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Creatures 1 review

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 26 / 29
Date: January 02, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I found this game excellent, very enjoyable. This game is about norns, and you have to nurture them and teach them things. At the end of each game you get a score. This is based on how many norns you have managed to produce, howmany natural eggs you've used, howmany you've got from the incubator, and howmany norns have died, among other things. This is a difficult game, once which all age ranges can enjoy. The younger ages will like the norns, and the older ages will find looking after them a challenge, espically when you come across a grendel, trying to get them to safety is very difficult. This is a challenging game, and a good educational experience, it can be frustrating at times, but on the whole good fun to play. As it is the first one of the creatures programmes its graphics aren't excellent, but the game itself makes up for that. This is a very worth while buy. It may be good to start of with this version of creatures, if you are considering buying one, as it is cheapest, and you can try it out and then buy the more resent version if you like it. Although older this still stands out, to me as one of the best computer programmes I have ever played on.

Requires patience and attention

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: January 04, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This isn't a mind-candy game by any stretch. Creatures is a thought-provoking, often frustrating game in which you create "Norns" and then try to teach them survival skills, speech and social skills. Some do just fine, some are difficult and a few are just lost causes. You will never know until you're knee-deep in Norns, what you're dealing with.

If you buy this game, and I hope you will because it's very good, do yourself a favor and don't just jump in because you'll be lost right from the get-go. Read the info that comes with the game, it really will help. Bottom line: This is not a game for the easily distracted or those who want a lot of action, or something easy to win. Start creating these little guys and you're in for the long haul. Just like having kids.

The best game in the world!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: November 26, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I got this for Xmas when I was just nine years old and I was addicted to it immediately! I would advise that you watch the tutorial, read the manual THOROUGHLY, and maybe visit a few websites before you hatch your norns, though, b/c I didn't and as a result Lucie (my oldest) and her baby were stranded on a desert island (I eventually found them and rescued them, though) and Max, another norn, was almost killed in a grendel attack (if you don't know, grendels are the ugly green monsters that like to hit norns and steal their food), because I didn't know how to deal with much of anything. He did survive though! I would recommend this game to ANYBODY except maybe children under ten--Edmund, my favorite, died when I was ten and I cried so hard I scared my mom enough to call my dad home from work.

_____

Shan

LOved it!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 16
Date: March 29, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I got Creatures for Christmas two years ago, and immediately fell in love with it! The norns, were the first thing I loved! They were adorable, helpless things that need your love and attention to help them grow up, and breed! I have breed some amazingly cute norns, and downloaded a lot from the internet! There are always new worlds put into production by Creatures fans like myself! I have gotten some of my freinds to try it, and they loved it too! I strongly recommend this "game", a true learning experience!

da BOMB

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 14
Date: April 12, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Creatures is so cool! I have 2 friends who have it and another friend who wants it! Clue to new Creatures users: the grendel comes out of the weird plant in the big tree. As soon as you can, move him to the island and don't let any norns over there! Also, if you hear someone cough or sneeze, export them immediately or more norns will get sick! Then, when noones near the incubator, import and heal them. Don't try to breed your norns just leave theem to it. Good luck!

Classic

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: September 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game when it was first released, and it has never ceased to amaze me... Because of the open-ended nature of gameplay, this title provides infinite replay value. As if the initial demonstration of very well constructed artificial intellegence (and hormone) systems wasn't enough, the real pleasure of this game is attained through discovery of how much of the norn's behavior can be controlled through both selective breeding and learning experiences. The social interactions are complex enough to keep you busy for a while, too. This title is still worth its initial price, and this reduced offer is certainly not one to pass up.

Simply amazing for its time, or any time

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: July 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game is amazing but worrying.

The game is 2-D, but that won't matter, you don't "control" the creatures. There are no pre-programed creatures or behavior. The artificial inteligence demonstrated by the norns (the species of the creatures in this game) makes furbees look like those dolls that have a string you pull to make them talk (no offense to furbee lovers, especially if I can't spell furbee). Your role in this game is to be the "terrarium keeper". You have to try to keep them alive, happy, and healthy in the world they live in, which, although it isn't huge, will keep you happy. Your tool is the hand, with which you may pick up food, other animals, toys, interact with objects, and pet or dicipline your norns. You may have up to seven or eight norns in your world at a time, but you can export norns for future use, or give them to a fellow creatures player. The ultimate goal in this game is... well, I guess it is up to you. One goal is to create norns with strange or unique traits, such as colored skin or imortality. Also there is a score, affected by births, deaths, and your norns health. However, if you are interested in this game, there are two sequels, Creatures adventurtes, and other games with a similar premise, which you can find right here on Amazon.

