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Creatures (artificial life program)
Encyclopedia
Creatures is an artificial life
(alife) computer program
series, created in the mid-1990s by English computer scientist
Steve Grand
whilst working for the Cambridge
computer games developer Millennium Interactive
. Gameplay focuses on raising alien creatures known as Norns, teaching them to survive, helping them explore their world, defending them against other species, and breeding them. Rather than taking a scripted approach, Creatures series games were driven by detailed biological and neurological simulation and their unexpected results.
The program was significant as it was one of the first commercial titles to code alife
organisms from the genetic level upwards using a sophisticated biochemistry
and neural network
brain
s. This meant that the Norns and their DNA
could develop and "evolve
" in increasingly diverse ways, unpredicted by the makers. By breeding
certain Norns with others, some traits could be passed on to following generations. Most interestingly, the Norns turned out to behave similarly to living creatures. This was seen as an important insight into how real world organisms may function and evolve. Earlier alife programs had worked by giving their organisms a limited set of commands and parameters, and seeing whether the way the subjects behaved was realistic.
While this is the first commercial program it is to be noted that other non-commercial programs had done this since the late 1970s such as the Savanna Simulator by Walter Vose Jeffries which ran on an Z80 based Exidy Sorcerer
microcomputer and presented the creatures moving on a graphical grid.
The genetics
in Creatures are somewhat different from human genetics
; they are haploid. There is no concept of dominant gene and recessive gene, much less recombination
between loci
. Nevertheless, the complexity of the simulated biochemistry meant that Norn behavior was highly unpredictable.
Among the fans of Creatures were the Oxford
zoologist
Richard Dawkins
, who called it a "quantum leap in the development of artificial life", and author Douglas Adams
.
to pitch a "little computer ewok
s" game, like the game Little Computer People
. Creatures was developed as a consumer product by Millennium
, and was released by Mindscape
in 1996. The program was instantly successful, and an online community
of players soon formed, swapping Norns, creating new objects for Albia, sharing tips on how to play the game and anecdotes about unexpected evolutionary changes that they had seen, and even creating new breeds
of Norn. At one point, the Creatures online community was the largest of its type.
Based on sales of 500,000 copies of Creatures from 1996- the second quarter of 1998, it was estimated that at that time, there was a possible global population of up to five million norns.
In 1998, the computer games division of Millennium
was sold to Sony Entertainment while those working on alife and Creatures formed a new company called Cyberlife Technology. Along with continued work on the Creatures titles, the company did work for industry and the British Ministry of Defence
, famously attempting to teach live organisms to fly virtual fighter jets.
In the late 1990s, Grand left Cyberlife to form Cyberlife Research and focus on the production of new alife technologies, including current work on a robotic
life form he calls Lucy as well as writing books about his research. The remainder of the company was renamed Creature Labs
, and focused on computer game development.
Sequels to Creatures, including Creatures 2
, Creatures 3
and the small-children's games Creatures Adventures and Creatures Playground, were released by Creature Labs in subsequent years. The final major Creatures release, Docking Station, was made available for download from the company's web site in 2001.
Development was suspended on future Creatures games on March 20, 2003, when Creature Labs ceased operations, but development and trademark rights have since been purchased by a company named Gameware Development, Ltd. Gameware has revived the Creatures Developer Network, the shop, the forums, the Docking Station server, and have released many before-purchasable tools and add-ons for free.
Gameware staff that previously worked on Creatures have now developed a convergent media game for the BBC
called BAMZOOKi
.
The Creatures games have recently been re-released in combination packs under the names Creatures: The Albian Years (C1, C2), Creatures Exodus (C3, DS) and Creatures Village (CA, CP). The Albian Years, and Exodus include the separate games, whereas Village has merged Adventures and Playground into a single game.
Kutoka Interactive
, a Canadian children's software company, has created releases of Creatures Exodus (Kutoka) and Creatures Village (Kutoka Kids) that are compatible with both Apple's Mac OS X
and Windows XP
. They were released on 30 September 2005, and can be purchased either directly from Kutoka or from other online stores.
In 2011, Fishing Cactus announced they were developing Creatures 4, to be demonstrated at that year's GamesCom
.
