CRiTORA (animated series)/Development

A page about the development of *CRiTORA*.

## 2014-2016: Pre-Avey Comics

### 2014: Earliest aspects

Prior to the creation of the earliest *Avey* comics, two fan characters based on the *Mixels* franchise named **Bitz** and **Hart** were created by Daydreaming Birdie (known as Derekis at the time) on October 13th and 14th, 2014, respectively. These two characters were the earliest versions of Bunsen Bitz and Nuzzie Bitz, who were eventually repurposed as *Creatures of Critora* characters in 2017. Sometime in early 2015, a *Mixels* fan character named **Avey** was made by Derekis, being the earliest known version of Avery Darling.

### 2015: Torchic Series

In March 2015, a fan crossover project known as **Torchic Series** was created by Daydreaming Birdie (known as Derek the Torchic, who loved and still loves the aforementioned Pokémon). This crossover series featured characters from *Pokémon*, *R.O.B.*,*Wonder Pets!*, *Moshi Monsters*, *Stuart Little*, *Sonic the Hedgehog*, *Mixels*, *Digimon*, *My Singing Monsters*, and other major obsessions Daydreaming Birdie had at the time. Very little was developed about the project aside from the characters, but *Torchic Series* had an art style that would eventually develop into the *CRiTORA* art style over the years, and the various series appearing in *Torchic Series* would inspire *CRiTORA* visually or in some way.

A side segment in *Torchic Series* focusing on the Wonder Pets, Peppy the Stunt Penguin (a Moshling from *Moshi Monsters*), Stuart Little, a Burrobot Badnik (known as **BB** in the series and depicted as a hero), and R.O.B. would indirectly inspire the idea of the CRiTORA Squad in 2019 due to strong memories surrounding the characters and wanting to make an original idea out of it. Chap Adams, Howie Mizo, Robert Bubbiduc, Kimi Canicani, Nicky Theodore, Iggy Digahol were inspired by Linny the Guinea Pig, Turtle Tuck, Ming-Ming Duckling, Peppy the Stunt Penguin, Stuart Little, and BB, respectively, and Mackie Digiboy was inspired by R.O.B.. Bebe Byrd was an original addition to the CRiTORA Squad, but was inspired by the nickname of the Burrobot from *Torchic Series*. Additionally, Margalo Clackers (created in 2018 and developed as a recurring character in the *CRiTORA Squad* episodes) was heavily inspired by Ollie the Bunny, Tomba the Wistful Snowtot, Margalo the Bird, and a Ball Hog Badnik (known as **TT** in *Torchic Series*), four characters intended to be recurring characters in the side segment of *Torchic Series*.

In August 2017, *Torchic Series* was shelved in favor of *CRiTORA*, then known as *Creatures of Critora*.

### 2016

In early 2016, an attempt at creating original characters unrelated to *Mixels* was attempted. Daydreaming Birdie made an original character known as **Bird Gal**, who would eventually be incorporated into the *CRiTORA* series as Bonnie Nickson.

In October 2016, as part of a school project to create a made-up country, Daydreaming Birdie conceived the word **Criitora**, derived from *critter*. The flag for Criitora also feature prototype characters of who would become Ollie Bowler and ViRAL Pup in 2017 and 2020, respectively. The name would soon been spelt as **Critora** and become the name of the project starting in 2017.

## 2016: Avey Comics

### Earliest comics

On November 10th, 2016, Daydreaming Birdie (known as TheArtOfDerek on DeviantArt at the time) began to post a series of comic strips, known as **Avey**. These comics featured the earliest versions of Spottie Leonard (known as **Spot** and was originally a male), Coneboy Golliday, Avery Darling (known as Avey and was originally a seagull), Big G Miner (known as **Diamon**), and Capsule (who took the place of Eggy at the time). According to Daydreaming Birdie, the character of Avey is what led to him growing attached to these characters at the time.

## 2018: Critora: Critter Monsters

### January Revision

At the very beginning of 2018, the characters were revised. This time, instead of making static artwork, Daydreaming Birdie made character models of Spot, Coneboy, and Avery (now a canary). Due to Daydreaming Birdie being inspired by the now-controversial *CartoonMania* animated web series, he was inspired to take animation seriously; he learned how to use Adobe Animate (then known as Flash) in 2012, but only animated for fun. As a result, he was determined to turn the series, known as **Critora: Critter Monsters** at the time, into an animated series.

Critora also became the name of the titular creatures starting here; earlier versions had Critora as the name of the world.

### May

On the 8th, *Big Bad Goo-A-Boo* was released. This was the first prototype *CRiTORA* animation to feature voice acting. At the time, Spot was voiced by Jenna Long and Avery was voiced by Evelin Case. Coneboy was voiced by Anthony LoGatto, who continues to voice him to this day, making Coneboy the only character of the Base Seven whose voice actor never changed.

