Creatures Online Examined: Part Four
Missed out on any of the previous Creatures Online posts? Take a look at Part One, Part Two, and Part Three to follow along! One of the more promising features of Creatures Online I was looking forward to was the Science Kit. On the surface, it is very similar to its existing counterpart. This graph was used to show how a Norn was suffocating underwater without any air. The issue here is the cost to inject a chemical: Many of us (myself included) likely recall the days of emergency injections, especially in Creatures 2. Time was of the essence. In this case, it will cost coins to inject a Norn with a chemical. This Norn was carried to safety and could breath again without any help, but what if this was a situation where the Norn needed immediate care? The player would need to ensure that enough coins were around to take care of this sort of emergency.
The Hatchery makes a return in Creatures Online, only in a way focused on payment. The Egg Store contains various eggs, each which appears to have a chance of carrying different sorts of genes. The gender of an egg must be chosen, leaving out the random chance that some of the Creatures games offered. Additionally, a player must reach a certain level in order to purchase other eggs. I wasn’t entirely sure what the currency used for these eggs was in the video: Possibly something else to collect? It doesn’t look like the player can choose specific Norn breeds via these eggs.
In the previous Creatures titles, one could store an unlimited number of eggs to hatch. In Creatures Online, there is a very limited amount of storage. Granted, it wasn’t clear whether natural eggs would take up these slots or not. However, the low population limit seems to indicate that the number of Norns must be carefully monitored by the player. Storing a lot of eggs is something that looks to be impossible, unless one would like to pay a lot. Note that the first three buyable slots use coins, while the fourth uses golden eggs… For real money. Not too good.
I could be completely mistaken in what I interpreted from the gameplay video at this point. A Norn named Hilda was the splicing target, and she was only represented by an outline until the splicing process was completed. At that time, a Norn with a very different appearance showed up… Yet this Norn was still named Hilda, and looked to be in the same life stage. So does this mean that splicing a Norn simply replaces his or her genetics? Certainly that seems like an improvement over the instantaneous deaths from the current splicing, but it seems highly unrealistic. I’m willing to let this go, since it really wasn’t clear. Just something to keep in mind when more information is made available. This screenshot looks a bit out of focus because it is presented in its original size, whereas the rest have been resized to be clearer.
As I feared, a Norn egg must be hatched by the player. Perhaps natural eggs can hatch on their own, but no one knows for sure. I was excited about an intriguing hatching process, though the egg basically cracked open after just a few seconds. Certainly the moving blobs in the current Creatures games aren’t that exciting, but they’ve always been rather interesting to me. At least the benefit here is being able to control exactly when an egg hatches. This limits gameplay to those who really enjoy taking the micromanagement route. Wolfling runs still seem to be impossible in Creatures Online, unless natural eggs behave completely differently.
The final hurdle is the required naming of a Norn. Incidentally, we learned that a name can only include a maximum of 16 characters!
And so ends this examination of the Creatures Online video. I didn’t cover every single aspect, although I hope these posts have been useful in understanding some of the potential implications! Everyone will have a different opinion. My own is one that involves having very little to do with this game. There is no artificial life feel to this sort of gameplay, simply coin collecting and farming. I would also like to mention that the genetics, presented as they are, make appearances the most important element. The only non-physical trait appeared to be the ability to breath underwater. The scientific element of Creatures was what made the games so intriguing: I had absolutely no clue what anything meant when I was very young, yet I could still play. When I was older and could understand the concepts, I learned a great deal about biochemistry and genetics. To this day, I still find something new! It makes me rather sad that Creatures Online appears to have very little to do with the heart of Creatures, even after being in development since 2011. Have one more look at the video.
Creatures Online Gameplay 2015
Agree or disagree? I’m sure there are people who are on both sides! I think the most important thing is to keep the original Creatures games going strong. New players to this series might get the wrong idea with Creatures Online, yet I’m sure there are many of us determined to keep Creatures 1, Creatures 2, and Creatures 3/Docking Station as wonderful as ever! I have a number of things keeping me busy now, but 2015 will be a year for me to finish existing projects and work on new ideas. For no matter what, Creatures will always be the door to artificial life with its complexities and intricacies.