Norns are playful, all-trusting, naive creatures that love to explore. This is often the reason for their downfall, suffering, and death. They are especially susceptible to disease in comparison to Ettins and Grendels, and in old age they may fall prey to a wasting disease that prevents them from absorbing certain nutrients.
The Shee originally created the Norns as a mixture of valet
and pet. According to the Creatures Labs website, they spread across the galaxy through the Warp and evolved into various variations, including but not restricted to: Toxic Norn, Treehugger Norn and Magma Norns. The spread of Norns throughout the galaxy is related to the mysterious disappearance of the Shee from Albia (from the point of view of the Norns). It may also be a sign of how the Shee fared in their attempt to find a habitable planet.
In the games, the Norns have their own simulated biochemistry, haploid genetics, and neural network
to serve as a brain. From Creatures 2 onwards, Norns also possess organs determined by their genetics; mutation and injury can render these defunct, with typically fatal consequences. Each of these has grown somewhat over the course of the series, allowing the creatures to become more complex and intelligent. Norns are omnivores and eat a variety of foods, including carrots, lemons, seeds, insects, fish, honey, and other things. The Norns that the player starts with require some degree of training and discipline from the player in order to make good decisions to maintain their health; however, later on they can evolve to be more independent and hardy, with better-developed instincts and a more robust biochemistry. The player can take advantage of this to breed certain colors or traits through artificial selection, and through many generations the changes can become quite pronounced.
The Shee are a fictional race of absent-minded scientists in the Creatures series. They are the original inhabitants of Albia, and the creators of the Norns, Ettins, and Grendels.
The Shee are all inventors, and make most of their inventions to save time on tasks that would have taken but a few minutes otherwise.
Most of their discoveries are made by accident, and as such, they sequenced their own DNA
and eliminated all genetic defects, before discovering the wheel.
Millennia ago, the Shee had left the disk-shaped world of Albia, as they desired to live on a more spherical world. They created the Shee Ark, took along some Norns, Ettins, and various animals and plants, and set out for their new home. The Shee Ark, like all Shee spacecraft, was itself a living creature grown from scratch, and used "Bioenergy" (the energy of living things, used to balance the game) to perform its various functions.
and Creatures 3
.
Ettins were created by the Shee to help them on their experiments, especially when using machinery. Unfortunately, they made them like machines so much, they tend to steal bits for themselves, often taking them to wherever they consider their home.
C2 Ettins behave rather differently; they tend to lead a sad and lonely life underground with no one but Pitz and the occasional Grendel for company. The backstory in the guides and manual, as well as the opening sequence, reveals that they once lived in the desert at the top of Albia and, true to their nature, built the pyramid that sits there. The actual use (if any) of the pyramid is unknown.
Ettins were introduced into the Creatures universe in C2, having been revealed to the world after the volcanic eruption.
The Ettins in Creatures 2 were infertile; however, in Creatures 3, there were two Ettins aboard the Shee Ark at most times (both female), and it was possible to get them to breed if two of them were placed in the Gene Splicer machine to create a male Ettin.
In the unmodified Creatures 1 and 2, Grendels do not reproduce, being born infertile. Generally, only one Grendel is alive in the world of Albia at a time. In Creatures 3, two Grendels were alive aboard the Shee Ark at most times (both male), but it was possible to get them to breed and have offspring if both were placed in the Gene Splicer machine and used to create a female Grendel.
In all three games, Grendels are automatically produced by a "Mother" machine; in Creatures 3, however, it is possible to ensure that there are no Grendels in the game by killing any existing grendels (e.g. in the airlock
) and then waiting by the mother, then placing any eggs into water (the piranha
pool) so that they cannot hatch.
The Grendels were another genetically-engineered creation of the Shee, albeit an accidental one. They were certainly not what the Shee were trying to get as a result from their experiments, and were considered to be harmful, useless monsters. However, some of the evil Shee (known as the Banshee) believed the Grendels were genetically superior to the Norns, and kept some for improvement.
much like Earth's. Here lay an abandoned system of laboratories
left over by the Shee, an advanced race that had suddenly left the planet many years earlier in order to find a more stable world. In these laboratories and environments, the player was able to hatch new Norns from leftover eggs
and re-inhabit the world of Albia.
