«
»

The uncensored truth about Creatures 4

Hi Creatures fans!

We’re finally back from Gamescom and it’s been an incredibly exhausting yet satisfying experience. The Creatures 4 team worked extremely hard to get the game to the state it was at the show and while we’re still far from our goal, most of the guys on the team have not slept for some time and really worked their ass off to deliver the demo on time.

Since the lid on the project PR has been lifted I can now talk more freely about the game and give you most of the information you’ve been eagerly waiting for. Before reading on, please keep in mind a couple of important points:

Creatures 4 is more than a new chapter in the series. It’s a complete reboot for the Creatures IP and this means several things I will tackle in this post; most of all, it means that we wish the game to be an evolving product which will hopefully stay with us a long time. Free-to-play games  live as long as there are players to support them and who allow us developers to listen to community requests and feedback to make the game better and richer with content. We see the initial version of the game as a starting point which we will improve upon with updates and new content.

So, let’s get to it…

How the Creatures 4 project was born and what about Mr.Grand

We get this question quite a lot and it’s a good starting point in my opinion. Thanks to some community members, I‘ve learned there have been previous attempts to revive the Creatures games in the past (commercially I mean) with at least another development studio on the project. Surprisingly, Creatures 4 is in no way related to any previous attempts to create a new Creatures game.

Actually the project’s idea came from Fishing Cactus. Several of us here are fans of the series and at one point we were talking about which “old” game series would fit in today’s ever-shifting gaming market. Creatures was one of these and we decided to try our luck and contact Gameware about it.

While understandably on the fence about it at first, Gameware was very open about discussing ideas and their stance was “surprise us and we’ll talk”. It took Fishing Cactus some time but we finally came up with a very early, new vision for the game, one that was based on current gaming trends: iOS, Facebook, free to play and whatnot. This was almost two years ago.

I think that our work convinced Gameware that we meant good and that they could trust us with the project and allowed us to go ahead and search a funding partner for the game.

Some months later, Bigben Interactive came into play. When we pitched the project to them, very quickly they saw potential into the project and how passionate we were about it and decided to move forward with us. For those that don’t know Bigben, this is a publisher that traditionally works on game accessories and accessories-related games. Free to play and AI-simulations aren’t their cup of tea and their willingness to take on this adventure with us says a lot about their belief in the project. On top of that, their knowledge of merchandising and accessories made awesome stuff like the Gamescom figurines possible. Hopefully we’ll get to do many more figurines and goodies when the game is released: Creatures 4 is a game that is suited to this kind of collectibles.

Another question we’re getting a lot (understandably) regards Mr. Steve Grand involvement with the project. This will disappoint some of you but up to this point we’ve had no contact with Mr.Grand and I don’t think he is related in any “official” way to the Creatures series anymore but I’m not privy to the details there so don’t flame me about this (you can about other stuff though ;-) ). We are very respectful of the work he and his team have accomplished and we’re definitely carrying this over to Creatures 4.

To answer a very passionate email about it sent to us by CosmicSpore, yes, he’ll be in the credits as most of our work is based on the incredible things he did with the series waaaaay before we got to it. The more we get our hands in the original code, the more impressed we are with it and there’s no way we’re not acknowledging that.

If you’re still not convinced, Fishing Cactus is betting a lot on this project: up to some time ago we were mainly focusing on the mobile market while moving slowly to consoles and generally “bigger stuff”. As of now, Creatures 4 is our biggest project yet and we see it as THE project that will allow a small indie developer like us to emerge in a very crowded market where we learned that the best way to succeed is by listening to the players while keeping a strong focus.

Creatures 4 is as much a big deal for you as it for us, we’ve been living 24/7 with this game for several months and we still have a long way go, there’s no way we could do that without loving it so much. For the anecdote, Julien Hamaide, our chief engineer, was happy to bar “working on the Creatures AI” from his “things to do before I die list”.

Some facts about the release date and supported platforms

The game is planned to be released at the start of next year on iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPodTouch), PC (online client), Mac (AppStore, online client). I’m vague about a date as we need to see how much time we still need to accomplish the quality we’re aiming for. We are still investigating the online platforms for PC to see which one answers our needs the best.

