes up in another part of it. It needs the pool.
slide-rock bolter Goes to one side of the room, opens its mouth as far as it will go, and comes down the length of the floor like a landslide. Any food lying in its way goes in.
wendigo Where it stands still, frost creeps out over the floor round it, and is gone again in half a minute (a pale Track). And while it is hungry (belly under 35) the others give it a wide berth and will not go up to it.
kelpie Wades in, turns and calls to one of those that do not live in water, which comes down the bank and in after it as if walking in its sleep, wakes up wet, and has to scramble out. It needs the pool and somebody to call.
merling Sings, and it settles the room: a fight that is going on stops, any two that have fallen out think a little better of each other and leave each other be for a minute and a half, and any that are tired go off to bed. It sings three times as often when there is a quarrel to settle. It needs somebody to sing to.
Cthulhu spawn While it sleeps, the room goes strange: the lamp burns in the wrong colours (and a little even when it is out), and the whole room tilts slowly one way and the other (Den.strange). All of it passes when it wakes. As a turn of its own it nods off where it sits for a few seconds.
gnome Will not be seen to move. Left alone it creeps over to some small thing (a skull, a crystal, the pumpkin, the fern, the dish, the flowerpot, the toy, a bit of food) and shifts it somewhere else; with a finger only just off the screen it stands like an ornament, not blinking, until it has been left a while.
fae Flits over to one of the others and shakes its dust out over it, and that one has to dance until the dust wears off. About one time in three it leaves a few berries behind, which are nobody’s stock. It needs somebody to dust.
living fungus Sits down and puffs out clouds of spores, and when it has got up and gone tiny toadstools come up where it sat, to stand for three quarters of a minute (a Track).
jackalope Throws its voice: there is a cry and a puff of dust on the far side of the room, the others go off to see what it was, and it bolts the other way in zigzags.
alien Lifts something in a beam of green light, carries it across the room and sets it down: one of the others (which pedals in the air, and is none the worse), or else the toy, or else a bit of food.
yeti Its breath shows, always. As a turn it shakes itself and snow comes out of its coat, to lie round it for half a minute. It cannot bear the heat lamp: under it it droops and pants, the room suits it a good deal less (Den.comfort_of), and it shakes out no snow.
Cerberus Stands guard over an egg if there is one in the room, or else over the nest: it plants itself in front of it for a few seconds with its three heads looking three ways and three small faces over them that never agree, and any of the others that comes too close is growled at and sent packing, unhurt.
mole person Digs straight down, goes along under the floor with the ground stirring over it, and comes up somewhere else, leaving a molehill at each end of the tunnel.
Fresno nightcrawler Goes up to the biggest thing standing in the room, stands dead still in front of it for a moment, and walks straight through it at the same stiff pace and out of the far side, without a look back. It needs a thing standing in the room.
flying monkey Snatches the toy (or else a bit of food) off the floor, flies up out of reach with it and hangs there chattering for a few seconds; then it comes down and sets it back on the floor. Nothing is lost or worn by it: a finger that takes the toy has it, and anything that takes the monkey out of its turn lets the thing drop. It needs the toy lying still, or food on the floor.
flying boar Goes to one end of the room, paws the floor with its wings going, charges down the length of it, gets off the ground for a moment, and comes down head over heels in a heap, where it sits until the room stops going round.
Flatwoods monster Draws itself up with a hiss and lets out a sour green mist that rolls out over the floor from under its skirt. Any of the others standing in it comes over queasy (a spell: it stands and sways with its eyes half shut) until the mist clears, a few seconds later.
Jersey devil Runs to the back wall, flies up to the vent and goes in through the bars. A scream comes down the flue, with soot after it, and the others jump. Then it comes out black with soot from horns to hooves, flutters down, coughs, and shakes itself clean. It needs dry floor under the vent.
Mongolian death worm Spits: it rears its front end with a crackle of sparks in its mouth, and a gob of yellow goes across the room and lands as a puddle, which is a mess like any other puddle (it dries by itself, or the broom takes it). It does no harm, and it is never aimed at anybody: one of the others that is near where it lands jumps clear, disgusted. It leaves off while there are two puddles in the room.
yowie Throws things. If the toy is lying still it goes and picks it up, lifts it over its head in both hands and throws it the length of the room (which wears it no more than being carried would, and the others may well go after it); with no toy to hand it scrabbles a stone up off the floor and throws that, and the stone clatters down, bounces and is gone. Nothing is aimed at anybody.
phantom kangaroo Vanishes in the middle of a hop. It gathers itself, goes up with less and less of it to see, its eyes last, and at the top of the hop is not there; a moment later it is in the air over another part of the floor and comes down there, and looks about it. It needs dry floor to go up from and to come down on.
kongamato Flies up, comes down in a long dive across the pool and skims it, its beak trailing in the water and a line of splashes after it, and lands on dry floor on the far side. With no pool it dives at some small thing standing in the room instead (the skull, the crystal, the pumpkin, the fern, the dish or the flowerpot) and bowls it over as it passes; the thing rocks, and rights itself where it stood. It needs the pool or such a thing.
mermaid Combs its hair. It goes to the rock if there is one and gets up on it (or else to the edge of the pool, or else stays where it is), sits up with its head on one side and runs its fingers through its hair, which catches the lamp and glints, and whichever of the others are at a loose end stop and look round at it. It needs the lamp lit.