, released on September 30, 1998, took place many years after the first game, after a devastating natural disaster
(or, as explained in later games, a devastating Shee disaster) had changed the landscape
of Albia dramatically and opened up new areas of the world. New technology
and species
were made available to the player
. Despite the great change in environment, the focus of the game remained the same. Creatures 2 Deluxe (with Life Kit) soon followed.
, released on November 4, 1999, took a detour from the first two games. It took place on the spaceship
that the Shee had used to flee Albia. The ship was divided into many carefully controlled environment
s (Norn Terrarium, Jungle Terrarium, Desert Terrarium, Marine Terrarium). Creatures 3 was much more technologically focused. Still, the goal was to experiment
with the three principal species and create a living world out of an empty ship.
-based add-on to Creatures 3, released free of charge on the Creatures web site on March 27, 2001. It was intended as a way to sell Creatures 3 (you could dock the worlds of the two games together, hence the name "Docking" Station) and extra packs of Norn breeds. Docking Station has an intermittent reminder screen that encourages users to buy Creatures 3.
Docking Station added the possibility of interaction between individual player worlds; Norns could 'travel' to other online worlds via a central server, players could chat
to other online players, and it was possible to track Norns (and their offspring) which had been present in their worlds via the Docking Station website. While Docking Station was released late in the series' run, it changed gameplay (and the potential of the series) dramatically. It also expanded considerably on the game mythos, including the introduction of an 'anti-Shee', the Banshee (a Grendel/Shee hybrid), which has since been decanonised.
had to be completely reprogrammed by the console development team around Volker Eloesser. A fourth, Project Loci, was in development at the time of Creatures Labs' liquidation, but was cancelled for lack of funds. Loci would have been the first Creatures game for the PS2, Xbox and GameCube.
Encore Software released a Creatures Trilogy containing Creatures, Creatures 2, and Creatures 3, under their Encare line. They also released a "gold" version titled Creatures Trilogy Gold Collection.
released a Linux port of Creatures Internet Edition a few months later in December 2001.
The original Creatures Internet Edition was released again in 2002 by Focus Multimedia
, without the physical manual, as Creatures Gold, but the disc contents were identical (and so the installer and PDF manual both referred to it as Creatures Internet Edition).
on one disk, updated to run on Windows XP.
and Docking Station plus a selection of new Norn breeds on one disk, updated for improved Windows XP compatibility. Mac OS X and Windows & Mac dual-format, and free downloadable versions are also available.
Artificial life
Artificial life is a field of study and an associated art form which examine systems related to life, its processes, and its evolution through simulations using computer models, robotics, and biochemistry. The discipline was named by Christopher Langton, an American computer scientist, in 1986...
(alife) computer program
Computer program
A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute...
series, created in the mid-1990s by English computer scientist
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
Steve Grand
Steve Grand
Steve Grand OBE is an English computer scientist and an internationally recognised roboticist. He was the creator and lead programmer of the Creatures artificial life simulation, which he discussed in his first book Creation: Life and how to make it, a finalist for the 2001 Aventis Prize for...
whilst working for the Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
computer games developer Millennium Interactive
Millennium Interactive
Millennium Interactive was a Cambridge-based computer games developer responsible for titles such as Rome: Pathway to Power, The Adventures of Robin Hood, James Pond, Defcon 5, Deadline and most notably, Creatures. Another notable title is Strike II, a 3-D air combat science fiction game.In July...
. Gameplay focuses on raising alien creatures known as Norns, teaching them to survive, helping them explore their world, defending them against other species, and breeding them. Rather than taking a scripted approach, Creatures series games were driven by detailed biological and neurological simulation and their unexpected results.