The worrying thing about this series is the artificial intelegence, which sometimes almost seems alive. What does this say about us? If we can program a computer to emulate life increasingly well, including comunication, what is to say that someday we may create something that is a computer, and yet alive. It seems imposible, but if it will happen, it looks as though the day is close. Frightning, isn't it?

Forget all your other pet simulators!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: July 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

So what exactly is Creatures?

It proclaims itself from the tutorial movie that came with it that it is "the most advanced comercially available life simulator in the world" (which is no longer true, because now there are sequels). Creatures is an A-life simulator, in which you are in charge of caring for Norns, fuzzy little things that their creators left behind on their home world of Albia as they went off to find a new planet.

This is a 2-D game taking place on a disk-shaped planet; the edges are where everything occurs in the game, while the "faces" of the disk are inhospitable and never explored. The game world has many things in it, such as toys, tools, herbs and poisonous plants, scavengeable food, and other creatures besides your Norns.

Norns begin their lives hatched from eggs, and you can start your world with eggs from the Hatchery or Norns you received from elsewhere. From the moment of a Norn's birth, the complexity of biological life's processes are simulated in it, right up to the time it dies. Norns have chemicals and neural networks just like real life does, and everything they do is in response to their environment and is not preprogrammed.

Norns must be taught how to survive. Above the incubator where you can hatch eggs is a learning computer where you can teach your Norns all the concepts they need to express themselves and communicate with you. Of course, Norns are born being able to speak a language of their own resembling gibberish, but you have to teach them English in order to figure out what they want and command them to do what you want.

Not that they'll always do that; Norns have a free will of their own, just like us. However, just typing in a command and seeing your little pet do what you say is an absolute thrill every time it happens.

Norns learn by a system of punishment and reward, and can remeber past experiences and form simple concepts. You must teach your Norn how to live on its own by tickling it or saying "yes" to good behavior, or slapping it and saying "no" to things you want to discourage. Take the example of teaching your Norn to eat food for the first time. First you would show the Norn some cheese or a carrot and make sure he's paying attention to it. Then you tell him repeatedly "food" until he learns what it's called. Finally you tell him to "push food" in order to eat it. (The verb "eat" is used only in the sequels to this game; for now, you tell a Norn to "push" stuff whenever you want him to do something with it.) And once he eats the food, you reward him, and he links this reward to eating, and will be more likely and able to feed himself in the future.

After a few minutes, you and your Norn can set out the explore the world. There are vehicles your Norn can use to get around. Birds flutter about, fish patrol the ocean, and honey can be gathered from the bees' hives. Your Norn may catch a disease and possibly pass it on to others. There are herbs he can eat to get better, or toxic look-alikes that will make him sick or even kill him. Toys of various kinds are scattered about the landscape. And of course there is the mean, ugly, nasty Grendel, whose only goal in life is to beat up your Norns, eat all their food, inject them with glycotoxin and spread disease. It is possible to teach and raise a Grendel just like a Norn...

Later, your Norns can breed and produce natural eggs. With each passing generation, Norns differ slightly from the previous generation, allowing them to continuously adapt, evolve, and improve. You can use various applets to monitor your Norns. And when they die, you can even set up a tombstone for them, complete with a picture of the Norn and an epithet.

This is a complex game, and not recommended for people who want simple, quick, and consistent results. This is a game that models real life, even if it does so in a way you cannot understand or don't want to happen. There are many different chemicals and genes that affect how your Norns work...part of the fun is figuring out what they do.

This is a game I have been playing for a really long time now, and I definitely intend on getting the sequels sometime soon. If you can, be sure to at least give this game a try.

What kind of Norn will YOU raise?

Great Game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: September 26, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Lots of fun no matter how old you are, and it's at a great price. The graphics aren't the best, but this game will work on almost any computer. It's a ton of fun, and very addictive. It can be very challenging at times, and it's always fun to play.

I Like Creatures

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: December 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I Did'nt like creatures cause I did'nt know what it was about till now it is the greatest game in the whole world!

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