| Creatures | |
|---|---|
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| Genre(s) | Life simulation |
| Developer(s) | Creature Labs |
| Publisher(s) | Mindscape |
| Creator(s) | Steve Grand |
| Platform(s) | Windows, Classic Mac OS, Linux, PlayStation, Game Boy Advance |
Creatures is an artificial life video game series created in the mid-1990s by English computer scientist Steve Grand while working for the Cambridge video game developer Millennium Interactive.
The 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. Words can be taught to the creatures by a learning computer (for verbs) or by repeating the name of the object while the creature looks at it. Once a creature understands language, the player can instruct their creature by typing in instructions, which the creature can choose to obey.
A complete life cycle is modeled for the creatures - childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and senescence, each with its own unique needs. The gameplay is designed to foster an emotional bond between the player and their creatures. Rather than taking a scripted approach, the games in the Creatures series were driven by detailed biological and neurological simulation and its unexpected results.
There have been six major Creatures releases from Creature Labs: between 1996 and 2001 there were three main games, the Docking Station add-on (generally referred to as a separate game) and two children's games, and there were three games created for console systems.