Overview
In Creatures, a user hatches small furry creatures called Norns into a world called Albia, and teaches them how to talk, feed themselves, and protect themselves against vicious creatures called Grendels. Later games in the series introduced a third species, the Ettin. They are white, red-eyed creatures that steal tools.The program was significant as it was one of the first commercial titles to code alife
Artificial life
Artificial life is a field of study and an associated art form which examine systems related to life, its processes, and its evolution through simulations using computer models, robotics, and biochemistry. The discipline was named by Christopher Langton, an American computer scientist, in 1986...
organisms from the genetic level upwards using a sophisticated biochemistry
Biochemistry
Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...
and neural network
Neural network
The term neural network was traditionally used to refer to a network or circuit of biological neurons. The modern usage of the term often refers to artificial neural networks, which are composed of artificial neurons or nodes...
brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
s. This meant that the Norns and their DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
could develop and "evolve
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
" in increasingly diverse ways, unpredicted by the makers. By breeding
Selective breeding
Selective breeding is the process of breeding plants and animals for particular genetic traits. Typically, strains that are selectively bred are domesticated, and the breeding is sometimes done by a professional breeder. Bred animals are known as breeds, while bred plants are known as varieties,...
certain Norns with others, some traits could be passed on to following generations. Most interestingly, the Norns turned out to behave similarly to living creatures. This was seen as an important insight into how real world organisms may function and evolve. Earlier alife programs had worked by giving their organisms a limited set of commands and parameters, and seeing whether the way the subjects behaved was realistic.
While this is the first commercial program it is to be noted that other non-commercial programs had done this since the late 1970s such as the Savanna Simulator by Walter Vose Jeffries which ran on an Z80 based Exidy Sorcerer
Exidy Sorcerer
The Sorcerer was one of the early home computer systems, released in 1978 by the videogame company, Exidy. It was comparatively advanced when released, especially when compared to the contemporary more commercially-orientated Commodore PET and TRS-80, but due to a number of problems including a...
microcomputer and presented the creatures moving on a graphical grid.
The genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
in Creatures are somewhat different from human genetics
Physical anthropology
Biological anthropology is that branch of anthropology that studies the physical development of the human species. It plays an important part in paleoanthropology and in forensic anthropology...
; they are haploid. There is no concept of dominant gene and recessive gene, much less recombination
Genetic recombination
Genetic recombination is a process by which a molecule of nucleic acid is broken and then joined to a different one. Recombination can occur between similar molecules of DNA, as in homologous recombination, or dissimilar molecules, as in non-homologous end joining. Recombination is a common method...
between loci
Locus (genetics)
In the fields of genetics and genetic computation, a locus is the specific location of a gene or DNA sequence on a chromosome. A variant of the DNA sequence at a given locus is called an allele. The ordered list of loci known for a particular genome is called a genetic map...
. Nevertheless, the complexity of the simulated biochemistry meant that Norn behavior was highly unpredictable.
Among the fans of Creatures were the Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
zoologist
Zoology
Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
, who called it a "quantum leap in the development of artificial life", and author Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
.
History
Originally conceived as a desktop pet with a brain, Grand later incorporated inspiration from The PlaniverseThe Planiverse
-Development:In 1977, Dewdney was inspired by an allegory of a two-dimensional universe, and decided to expand upon the physics and chemistry of such a universe.He published a short monograph in 1979 called Two-Dimensional Science and Technology.In July 1980, this was reviewed by Martin Gardner in...
to pitch a "little computer ewok
Ewok
Ewoks originate from the Star Wars films. In the series, they are a species of teddy-bear-like hunter-gatherers that inhabit the forest moon of Endor. The Ewoks live in various tree-huts and primitive dwellings. They first appeared in the film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi...
s" game, like the game Little Computer People
Little Computer People
Little Computer People, also called House-on-a-Disk, is a life simulation game/god game released in 1985 by Activision for the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum and Apple II. An Amiga version was released in 1987...
. Creatures was developed as a consumer product by Millennium
Millennium Interactive
Millennium Interactive was a Cambridge-based computer games developer responsible for titles such as Rome: Pathway to Power, The Adventures of Robin Hood, James Pond, Defcon 5, Deadline and most notably, Creatures. Another notable title is Strike II, a 3-D air combat science fiction game.In July...
, and was released by Mindscape
Mindscape Group
Mindscape is an international software publishing company, previously part of The Learning Company. They are now affiliated with EA . As of 2004, the group has offices in Europe, Asia, Australia and South America. It has an annual turnover of €38 million and employs 150 people. Mindscape...
in 1996. The program was instantly successful, and an online community
Online community
An online community is a virtual community that exists online and whose members enable its existence through taking part in membership ritual. An online community can take the form of an information system where anyone can post content, such as a Bulletin board system or one where only a restricted...
of players soon formed, swapping Norns, creating new objects for Albia, sharing tips on how to play the game and anecdotes about unexpected evolutionary changes that they had seen, and even creating new breeds
Selective breeding
Selective breeding is the process of breeding plants and animals for particular genetic traits. Typically, strains that are selectively bred are domesticated, and the breeding is sometimes done by a professional breeder. Bred animals are known as breeds, while bred plants are known as varieties,...
of Norn. At one point, the Creatures online community was the largest of its type.
