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This is an entry about an artificial life computer program series. For the gothic side project of Siouxsie & the Banshees, see The Creatures. For Elf Power's 2002 album, see Creatures (album). For the Commodore 64 game, see Clyde Radcliffe Exterminates All The Unfriendly Repulsive Earth-ridden Slime.

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. The program is regarded as an important breakthrough in the advancement of alife research.

Overview

In Creatures, the 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 Ettins.

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 brains. 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.

The genetics in Creatures are somewhat different from human genetics: they are haploid and therefore any "evolution" is a result of random cross-over mutations. There is no concept of dominant gene and recessive gene. Nevertheless, the complexity of the simulated biochemistry meant that Norn behaviour was highly unpredictable.

Among the fans of Creatures were the Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins and author Douglas Adams.

History

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.

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-purchaseable 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 the 30th of September 2005, and can be purchased either directly from Kutoka or from other online stores.

Games

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.

On Albia: later re-released as "Creatures The Albian Years"

Creatures
The original Creatures game, released in England 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 environment 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 (possibly spherical?) world. In these laboratories and environments, the player was able to hatch new Norns from leftover eggs and reinhabit the world of Albia.

Creatures 2
Creatures 2, 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.

After Leaving Albia: later re-released as "Creatures Exodus"

Creatures 3
Creatures 3, released on November 4, 1999, took a detour from the first two games. It took place on the actual spaceship that the Shee had used to flee Albia. The ship was divided into many carefully controlled environments. 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.

Docking Station
The final major Creatures release was Docking Station, an Internet-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, which has since been decanonised.

Younger Children's Games: later re-released as "Creatures Village"

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.

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.

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, however 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 compatable 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 Internet Edition for Linux / 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 Publishing released a Linux version, "Creatures Internet Edition for Linux," 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").

Creatures The Albian Years
Creatures and Creatures 2 on one disk, updated to run on Windows XP.

Creatures Exodus
Creatures 3 and Docking Station plus a selection of new Norn breeds on one disk, updated for improved Windows XP compatibility.

Creatures Village
Creatures Adventures and Creatures Playground, merged and updated for improved Windows XP compatibility.

Community

Fans have created, and continue to create, many new objects, worlds, and creature breeds for the games. One recent major project has been the authorised conversion of the original Creatures game content to an add-on for Docking Station, along with variety of new content.

While the community is not as active as it once was, there are still several large fansites for the game, featuring add-on content as well as articles and other content, and a large Creatures Wiki hosted on Wikia.

JRChat

JRChat is an internet chat system for the community around the game. The system is in use at many fan sites for the game. Clients connect to the system through a Java applet in their web browser, or through software called JRNet.

See also

External links

Official links

Third-party links

Mac OS games | Creature Labs games | Creatures | Gameware Development games | God games | Linux games | Virtual pets | Windows games

Creatures (Computerspiel) | Creatures | Creatures

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Creatures".

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