Images Credited to Fishing Cactus
There really is an emphasis on their appearance isn’t there? It’s like a Creatures version of the Petz games, which isn’t a bad thing. I love the Petz games, and I love breeding in those games. They just get old after a while, since there really isn’t much depth to them. Even Petz has hexing though, while CO doesn’t seem in the way of modding. I’d like the option to create killer Norns even if I never create them.
Also can you recommend a new RSS feed site/program? The one I’m using now doesn’t update hardly at all, and it’s pretty buggy.
Ah, I hadn’t thought of the parallel to Petz before, but I agree with you! I loved Petz back in the day, yet I also ran into the same trouble of getting bored with the games because they weren’t very deep. I also had a tendency to “collect” certain colors of Petz, which seems to be similar to how Norns are treated in Creatures Online.
As for the RSS feed, do you mean the one associated with this blog? The Feedburner link in the sidebar should be working well, but please let me know if that’s causing problems. I’ve heard good things about Feedly! If that doesn’t help, though, feel free to send me a message via the contact form and I’ll be happy to try to help some more!
Some hate the game, others love it. I feel like CO will make the fandom split in half…
The devs have said wolfling runs will still be possible btw.
I think it brings up a lot of great discussions that will certainly create a bit of a divide, but I’m hoping the community won’t split up! We also haven’t had the opportunity to play it ourselves, which I’m sure will help everyone form more informed opinions. Right now we’re all still guessing about a lot of things.
I do recall the wolfling run discussions from the developers, yet I’m very cautious about what will be possible based on the video. Player interactions seem to be mandatory in many instances. I do agree that they can’t be ruled out completely, although wolfling runs might not be as wide open as they currently are. We’ll see what happens!
All four parts of this analysis were wonderful reads. I agree with almost everything you said. The game is starting to look an awful lot like a glorified Facebook game made by the developers of Farmville. The coin spending deal and thing like achievements wouldn’t be such a bad thing if there wasn’t such a heavy reliance on them. I mean for goodness sake, I shouldn’t have to pay in-game currency to save a Norn from drowning! I get that they have to make their money back somehow seeing it is a “Free to Play” game and all, but it would have been better off as a standard PC game you had to pay for that had DLC, similar to what Gameware did with Creatures 3/Docking Station and the breed add-ons. I am still anticipating its release, and hopefully the final product turns out better than we are expecting, but its so disappointing that the developers seem to be missing the point.
Thank you! Nice to know I’m not alone in my thoughts, although I respect those who genuinely like this game. I would feel a lot better about it if it wasn’t tied into the Creatures series, to be honest. There are some elements from the previous games, but this is a far cry from the game many of us were anticipating. I understand that concessions had to be made for this sort of game… But I’m not planning on playing if this is what the final product is going to be. Judging by the updates we’re seeing, things are down to just fixing bugs and not redoing anything major.
To each their own opinion, though! I tried to keep the original posts mostly objective, although I’m sure my own thoughts made it through. As is becoming clear in other discussions, I think the important thing is to understand that not everyone will agree, but that no one has the wrong opinion. Let this be something to discuss, but not something to create major disagreements and splits in the community.
Hmm, there are a lot of elements in there I’d be pretty unhappy with too. Doubly so since they’ve been saying for years now that they wouldn’t be turning this into a Farmville equivalent.
Fingers crossed there’s a bunch of hidden options to turn these features on/off, depending on your preference. I’ll withhold judgement until I have the game in my hot little hands, but I get less and less optimistic all the time. :(
I’m with you, Arch! I still want to hold out hope for this game, but it’s rather difficult with what’s been presented at this time. Maybe it will appeal to a different sort of player who would never consider Creatures in the past, though. There could be some good that comes from this… Or so I really, really hope!