Many people are requesting Android/PS3/Toaster/Fridge ports. All of these are possible but nothing’s set yet and we’ll need to see the response to the game before taking any decisions. Ultimately Bigben calls the shots in regards to financial decisions.

A boxed version will be released for PC shortly after the online release. It will include all the old chapters in the series (1, 2, 3, DS at least), a goodies of some sort and the equivalent of the game’s price in in-game credits. We don’t have more details about this yet.

Graphics and World

It’s 3D, yey!

Seriously, it’s more than a simple makeover as we hope we’ll be able to make the Norns feel even more alive with current animations techniques which are obviously more advanced than what was possible with 2D sprites. Think about facial animations for example.

There will be 5 environments to play on the game’s release. You saw the treehouse, I can say there’ll be a “hatchery” environment and more details about the other three will come in time. We’re definitely taking notes of your suggestions on Facebook though J

We’re still thinking about the ecology and what to make of it. Our idea is that it needs to be linked to the gameplay to be relevant and more integrated with the content.  We know it’s a big part of the Creatures appeal but in our opinion in can be made more relevant to game itself and more than simple decoration.

 

Free to play model

This is a big point and one of the main differences with the previous games. Creatures 4 is a free-to-play game and this means several things that will most likely shock/upset/depress those of you that are completely happy with a classic buy-to-play game.  Please give it the benefit of the doubt; the transition might be easier than you think. We’re ourselves a bunch of hardcore gamers and we haven’t sold our soul to the devil or whatever, we just think this model works both for us and the user base.

  • A Creatures 4 online profile will be required to play so that the game will be able to keep track of all the relevant data (progress, currency, etc.)
  • There will be a leveling system linked to the player’s progress. The player’s level will increase as in-game goals are completed. Higher levels mean new unlocked content in the Shop and in the machines (more customization options for example).
  • There will be an in-game Shop that will house all the content you will be able to insert into the game: toys, genetic mutators, food, medicine… Most of this is still being designed so don’t take this as final.
  • There will be two currencies in the game: Coins, which are gathered in-game with various interactions. Golden Eggs which are either received in the game on special occasions or bought in packs from the in-game Shop in exchange for real money. Golden Eggs will allow buying some stuff from the Shop (a payment option in Coins will be available too) and speed up production cycles in machines.
  • All the content will be free, provided you have enough Coins/Golden Eggs to pay for items in the shop. Most (if not all) the content will be available for a set number of Coins so you can get all the content just by playing. Players willing to get things faster than they would by simply playing the game will have the option to do that by spending Golden Eggs. Practical example, let’s say you want your hatchery to create a new Egg, it will take a variable amount of time depending on the Norn breed you chose. You will be able to speed the hatching process by using a Golden Egg or simply waiting for it to complete.

For those of you that are familiar with social games, the model we chose is fairly classic stuff. I know some of you see it as controversial as social games have several detractors. In truth we believe this business model has several advantages. First of all it makes the game really accessible to a lot of players who can play the game for free and still experience all the content. Not all gamers know about Creatures and this is the best way to get people on board (after delivering a great game of course).  Also, to give you a little bit of developer’s insight, one of the reasons we chose the free-to-play model is that it ensures we’re getting a regular income that will allow us to provide continuous updates to the game and do some basic stuff like, you know, eat :)

A full-content “pay 50$ to play” version is definitely possible in the future but not planned at the moment.

 

State of the demo

The state of the Gamescom demo was very early in terms of polish. We wanted to introduce the player to some of the game features and by doing that we ended up driving the player through a series of guided steps. In hindsight, we probably should have offered a simple sandbox with the Norns living and doing their Norn-ish things.

Still, it was really heart-warming to see people laugh in front of the game. Creatures 4 seemed quite popular with women and kids!

The customization interfaces you saw were meant to show our system’s possibilities in terms of procedural texturing and body morphing. While we will offer the player a lot of customization options, these will come progressively as the player levels up. Natural breeding (no customization) will still play a big role as it will be the only mean to get unexpected results like random mutations and so on.

Complexity vs Accessibility

The Creatures games have always been very complex. Creatures 3 was awesome in many ways but it also managed to lose a lot of players due to its complexity. One of our major goals is to build on the existing foundations while making the series accessible to a new audience. No easy feat let me tell you!

