Where to get it

1998 · Bundle / compilation · Creature Labs · Artificial life · Biological simulation

Creatures 2

Bundle / compilation

Discover a large, living landscape - the surface a world called Albia. You exist in this world only as a virtual presence, a sort of remote-control existence, which the computer portrays as a hand-shaped mouse cursor. In this world are a range of locations and strange creatures, related loosely (and with considerable poetic license) to Northern myth. You begin near to the long-abandoned home of a family of Norns (small furry creatures), where a few eggs, languishing in a broken-down incubator, are almost all that remains of the Nornir race.

Released: 30 September 1998
Platforms: Windows
Genres: Artificial life Biological simulation God game Simulation
Developers: Creature Labs
Publishers: Mindscape
Series: Creatures
Modes: Single-player
Country: United Kingdom
Languages: English
Entry: #2 in Creatures
Time to beat: 12hmain story13hcompletionist
Composers: Peter Chilvers

About

Creatures 2 is the second game in the Creatures artificial life game series made by Creature Labs, and the sequel to the 1996 game Creatures. It features three species: the cute, dependent Norns, the cantankerous Grendels and the industrious Ettins. The game tries to simulate life, and includes a complex two-dimensional ecology of plants, animals and insects, which provide the environment for the three main species to live and develop in. The player interacts with the world using a hand-shaped cursor, and tries to encourage the creatures' development by manipulating various objects around the world, guiding the creatures using the cursor and encouraging the creatures to speak.

Many new gameplay features included in Creatures 2 not present in the original game include a new physics model and a global weather system, along with brand new applets and a world twice the size of the Creatures 1 world.

Players say

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Like the other games in the series, Creatures 2 is mostly open-ended, with no predetermined goals, allowing the player to raise Norns at their own pace. In each new world, the player begins in the incubator cavern area. The hatchery, one of the game's in-built applets, allows the player to add Norn eggs to the world, which can be hatched via the incubator. Norns may also be downloaded from the internet and imported in to use in the game.

Once Norns reach adolescence at around an hour old, they are ready to breed, and female Norns will begin an oestrogen cycle. When Norns mate, there is a long kissing sound with a pop at the end – known as a kisspop. Like real life, not all mating results in a pregnancy. The Norn reproductive process can be monitored via the Breeder's Kit.

Development

Creatures 2's release was widely anticipated. It is likely that around 450,000 copies of the original Creatures had been sold by the time the game was released, and a huge following had developed behind it. The "Early Adoption Program", a promotion where 250 copies of Creatures 2 were given away prior to its official release in September 1998, was scheduled to begin in July 1998, but was pushed back as the game was not close to release quality at the point at which the EAP was scheduled to start. In the end, most received their copies several weeks after the release date.

The creatures themselves had been provided with "considerably more sensory input, more actions they can take, and improved brain dynamics". The game world included a "complete working eco-system".

Reception

200,000 copies of Creatures 2 were immediately shipped upon its release. Creatures 2 was considered "much more difficult" than C1, and the new, more challenging environment and Norn biology was described as frustrating, but that after installing a new genome and going through successive generations, the Norns seemed smarter. Nick Walkland described the gameplay as a "labour of love", noting that the challenge was to sustain your Norns' lives. Sid Fisk of Gamezilla criticized the audio for Creatures 2 for not alerting him when his creature was near-death, but playing a "funeral dirge" as the body left the screen.