### October

On the 8th, *BROCK!* was released. In this episode, Bunsen Bitz was voiced by aihearteevee; Bunsen would soon be voiced by Daydreaming Birdie in all future episodes, though aihearteevee would reuse Bunsen's old voice for Chap Adams. Slurpy Eatmore (who was intended to be a main character at the time), was voiced by Jewel Collins (credited as Julie Collins at the time), who continues to voice Slurpy in all future episodes.

## 2020

### January Development

At the very beginning of the new decade, Daydreaming Birdie (known as **CRiTORA\_NET** at the time) started to seriously develop the setting of CRiTORA, including further developing the digital aspects due to Daydreaming Birdie's love for computers and digital pets. This was also the time the ViRUSES were first created, including a prototype design of Queen Creatophage, known as **Princess ViRUS** at the time. During this time, CRiTOPiA was intended to be a planet, and there were 240 CRiTORA altogether, though prototypes for Ringy Cheeky, Fluffy Floofoo and Dave Stopguy were produced at the time, but never shared until later.

In addition, some of the last prototype episodes of *CRiTORA* were produced at this time, including *The Berry Thief* and *Making a Mecha Suit!* In *Making a Mecha Suit!*, Nuzzie Bitz and Big G Miner make their animated debuts. Nuzzie Bitz was voiced by Olivia Anne, who would continue to voice her until Error 404. Big G Miner's voice was provided by notevibes.com, but was changed to ttsmp3.com in all future episodes due to notevibes.com putting a limit on how many words could be generated for free. Another episode, *Magic Show*, was in production, but was cancelled due to stress.

### March Revision

Following the cancellation of *Magic Show*, CRiTORA received another revision, but not a major one, as characters would receive more vibrant color schemes, though others were redesigned entirely. More CRiTORA were designed and revealed, including Ringy, Fluffy, and Dave.

In May, the script for *Greetings from CRiTOPiA* was finished, but progress would not truly begin until July, as Daydreaming Birdie was too focused with the *CartoonMania* reboot and *Mixels* fan game *Mixels Unite*, both of which were cancelled, with the former project's creator getting into controversy in July and the latter project not having enough game developers.

### July

On the 29th, Greetings from CRiTOPiA!, the first episode of the definitive version of *CRiTORA,* was released. During Season 0, Avery was voiced by Tamii.

During the development of *Greetings from CRiTOPiA!*, CRiTOPiA was made into an island city as opposed to a planet, with Zones being called Districts from now on.

This month was also when the first CRiTORA not designed by Daydreaming Birdie were created, including Skrill Drop and Mellie Carapple, designed by RetroMaster94 and LastyGhost (known as ChoonLasty-Ghost at the time), respectively. However, both characters have since been retired, with the former being retired due to a lack of interest from the designer and latter due to a falling out in 2020, though a similar character, Jang Suk-ban, was made in 2023 for *CRiTORA: abnormal* once everything was settled.

## 2021

### October

On 15th, Error 404 was released. Starting with this episode, Avery Darling and Nuzzie Bitz would have American accents, being voiced by Wubcake and IMShadow007, respectively. All future episodes, including the redub of *Dawn of the Nameless*, however, would have Avery voiced by Elyse Hales due to Wubcake abruptly cutting ties with Daydreaming Birdie, as well as Wubcake's controversy in 2023 making Daydreaming Birdie not want to work with her.

## 2022

### November

On the 10th (6th Anniversary of CRiTORA), the initial version of the *CRiTORA: Abnormal* novelization was released.

### December

On the 29th, Daydreaming Birdie and LastyGhost had a falling out, which led to the planned lore at the time to be significantly changed and causing the latter to cancel her plans with her CRiTORA designs. In addition, the initial version of *CRiTORA: abnormal* was cancelled as a result of the falling out.

## 2023

### January

Due to the fallout with LastyGhost, Daydreaming Birdie made changes to the series, such as giving the series a more light-hearted and comedic approach than what was planned for *CRiTORA* before then.

On February 16th, Daydreaming Birdie and LastyGhost settled their differences. In April 2023, *CRiTORA: abnormal* was brought back with a new Mighty Trio, consisting of Kepler Solarowl, Isaac X-Beetle, and Caroline Cakepod.

### May Revision

Following the announcement of the cancellation of *Meetup Mayhem*, it was announced *CRiTORA* was going to be soft rebooted without affecting the lore. Later in 2023, however, it was decided to continue the series as is and was labeled as Season 2.

In June, it was announced that *CRiTORA* would have a new bold and angular art style. To this day, characters are currently being updated to reflect this new art style. The CRiTORA Database was cleared up to have a somewhat fresh start, and articles will be recreated eventually.

### October

On the 4th, the *The User and...* shorts first premiered, featuring a cursor, known as The User interacting with CRiTORA. This short series was created by Daydreaming Birdie and Garrett Eulett.

### November

On the 4th, it was announced on Daydreaming Birdie's Instagram page that an online novel series based on the animated series is in production.

## See also

* CRiTORA: abnormal/Development - Detailed development of the *CRiTORA: abnormal* side series.