The major change here will be a series of objectives which will need to be completed to advance and unlock new content. These will be designed to be very short-term and initially they will offer guidance among all the game features and mechanics before opening up to the full sandbox experience.  This won’t be a tutorial but an evolutionary process that will give you all the tools to achieve what you want in the game.

Achievements will be a part of it too and will encourage experimenting with the tools and machines.

AI and DNA

It’s still all here, rest assured. We’re recoding some of the tools for ourselves. We’re certainly not dumbing this down, but we’re still thinking about what the players will be able to do with all this from inside the game and how to keep it reasonably simple to grasp (those of you that messed with Norn genetics know it can be pretty daunting right?).

Proof below …

 

User Generated Content

This one’s another critical point. We know the importance of it for the Creatures community but it’s simply not possible for us to support user-generated content on the initial release.

First of all, badly handled, user generated content would be disruptive for the game as it would mess up the free-to-play-model balancing. Secondly, working on tools to make the game open to modification is a big deal: it requires a lot of time and a larger investment than we can afford right now without being sure the game will meet a large enough audience first.

Don’t lose hope though; we have some ideas on how to open the game in the future: we’re looking at what Valve did with Team Fortress, allowing users to produce and distribute content in the game and actually support that process. There are very good ideas there and we’ll be looking in that direction in the coming months.

And also, hopefully the customization options in the game will keep you busy in the meantime :)

 

Norn races, Ettins, Grendels

As you’ve probably heard/read, we’re bringing our own ideas to the Creatures world, with 5 Norn breeds, two of which were available in the Gamescom demo. Each breed will be linked to an environment and will have a unique visual look.

We’ve come up with a breeding system that allows mixing these Norn breeds to create millions of combinations in terms of color, fur, body shape and genetics.

While Grendels and Ettins won’t be in the initial release of game, I think it’s pretty much clear that they’re high up in the wanted features list of the community and thus high up in our todo list as well for after the game is released. Once again it all comes down to how the game will perform.

 

Social features

I can’t go into much detail about this at the moment but we’re definitely including some social features (sharing Norns is the first on the list). Again, more info about this soon.

That’s it…

I think I’ve touched the major points.  Feel free to comment but please don’t get mad if we’re not answering…

We don’t have a community manager here so we’re taking time off from production to handle emails and comments. This is not ideal and soon a dedicated Creatures 4 website will be available so we’ll be able to better answer your questions about the game.

Before ending this post, let me express our gratitude: we are doing our best to deliver a great game and your support matters a great deal to us. So do what you can to spread the word, I’m confident that in the end both you and us will be happy on how the game will turn out.



This entry was posted on Monday, August 22nd, 2011 at 6:39 pm and is filed under Announcement, Company Life, Creatures 4. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

← Older Comments
  • http://www.fishingcactus.com Andrea Di Stefano

    @Sfot

    Ha, believe it or not, this was NOT done on purpose :)

  • http://www.fishingcactus.com Andrea Di Stefano

    @netdroid9

    As we’ve said, it is possible that we’ll be looking into ways to allow user generated content once the game is released. As you can easily guess, I can’t go into too much detail on how we secure the game content (you’re right, we can’t risk unbalancing the game with custom content since that would mean giving away the game for free, not a solid business plan unfortunately). but basically part the content will be in the game but part of it will be online to make sure the session is legit.

    I know this point is controversial at the moment, especially given the mod-friendly tradition in the series, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let us release the game and we’ll see from there what the options are.

  • ChosenPredator

    I pray to the creature gods that you guys end up allowing user controlled content and have some sort of agreement thing if any of the items are f’ed….like I’ve been saying perhaps something like Blizzard is doing with the Diablo 3 Auction house except user created content and you guys take a percent

  • jsd0108

    It has been over 3 months since this article was posted which stated that there would be a dedicated creatures 4 website soon.

    Over 2 weeks ago, Andrea, said there would be some news very soon. Can we get an eta on “soon”?

    The longer you go with no information, the less confidence I have in Fishing Cactus to pull this game off successfully. If taking time to build excitement about your product is too much to manage, then what hope is there for your product which I would imagine is infinitely more complicated than product updates?

