If I had to pick one, C1 would be my favorite too. It was much more…mmm…intimate and peaceful. That said, I love the critters!

The last comment about the gestation period is quite true. In Creatures 1, I really enjoyed the long pregnancies and having to take care of the Norns. Granted, “long” really isn’t the correct term, for I think it takes around 10 real-time minutes. In Creatures 2 and 3, the pregnancies seemed to last only a few breaths. This helped in moving forward with the generations more quickly, but it really took away from the connected feeling I had with my C1 Norns. Even now, I still prefer Creatures 1 because it feels less like a science experiment, and more like a living world where the hand’s presence matters. Third-party additions have really improved upon C2 and C3/DS, though, and I still enjoy playing them. There’s just something about the original Creatures that seems to make players feel much more connected to the world. Hopefully Creatures 4 will have some of these elements, and more!

Good luck with the continued development!

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.

I’ve always bred my Norns in alphabetical generations, breeding the weirdest ones, or ones with the most point mutations or whatever criteria. I made it to Gen H once, before some fatal error deleted the world. One day, I’ll make it to Z, that’s my goal.

Thing I miss most about C1: Gestation time. Its was longer in C1. You would go check the pregnancy indicator and the numbers would crawl by and the whole time you’d be fussing over the Norn, hoping it didn’t eat a mushroom and die before the numbers got to eight. It was the most exciting part of the game. In C3, they just pop them out in under 2 minutes. Boring I say!

Thing that I love about C3: The biochemistry kit.

Thing I hate about C3: They eat all the carrots.

I think you have to check out some games with slight similarities and see how they dealt with repetitive nature of things – something that makes you not want to leave the game and come back again to see whats happening that is different from before…evolving the world would be interesting just like no same person has the same experience in black & white…I just hope the developers do things that shock them, like i’ve been saying – this is their Fatality move game it’s going to be huge

The coolest thing I achieved in C1 was that I created immortal norns. That system is long since dead I did it on but I had several norns with 100% life. I made a copy of one of my favorite norns and led him to the death cap mushroom out of morbid curiosity. I coaxed him into eating it and his life dropped to 99%! He ran babbling all the way back to the nursery area and refused to leave. His life did eventually pop back up to 100%.

I loved creatures 2 because I learned how to make COBS, download content, rewrite the game to do things like flood the volcano or turn it into another garden. It was massively satisfying to be able to design my own game how I wanted it. I loved fan created websites that talked about how things were changed or designed. I have a passion for genetics and biology due to these games and while I didn’t grow up to be a botanist I am a teacher and really wish I could have this game for my students to play.

But anyway, as I continued to play Creatures I knew that it wouldn’t be possible to create Norns who were ‘one of a kind’. Instead I used to spend hours trying to create naturally different coloured Norns who were incredibly intelligent and could effectively act as a leader for the rest of the Norns, I suppose it was sort of successful but the fact the Norns became a little incestuous was rather off-putting. I started hatching new Norn babies roundabout the same time as a Norn baby was born. Don’t get me wrong, it was fun at the time but after many hours and nothing there to surprise me as they reproduced, it became a little repetitive. I have high expectations for Creatures 4, even though I’m older now I want to play it and find it just as interesting as its predecessors (minus Creatures 3?).