Based on sales of 500,000 copies of Creatures from 1996- the second quarter of 1998, it was estimated that at that time, there was a possible global population of up to five million norns.
In 1998, the computer games division of Millennium
Millennium Interactive
Millennium Interactive was a Cambridge-based computer games developer responsible for titles such as Rome: Pathway to Power, The Adventures of Robin Hood, James Pond, Defcon 5, Deadline and most notably, Creatures. Another notable title is Strike II, a 3-D air combat science fiction game.In July...
was sold to Sony Entertainment while those working on alife and Creatures formed a new company called Cyberlife Technology. Along with continued work on the Creatures titles, the company did work for industry and the British Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
, famously attempting to teach live organisms to fly virtual fighter jets.
In the late 1990s, Grand left Cyberlife to form Cyberlife Research and focus on the production of new alife technologies, including current work on a robotic
Robotics
Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots...
life form he calls Lucy as well as writing books about his research. The remainder of the company was renamed Creature Labs
Creature Labs
Creature Labs was a company based in Cambridge, England which was set up to develop the artificial life technology created by Steve Grand...
, and focused on computer game development.
Sequels to Creatures, including Creatures 2
Creatures 2
Creatures 2 is the second game in the Creatures artificial life game series made by Creature Labs. It features three species: the cute, dependent Norns, the cantankerous Grendels and the industrious Ettins...
, Creatures 3
Creatures 3
Creatures 3 is the third game in the Creatures a-life game series made by Creature Labs. In this installment, the Shee have left Albia in a spaceship, the Shee Ark, to search for a more spherical world...
and the small-children's games Creatures Adventures and Creatures Playground, were released by Creature Labs in subsequent years. The final major Creatures release, Docking Station, was made available for download from the company's web site in 2001.
Development was suspended on future Creatures games on March 20, 2003, when Creature Labs ceased operations, but development and trademark rights have since been purchased by a company named Gameware Development, Ltd. Gameware has revived the Creatures Developer Network, the shop, the forums, the Docking Station server, and have released many before-purchasable tools and add-ons for free.
Gameware staff that previously worked on Creatures have now developed a convergent media game for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
called BAMZOOKi
BAMZOOKi
Bamzooki was a mixed Reality television gameshow on the BBC which features a toolkit developed by Gameware Development. The first series aired in March 2004 on CBBC. The show was presented by Jake Humphrey. It has occasionally featured specials with Sophie McDonnell. In July 2008, it was announced...
.
The Creatures games have recently been re-released in combination packs under the names Creatures: The Albian Years (C1, C2), Creatures Exodus (C3, DS) and Creatures Village (CA, CP). The Albian Years, and Exodus include the separate games, whereas Village has merged Adventures and Playground into a single game.
Kutoka Interactive
Kutoka Interactive
Kutoka Interactive is an educational software company founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1995. The company produces, develops, and distributes both subject-based and grade-based video games for Windows and Macintosh.- Background :...
, a Canadian children's software company, has created releases of Creatures Exodus (Kutoka) and Creatures Village (Kutoka Kids) that are compatible with both Apple's Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
and Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
. They were released on 30 September 2005, and can be purchased either directly from Kutoka or from other online stores.
In 2011, Fishing Cactus announced they were developing Creatures 4, to be demonstrated at that year's GamesCom
Gamescom
gamescom is a trade fair for video games held annually at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is organised by the Bundesverband Interaktive Unterhaltungssoftware...
.
Norns
A Norn is an AIL (Artificial intelligent life) species, the development and survival of which constitute the main thematic elements of the program.Norns are playful, all-trusting, naive creatures that love to explore. This is often the reason for their downfall, suffering, and death. They are especially susceptible to disease in comparison to Ettins and Grendels, and in old age they may fall prey to a wasting disease that prevents them from absorbing certain nutrients.