  • jsd0108

    Also, on an semi-related topic, if Fishing Cactus develops games for Mac and iOS, then why does the website contain flash content that can’t be played on a Mac or iOS device? Shouldn’t you be including HTML5 support also?

  • Vanthorius

    Don’t mind at all, after all this is the series that I wasted most of my childhood on. Oh, please add a mobile payment option like Boku. I’ll happily throw my money at you so you can make this game as addictive as it was in my childhood. Keep up the great work! :D

  • James Studdart

    I was hugely into this game series way back when. I created many new species and also created a lot of CoBs for C2… I was even in the process of creating BoBCoB for C3/DS but it never got finished as C3/DS bombed.

    I am sadly disappointed about what I have read about C4, If I’m to be brutally honest…

    This game looks like it will be C3/DS all over again but with better graphics… and it wasnt the complexity that sank C3/DS it was simply that they had removed the main points that made C2 the game it was.
    They then aimed the game series at younger and younger kids which again missed the whole ethos behind the game.

    I undoubtedly will download the game and give it a go, but I am very much afraid that this just isnt going to be the game it should be.

    I too am a developer and I understand the staged releases, but with this type of game arent you going to lose a lot of people simply because features arent there from the start that should be? after all, the number one rule when releasing a new version of anything is “Never remove a features, you should improve on them or add more”

    I would even be willing to pay for the game, if it was released with ALL the components that, in my opinion, should be included.

    I continue to watch with bated breath…

  • Colin Wright

    As someone who is more interested in A-life in a scientific way I find Mr Grands new Grandroids project more interesting to be honest, as it’s an attempt to progress. this sounds like they’ve turned it into something like a MOO and the scientific interest has gone from it as a result.

    google Grandroids though anyone really interested in cognition or A-Life should find that fascinating.

  • Kat_05

    I’m glad the Creatures mantle has been taken up again, and fully intend to puchase whatever is necessary to get my old Creatures games again. I really hope this doesn’t turn into another MMO or farmville. I hate those games. I’m willing to give these guys a shot though.

    Thank you Cactus!

  • Kirran

    Hi,
    Really happy to hear that a new Creatures is finally coming out :) And in 3D!

    I’m not going to be all ‘this isn’t exactly like Creatures 1-3, so it must be terrible’ but I do have a couple questions.

    1) When you say microtransactions, what kind of level of money is that?

    2) How does the coins system work? As in, do we have to pick them up? Do we tell the norns to pick them up? Or are they just awarded to us when we do stuff, or over time (Venture Africa, anyone?)?

    3) How well can we get by without Golden Eggs?

    4) How possible will it be to create alternative game servers, in case the game is discontinued?

    Those are my only real questions, the game looks awesome!
    Dunno what you guys are talking about, I think the new Norns look way cooler, and I’ve been playing Creatures games for almost ten years now.

  • Tiitha

    I really hope this won’t play like a Facebook app. There’s no sustenance or challenge to them at all! Social games are actually dying down because people are losing interest.

    I own all previous Creatures game, but I wouldn’t mind getting all 3 again so I can play them on Windows 7. I’ll have to see how this one turns out.

  • Kapura

    I am hesitantly optimistic about creatures 4. I was hooked by C3/DS and my kids and I still fool around with our norns occasionlly. Disappointed with no third-party system right away and no ettins/grendals at first, but if the genetics and A-life features are not messed up I will be happy with that for a while.

    I will for sure be getting this when it comes out. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time and what I see so far gives me hope that the creatures legacy can live on.

  • http://www.prophetsix.com Travis

    a few minor questions… will any of the breeds have tails? how big are each of the terrains? is the hatchery really one of the 5 terrains? Will there be night and day efffects? will there still be weather effects like in the previous entries? since grendels wont be in the start of the game will there still be some sort of threat? how advances is the ecology? Will we still have a wide array of critters and plantlife? Thank you!

  • MS

    I would like to state that I was one of the original Creatures fans and I have been waiting many years for something that lives up to the originals. If you guys rereleased an updated creatures 2, you would be much better off then trying to turn this into one of those lame freemium games (which makes me nauseous). Something open, with all the previous features is what I think most people are looking for. Also don’t under estimate the power of having those few really rare genes that you couldnt wait to get your hands on and mixed into your gene pool. That was half the fun of the original creature series. You have a cult following out there but you have to pay respects to the originals if you hope to tap into that enthusiasm.