Health, and dying

Each has a health, 0 to 100, kept with its needs. It wears away while its belly is empty (all of it in four days of that: STARVE_HOURS), a lost fight takes a little, and it comes back over a couple of days fed and rested (MEND_HOURS). From a full belly with nobody visiting that is between four and five days to the end, by the same _wear() whether the game is open or shut. The scanner has a sixth note for it. Under 40 it is poorly: it drags itself about with its head down, and the poorly face goes up over it. Nothing says so in words.

At no health it dies. It lies down where it is and goes still; a moment later a pale ghost of it gets up, drifts up and out through the ceiling, and a gravestone with a band of its own colour round it stands where it lay. That is the only way to come by one: it is not on the wheel for the asking, nor bought, and a page that says it has gravestones in stock is not heard (Items.KEPT). The stone is a thing in the room like any other (drag it about, drag it down to the wheel to put it away, tap it there to bring it back out; the others will go and sit by it) but it is never bought or sold: it is on the wheel only while one is put away. Its page stays in the notebook, after those of the living and marked as gone (and says so while its stone is kept): what it was, how long it lived, and what was ever found out about it. One that died while the game was shut is found lying there when it is

The Friday show

The station holds a show every Friday for the best kept cryptlin; the judging and the prizes are the host page’s, and the game’s part is three things.

How well kept. Each living cryptlin carries a measure of how well it has been kept, 0 to 100 (Resident.kept, in the save): a slow average, with a memory of about five days (KEPT_DAYS), of how it is (Den.condition: fed a quarter of it, well and at home in its room a fifth each, amused, rested, and a floor clean of droppings and puddles). Den.tend moves it every couple of seconds as the game runs, and pass_time for the time the game was shut, so a good hour before the judging does not make up for a neglected week. One from a save without it starts from how it is, and one newly hatched counts for a quarter of its measure, rising to all of it over its first day (Den.kept_score). It is never shown as a number in play. Inside a host page the game posts {type: "CRYPTLINS_KEPT", name, kind, score} for the best kept living one (Den.tell_kept): once when the first CRYPTLINS_STOCK has come, whenever the game rests (rest(true)), and every five minutes while it is shown; with nobody living it posts nothing.

Rosettes. rosette1 (first: blue, with a gold middle), rosette2 (second: red) and rosette3 (third: yellow) are things only the page’s stock can give (Items.PRIZES: played by itself there are none, though the test panel has them), counted. One rides the wheel after the egg; dragged up and let go over a cryptlin it is pinned on it (Den.pin_on: one leaves stock and CRYPTLINS_USED is posted), and that cryptlin wears it from then on, over its heart at the front of whatever body it has (Cryptlin.wear_rosette; the bolter, which has no chest, has it on its head). It wears only the best it has been given: a lesser one let go over it is not taken and not used up. A baby can wear one. It is kept with the resident (rosette), goes with it when it dies or is let go, is not passed to its young, and its leaf of the handbook says so in a line (“First at the Friday show.”), as does the leaf kept for one that has died. A tap on a rosette on the wheel does nothing.

The cup. trophy, a tarnished brass cup on a wooden base, is a thing for the room that is on the wheel only while the page’s stock has it (it sends -1), stood, moved and put away like any other. A bold one likes having it about.

Inside a host page the keeper’s leaf of the handbook tells of the show in two sentences.

Pairing off

Two grown cryptlins that both think well of each other (70 or more, each of the other), both fed, well, rested and at home in the room, will now and then pair off. One goes over to the other, clambers up on it and gives it the same foolish full-body wiggle a nest gets, hearts and all; that is all there is to see, and they stop dead, mortified, if the keeper taps one, calls them, picks one up, scans one or changes the lamp, in which case nothing comes of it. Left to it, one of the two lays an egg in the nest six hours later by the clock (EGG_HOURS), if the room has space for one more by then; in a full room nothing is laid. One asleep beside an egg broods it. Neither pairs again for three days (PAIR_REST_DAYS); with the game shut, a pair that would takes eight hours or so on average to get round to it (PAIR_AWAY_HOURS). So a happy pair makes an egg about every three or four days, and what each thinks of the other and the room’s four places are the brakes.

Den.would_pair() is the one gate, and every way into the pairing goes through it (Cryptlin._enter turns away anything else): never a baby, in either place; never unless each thinks well of the other, so that one being willing is not enough; never close kin, which is a parent with its own young or two with a parent in common (each resident has a number, and those of its two parents).