The Shee originally created the Norns as a mixture of valet
Valet
Valet and varlet are terms for male servants who serve as personal attendants to their employer.- Word origins :In the Middle Ages, the valet de chambre to a ruler was a prestigious appointment for young men...
and pet. According to the Creatures Labs website, they spread across the galaxy through the Warp and evolved into various variations, including but not restricted to: Toxic Norn, Treehugger Norn and Magma Norns. The spread of Norns throughout the galaxy is related to the mysterious disappearance of the Shee from Albia (from the point of view of the Norns). It may also be a sign of how the Shee fared in their attempt to find a habitable planet.
In the games, the Norns have their own simulated biochemistry, haploid genetics, and neural network
Neural network
The term neural network was traditionally used to refer to a network or circuit of biological neurons. The modern usage of the term often refers to artificial neural networks, which are composed of artificial neurons or nodes...
to serve as a brain. From Creatures 2 onwards, Norns also possess organs determined by their genetics; mutation and injury can render these defunct, with typically fatal consequences. Each of these has grown somewhat over the course of the series, allowing the creatures to become more complex and intelligent. Norns are omnivores and eat a variety of foods, including carrots, lemons, seeds, insects, fish, honey, and other things. The Norns that the player starts with require some degree of training and discipline from the player in order to make good decisions to maintain their health; however, later on they can evolve to be more independent and hardy, with better-developed instincts and a more robust biochemistry. The player can take advantage of this to breed certain colors or traits through artificial selection, and through many generations the changes can become quite pronounced.
Shee
The Shee are all inventors, and make most of their inventions to save time on tasks that would have taken but a few minutes otherwise.
Most of their discoveries are made by accident, and as such, they sequenced their own DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
and eliminated all genetic defects, before discovering the wheel.
Millennia ago, the Shee had left the disk-shaped world of Albia, as they desired to live on a more spherical world. They created the Shee Ark, took along some Norns, Ettins, and various animals and plants, and set out for their new home. The Shee Ark, like all Shee spacecraft, was itself a living creature grown from scratch, and used "Bioenergy" (the energy of living things, used to balance the game) to perform its various functions.
Ettins
Ettins are a species in the games Creatures 2Creatures 2
Creatures 2 is the second game in the Creatures artificial life game series made by Creature Labs. It features three species: the cute, dependent Norns, the cantankerous Grendels and the industrious Ettins...
and Creatures 3
Creatures 3
Creatures 3 is the third game in the Creatures a-life game series made by Creature Labs. In this installment, the Shee have left Albia in a spaceship, the Shee Ark, to search for a more spherical world...
.
Ettins were created by the Shee to help them on their experiments, especially when using machinery. Unfortunately, they made them like machines so much, they tend to steal bits for themselves, often taking them to wherever they consider their home.
C2 Ettins behave rather differently; they tend to lead a sad and lonely life underground with no one but Pitz and the occasional Grendel for company. The backstory in the guides and manual, as well as the opening sequence, reveals that they once lived in the desert at the top of Albia and, true to their nature, built the pyramid that sits there. The actual use (if any) of the pyramid is unknown.
Ettins were introduced into the Creatures universe in C2, having been revealed to the world after the volcanic eruption.
The Ettins in Creatures 2 were infertile; however, in Creatures 3, there were two Ettins aboard the Shee Ark at most times (both female), and it was possible to get them to breed if two of them were placed in the Gene Splicer machine to create a male Ettin.
Grendels
A Grendel is a species in the computer game Creatures. They are the green-skinned, red-eyed antagonists of the Norns, stealing food and injuring individual Norns. They also carry diseases harmful to Norns.In the unmodified Creatures 1 and 2, Grendels do not reproduce, being born infertile. Generally, only one Grendel is alive in the world of Albia at a time. In Creatures 3, two Grendels were alive aboard the Shee Ark at most times (both male), but it was possible to get them to breed and have offspring if both were placed in the Gene Splicer machine and used to create a female Grendel.
In all three games, Grendels are automatically produced by a "Mother" machine; in Creatures 3, however, it is possible to ensure that there are no Grendels in the game by killing any existing grendels (e.g. in the airlock
Airlock
An airlock is a device which permits the passage of people and objects between a pressure vessel and its surroundings while minimizing the change of pressure in the vessel and loss of air from it...