    Creatures probably play a big part in my college selection of molecular biology as a major. I’m begging you to do justice to this series as it rightfully deserves.

  • Amj

    I love this game! Can’t wait! Should be soon huh..?

  • Sci-Me

    Im 15, and i have played a lot of Spore and other evolution based games, this game however promises the genetic side of evolution. There is one thing i must ask, will diseases play a role? This would enable disease-resistance genes to be thrown into the miz!

  • charade539

    I’ll be honest, the way I’m reading this, it’s going to play like a glorified Facebook game, isn’t it? I would be willing to bet the ‘tasks’ set to you will require you to spend money to complete. Also, it wasn’t the complexity of Creatures 3 that made people drop the game, it was the lack thereof. It was the exact ‘must complete these tasks to unlock game content’ that you are adding to your game right now. The very fact that C1 and C2 were difficult and complicated was what we loved about them.

    On to questions..

    Will there be diseases?
    Will the norns have limited lifespans?
    Will we be better off just buying a Petz game and being done with it or will we actually have control over our creature’s genetics/potions/injections/etc other than breeding them?

    I’m sorry if I sound bitter, but reading that article above was a very optimistic, flowery way of telling us that you’re dumbing the game down and turning it into another Petz or Nintendogs. Why? We’ve got those. Give us Creatures!

  • http://www.fishingcactus.com Andrea Di Stefano

    @Sci-Me, @charade539: Hi, I guess you will have to wait for the game to see if it plays as something you like :) There are some elements that will remind of you of other, more causal, free to play games like timers but we won’t block the game and leave you with nothing to do.
    We’re simplifying some things and adding short-term goals for sure, but we want to keep the sanbox element to a certain extent. We are also putting a lot of effort in making the game more readable and understandable.

    Diseases: yes
    Limited Life Span: yes
    Control: you will definitely be able to inject stuff. Control over genetics will be there, mostly limited to visual properties of the norn initially (race, patterns, colors etc.) and will likely evolve to match the community requests. Of course, everything in the Norns will be passed on in the genetic code to successive generations.

  • Jb1

    Cant wait.. Any ideas of a date yet? I think it must be Q2 2012 about now! :)

  • charade539

    @Andrea Di Stefano: That’s what I’m afraid of. The ‘casual, free to play’ game style means you log in, click a few things, run out of energy (or in your case whatever that ‘timer’ is) and go do something else. And I’m sure you won’t ‘block’ the game, you’ll just require us to buy more ‘energy’ or certain ‘items’ necessary to continue moving forward.

    And once again, that’s what I’m afraid of…the genetics. Breed two norns and the entirety of the genetics is dumbed down to what color their toes will be. What about intelligence? Aggressiveness? Disease resistance? Petz 4 (oldschool PFMagic version) let you breed your dogz, but all it did was give you physical differences. You fed them, petted them, sprayed them when they were bad, and taught them tricks. Creatures is bigger than that. Way bigger.

    Also…please listen to your community. We’re begging you here. Be the one game developer on the face of the planet who actually pays attention to their players and we’ll love you forever. Seriously, I know you read the comments, look at these excerpts from previous comments:

    “I really hope this doesn’t turn into another MMO or farmville.”

    “I really hope this won’t play like a Facebook app.”

    “I rather have the FULL complete game and not half a game that we’ll have to pay infinite incriminates on”

    “Also having to pay for “Golden Eggs” to “Accelerate” the game sounds like a complete load of rubbish!”

    “Free to Play gives us no security whatsoever for our purchases if the company shuts it down or as they say now a days “Sunset the Product”, so If I play I will never be tempted again to sink my money into anything that does not provide me with an offline tangible version.”

    “When you mention “facebook games,” this worries me a little bit.”