The egg is of the kind of one parent (there are no cross-bred bodies), and what hatches has that parent’s size of head for its kind. It wears the coat of the other parent, markings and all, and has the first of its two natures from one of them; the rest of its look and its tastes come from a seed mixed out of both of theirs. Its page in the notebook names its parents. next opened, and goes then. Nothing dies of old age. Phone-first: on an upright phone the room is narrow, deep and tall with the lamp near the top of the screen, the wheel of things is bigger, shows three to five of them at a time and rides up off the bottom edge (Den.WHEEL_LIFT, Shelf.drop: clear of the bar a phone’s browser draws over the bottom of the page, with its things still sinking away off the bottom), touch targets are generous, and nothing needs a keyboard or hover.

Each cryptlin is shaped by its kind and a seed, both kept in the save, and no two of a kind come out alike:

A seed of a million or less is one from before there were more colours, and keeps to the colours its kind had then, so a cryptlin from an old save is still the colour it was; new eggs have seeds above that and the wider choice. Cryptlin.colours() and the first draws in _build() are as they always were; everything since comes from Cryptlin.looks(), which has a generator of its own.

How it works

Test panel

Five quick taps in the top-left corner (or the ` key, or ?dev on the address of the web build) open a small panel on the left: < and > step through every kind, Look rolls a new colour, build and nature, Egg swaps the cryptlin for its egg, which Hatch then hatches at once, Age switches between baby and adult, and +1 day lets a day go by. While it is open the notebook shows the cryptlin’s tastes without your having to find them out.

Tests and builds

godot --headless --fixed-fps 60 --path . -s tests/smoke.gd [-- --kind=0..29]   # egg, hatching, feeding, toys, the room, shelters, the pool, messes and the broom that sweeps them up, what is on the wheel and what is out in the room, the wheel tucked away and brought back, toys wearing out and breaking, the foods and toys that came later (an old save's tastes kept, each toy played with in its own way, and one of them counted inside a host page), the things for the room and the grounds that came later (older saves' room tastes kept, each thing stood and made use of, each ground laid with its prints and digging, and what a host page has of them), the ball and the bones that are given once inside a host page, lamp, sleep, time away, save/load, how one seed looks and how seeds differ, hair and footprints, the cockatrice and its dummy, the squatchling's build and its look back, the jackalope hopping, the bolter, the yeti, letting go, several in one room, how they get on and fall out, health and dying, pairing off and its limits, the notebook fitting a wide screen and an upright one, its Shop button and what the page is told, how well each is kept and the page told of it, a rosette pinned on and the cup come and gone with stock, old saves, eggs as stock and the empty room inside a host page, and the kind's knack
godot --path . -s tests/shots.gd -- --shots=C:/tmp/shots [--portrait|--size=WxH] [--seed=N] [--kind=0..29] [--egg|--ui [--baby]|--scan|--faces|--many|--wheel|--tuck|--show|--tidy|--toys|--room|--book [--fresh] [--station] [--album]|--knack|--walk [--baby]|--variety [--with=K [--over]] [--per=1..4] [--side|--turn=DEGREES] [--baby] [--dark] [--xray]|--poses [--baby]|--strides [--baby]]   # screenshots of each doing, of the egg hatching, of the room, shelters, pool, scanner and notebook, of the scanner on the wheel and pointed at a grown one, a baby and an egg, of every face, of three sharing the room (and falling out, pairing off, and one of them dying), the wheel of things at both of its stops and part of the way round, the prizes of the Friday show on the wheel, a rosette on the one in the room and the cup beside it (--show), the wheel up, sliding and tucked away, and as it is inside a host page with what is given and with that gone (--tuck), the wheel before and after a thing is stood in the room with the broom at work and toys worn and breaking (--tidy), the later foods and toys on the wheel and on the floor and each of those toys being played with (--toys), the later things for the room under each lamp, each of the later grounds, and the one in the room making use of those things (--room), every leaf of the notebook with four in the room (--book, and with --station as it is inside a host page), the kind at its knack, the kind walking across the room and away up it (with the squatchling's look back over its shoulder), one sheet of twelve of the kind, each of another seed, or one of the kind close to, stood, turned, walking, eating, held and asleep (--poses) or at so many moments of going across the room (--strides)
godot --headless --path . --export-release Web build/index.html
godot --path . -s tests/icons.gd -- --out=C:/tmp/icons [--size=96]   # a picture of each thing on the wheel for the host page, named by its id (the rosettes and the cup among them, which are never sold but shown on its prize notice; not the gravestone, which is never had from it)
godot --path . -s tests/shots.gd -- --shots=C:/tmp/shots --pool [--portrait] [--kind=N]   # four in a room with the pool: each place it fits, each lamp, one let go over the middle of it, food and a toy afloat, a drink at the edge, and all asleep