) and then waiting by the mother, then placing any eggs into water (the piranha
Piranha
A piranha or piraña is a member of family Characidae in order Characiformes, an omnivorous freshwater fish that inhabits South American rivers. In Venezuela, they are called caribes...
pool) so that they cannot hatch.
The Grendels were another genetically-engineered creation of the Shee, albeit an accidental one. They were certainly not what the Shee were trying to get as a result from their experiments, and were considered to be harmful, useless monsters. However, some of the evil Shee (known as the Banshee) believed the Grendels were genetically superior to the Norns, and kept some for improvement.
Games in the series
There were six major Creatures releases from Creature Labs. In addition to the three principal games, the Docking Station add-on (generally referenced as a separate game) and two children's games were released.Creatures
The original Creatures game, released in the United Kingdom and Australia in November 1996 and released in North America in July 1997, took place on the fictional disc-shaped world Albia. While the "faces" of the disc were uninhabitable, the "rim" of Albia was home to a complicated environmentNatural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
much like Earth's. Here lay an abandoned system of laboratories
Laboratory
A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories...
left over by the Shee, an advanced race that had suddenly left the planet many years earlier in order to find a more stable world. In these laboratories and environments, the player was able to hatch new Norns from leftover eggs
Egg (biology)
An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...
and re-inhabit the world of Albia.
Creatures 2
Creatures 2Creatures 2
Creatures 2 is the second game in the Creatures artificial life game series made by Creature Labs. It features three species: the cute, dependent Norns, the cantankerous Grendels and the industrious Ettins...
, released on September 30, 1998, took place many years after the first game, after a devastating natural disaster
Natural disaster
A natural disaster is the effect of a natural hazard . It leads to financial, environmental or human losses...
(or, as explained in later games, a devastating Shee disaster) had changed the landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
of Albia dramatically and opened up new areas of the world. New technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
and species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
were made available to the player
Player (game)
A player of a game is a participant therein. The term 'player' is used with this same meaning both in game theory and in ordinary recreational games....
. Despite the great change in environment, the focus of the game remained the same. Creatures 2 Deluxe (with Life Kit) soon followed.
Creatures 3
Creatures 3Creatures 3
Creatures 3 is the third game in the Creatures a-life game series made by Creature Labs. In this installment, the Shee have left Albia in a spaceship, the Shee Ark, to search for a more spherical world...
, released on November 4, 1999, took a detour from the first two games. It took place on the spaceship
Starship
A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
that the Shee had used to flee Albia. The ship was divided into many carefully controlled environment
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
s (Norn Terrarium, Jungle Terrarium, Desert Terrarium, Marine Terrarium). Creatures 3 was much more technologically focused. Still, the goal was to experiment
Experiment
An experiment is a methodical procedure carried out with the goal of verifying, falsifying, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis. Experiments vary greatly in their goal and scale, but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results...
with the three principal species and create a living world out of an empty ship.
Docking Station
The final major Creatures release was Docking Station, an InternetInternet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
-based add-on to Creatures 3, released free of charge on the Creatures web site on March 27, 2001. It was intended as a way to sell Creatures 3 (you could dock the worlds of the two games together, hence the name "Docking" Station) and extra packs of Norn breeds. Docking Station has an intermittent reminder screen that encourages users to buy Creatures 3.
Docking Station added the possibility of interaction between individual player worlds; Norns could 'travel' to other online worlds via a central server, players could chat
Online chat
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet, that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages from sender to receiver, hence the delay for visual access to the sent message shall not hamper the flow of communications in any of the directions...
to other online players, and it was possible to track Norns (and their offspring) which had been present in their worlds via the Docking Station website. While Docking Station was released late in the series' run, it changed gameplay (and the potential of the series) dramatically. It also expanded considerably on the game mythos, including the introduction of an 'anti-Shee', the Banshee (a Grendel/Shee hybrid), which has since been decanonised.