    “Sorry Fishing Cactus, PC games are just not the same as apps”

    “I also do hope the level-unlock and goal/mission thing won’t resemble too much like online RPG/MMORPG,
    because that means sitting infront the computer more then you do for the regular creatures games ^^’”

    “The ability to alter your norn colours at birth (which is not true to the game without a science kit and skill), having to purchase items and collect coins and eggs along with the game purely being an online one all seem to draw the game further and further away from the original games which were the success and i cant help but feel this is heading towards a cheap online imitation. ”

    “Uhh… another facebook game…”

    “I just hope it’s not to crazy with the coin stuff some of those facebook/browser based games depend so heavily on even moving and inch forward without dropping some money,”

    “Okay, please, please, please, just tell me that this whole “online platform” thing isn’t going to based on something like Facebook(That it’ll be an actual program on your computer), and that this “waiting for Eggs hatching” isn’t going to turn my Creatures game into Farm Ville?”

    Sure, maybe microtransactions are a good way to make money fast, but once the newness wears off you’ll just have another game nobody wants to spend money on because it’s just like every other Farmville or Nintendogs. We have those already, there’s lots of those out there on the market. Make us something special, and we’ll love it, because let’s be honest, you can either completely lose your existing fanbase in an effort to bring in a wider group of people who will only passingly enjoy it, or you can cater to the people who will happily empty their wallets for something they love.

  • FreakVenDor

    I really hope this game doesn’t get stripped of the genetic and scientific aspect. It was great when I was younger being able to explore DNA, genetics, deal with disease, mutations and figure out why or how this happened. It was as much fun as it was a learning game. I’ve been waiting for a new creatures game since I was 14 or so. Now I’m 26 and I’m really hoping they don’t strip this game and whore it out for money in the way most facebook-type apps do.

    I wish they could just package it all together and sell it as a full game which I would happily buy. I can’t stand when you are lured into making micro transactions to progress in a game. Of course you don’t have to pay anything if you don’t want to, but those who refuse to pay for golden eggs or whatever else get crapped on because they can’t progress in a natural way.

  • Tim Greene

    If I I need to buy things all the time like the zynga games on facebook I probably can’t afford it.

  • Booooooooo

    I understand that you want to make that quick cash out of a pay to win Facebook Zygna bs game. Those games annoy the crap out of me. Pay for some energy and you can keep playing! Herp Derp. Come on now? This is insulting to Steve Grand and his legacy of Creatures. No third party development……because they could just create third party versions of the items you sell. This is not good for the consumer. Businesses have forgotten about the consumer and just think about the money nowadays. This is what leads to your game not doing well. I’m not a huge participant in the Creatures Community. I check in every once in a while to see how it is going. From what I can tell, this game will not play like the community will want it to. You are just pandering to small children who will use their parents’ credit cards to buy energy to keep playing this game. Shame on you. Greedy Jerks. You ruined Creatures 4. Don’t call it Creatures 4. Call it Creatures: The Facebook Pay to Win Experience. That way, when a studio comes along and decides to get serious about the series…..they can name it Creatures 4 and be legit.

  • DisappointedShee

    What do you expect, they didn’t even get the norn to look right, someone should just modernize C2, put in the good elements in C3/DS and then call THAT C4 because this game (and don’t tell me not to judge it coz it’s not out yet) is not gonna last half that long. All your months-long 24/7 on developing this will surely net you some quick cash (maybe even hit your ROI targets) but your product life cycle will be really steep.

  • Booooooooo

    I know. The old norn look was perfect. Why did they change it? Just upgrade the graphics. I remember buying Creatures 3 when I was still in middle school. Have a lot of memories with that game. With today’s technology, the Creatures AL capability is even greater than when Creatures 3/DS were released. More complex machines can be made as well. The third party support would have been amazing. Third party agents and rooms were what made creatures 3/ds. Jungle Norns for the win! Aqua Norns! What they have done with creatures 4 is pretty much summed up by the episode of South Park about Indiana Jones.

  • charade539

    The thing is, I can understand that you have to take everything we say with a grain of salt. I get it, listening to the fans can sometimes lead to bad decision making. BUT, I’m not complaining about the look of the game, or nitpicking that it isn’t a precise copy of the older games with updated graphics…I’m saying outright that we, as the fans, are onto your scheme to make money by nickel and diming us to death, and that in today’s economy, we’d all much rather spend $30 on a sure thing than $5 a month on a product we can’t be certain will stick around. I still have my old Creatures disks, and I recently repurchased the games on gog.com so that I could have an updated, DRM-free version that I could play on Windows 7 without difficulty. An online only game that requires microtransactions? Why would I spend money on that? What if you tank and you shut down your server? All that money I spent is gone. And you can’t tell me you won’t ever fail, not when businesses much bigger than you are have fallen in the past few years. So what happens when that happens? Do we get left out to dry? I sure as heck am not going to lay down cash on something I can’t keep.