" Creatures 4 "
Creatures 4 is the sequel to the long absent Creatures franchise. The game is no longer being developed by Gameware development but now Fishing Cactus. The game was announced in Fishing Cactus's blog in May of 2011. Little is known about the game so far other than it will have 5 worlds, is completely in 3D graphics instead of 2D pre-rendered graphics, and you use in game money to buy your Norns toys, food, etc. A collector's edition box was also announced with a Norn figurine, the three original games for current pc's, and all the money you payed for the game as in-game money for your Norns.Creatures Adventures
Released in 2000, and targeted at younger children (ages 6–9), Creatures Adventures dropped the complex interface of the main series in favor of brighter graphics and a more childlike atmosphere, while keeping true to the original games' aspect of exploration although very limited in such.Creatures Playground
The second game in the younger children's series, Creatures Playground (released the same year), could be connected to Adventures to create an even bigger world to explore.Console games
The Creatures concept was made into three different games for various consoles. One was for the GBA and two were for the original PlayStation. Because of the limited processing power of the early-day consoles, the AIAi
AI, A.I., Ai, or ai may refer to:- Computers :* Artificial intelligence, a branch of computer science* Ad impression, in online advertising* .ai, the ISO Internet 2-letter country code for Anguilla...
had to be completely reprogrammed by the console development team around Volker Eloesser. A fourth, Project Loci, was in development at the time of Creatures Labs' liquidation, but was cancelled for lack of funds. Loci would have been the first Creatures game for the PS2, Xbox and GameCube.
Later bundled releases
There have been various re-releases of the Creatures games. The later re-releases from Gameware improved Windows XP compatibility by allowing them to run easily under non-administrator accounts and without the use of the compatibility mode, but break compatibility with some third-party content without the use of a third-party patch.Creatures Trilogy / Creatures Trilogy Gold Collection
This release of Creatures Trilogy included Creatures, Creatures 2, and Creatures 3, as well as the Life Kit addons for the earlier games. It was released before Docking Station, but the version of Creatures 3 included in this was identical to the original release (except that it was using the newest patch) and was therefore compatible with Docking Station.Encore Software released a Creatures Trilogy containing Creatures, Creatures 2, and Creatures 3, under their Encare line. They also released a "gold" version titled Creatures Trilogy Gold Collection.
Creatures Internet Edition / Creatures Gold
The final major Creatures release was a re-release in 2001 by FastTrak Software Publishing as Creatures Internet Edition, a bundle of Creatures 3, Creatures 3 Update 2, Docking Station, and a number of environment extras and tools (many with multilingual variants). Linux Game PublishingLinux Game Publishing
Linux Game Publishing is a software company based in Nottingham in England. It ports, publishes and sells video games running on Linux operating systems. As well as porting games, LGP also sponsors the development of Grapple, a free software network library for games...
released a Linux port of Creatures Internet Edition a few months later in December 2001.
The original Creatures Internet Edition was released again in 2002 by Focus Multimedia
Focus Multimedia
Focus Multimedia was founded in 1995 in England by Craig Johnson and Lawrence Reeves. It is a consumer software publisher that mostly distributes its products in the UK and Ireland, but also exports to English-speaking countries worldwide....
, without the physical manual, as Creatures Gold, but the disc contents were identical (and so the installer and PDF manual both referred to it as Creatures Internet Edition).
Creatures: The Albian Years
Creatures 1 and Creatures 2Creatures 2
Creatures 2 is the second game in the Creatures artificial life game series made by Creature Labs. It features three species: the cute, dependent Norns, the cantankerous Grendels and the industrious Ettins...
on one disk, updated to run on Windows XP.
Creatures Exodus
Creatures 3Creatures 3
Creatures 3 is the third game in the Creatures a-life game series made by Creature Labs. In this installment, the Shee have left Albia in a spaceship, the Shee Ark, to search for a more spherical world...
and Docking Station plus a selection of new Norn breeds on one disk, updated for improved Windows XP compatibility. Mac OS X and Windows & Mac dual-format, and free downloadable versions are also available.
Creatures Village
Creatures Adventures and Creatures Playground, merged and updated for improved Windows XP compatibility. Mac OS X and Windows & Mac dual-format versions are also available.Creatures Triple Collection
Creatures Triple Pack, otherwise known as Creatures Collection: Triple, contains The Albian Years, Creatures Exodus and Creatures Village for Windows.See also
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