  • http://csadlowski.weebly.com Disappointed

    I’m very sad to read all this news. I got VERY excited when I first heard of Creatures 4 a months back I guess. But this is all sounding fishy to me and making me nervous. I still play Creatures 3 and Docking Station. I fell in love with the series when I was a kid and it was first released in the weird box that was like a big cube. I fell even harder in love with Creatures 2. The look, the feel, the UI, the GUI, everything about that game was simply perfect. Creatures 3 is still very fun but it’s just missing something. Creatures 4 could recapture the series and make it even better given our current technology but I’d rather go to the store, spend 30 or 40 bucks on the game, install it, and start downloading the crap out of user created CoB’s and sharing stories and such with othe rplayers. if this could be done from all within the game (that I will NEVER spend a hot cent on a microtransaction BTW) that will be all the sweeter. It just seems they’re trying to take the concept and everything great about it and shoe horn it into some business model that is just now starting to show the cracks and come undone. Creatures 4, expansion packs, and that sort of stuff I’ll pay for if they’re worth it. I’ve done it with the Sims 3 and other games. I’m just not very pleased with what I’m seeing now…

  • Zoe

    oh my god, everyone shut the fuck up about how you would rather have creatures 2: the remake. you already have that game. you aren’t satisfied with it. if they just did that, /that/ would be a corrupt and terrible thing to do.

    it is NOT going to be dumbed down. there will just be things teaching you how to do more and more strange things, that, to be frank, i never got to do.

    though i do miss the patchwork aesthetic of the old games, that won’t be completely gone! no, just elaborated on. this part seems like it will be more complex than before, rather than less. when you breed, instead of a norn inheriting the head of the mother and the head color of the father, eye shapes and color, nose size and color, and fur color can be independent. and arm fur would be independent from ear fur color and head fur color, but only if a gene activates this independence.

    i hope hair will be a feature later on. i started playing with docking station game and those norns had hair. it looks pretty to me.

  • Pingback: About Creatures 4 | Creatures 4 You

  • Zujea

    as a 29 YO gamer that has played the first real 3 games…. *sigh* all i have read so far makes me glad i lived through the golden age of games… the “reboot” idea thats gettin around is whats killing content and leaving us in an age of facebook games and shallow empty cash grabs….

  • jaclyn fabing

    Be quiet about living through the “Golden Age” of games. You’re blinded by your stupid childhood, and you just think everything back then was great because you were a little kid.
    I got the first Creatures game when I was very little, though I’d forgotten about it and never got the others, but honestly after remembering the game and how fun it was(and is), I’m excited. They’re adding lots of new things, and to be honest, I’m just happy that there’s going to finally be a modern game that revolves around something like this. I haven’t gotten anything like this since the Chao Garden in Sonic Adventure 2.

  • Frenzi

    I really can’t wait! I don’t know what people are moaning about; I know they said that it’s free and you have the option to buy certain objects with real money (and I admit I was quite worried when reading that) but the fact that that is only and OPTION and not the one way path like all of those free-but-not-at-all-free games. And I know it’s different from the other games but we should atleast give it a try before abandoning the whole idea of a new game.

  • charade539

    Yes, go get a job. How about those of us who HAVE jobs and would prefer to spend our money on a quality product instead of a cheap cash-in? On top of that, yes, some items will be purchasable with in-game money, and some will require you to spend real money on ‘golden eggs’ so you can get them. And I’m sorry…have you ever been on Facebook? Looked at their games? A ‘micro’ transaction isn’t 5 cents…it’s more like 8 dollars. Did you not read the article at all? Also, it will not be ‘obviously’ run offline if they tank, nothing in the article or anywhere in any of the developer’s replies state this, you are making assumptions, and considering that DS is currently down and utterly unplayable without a major workaround because it no longer has a working server, even your example is a bust.

    I’ll just keep my eye on Grandroids, maybe if we’re lucky we’ll actually see something worthwhile come of it instead of yet another cheap facebook game.

← Older Comments