What GoG Creatures Means to Us

Unless you haven't been keeping up with any community forums lately, you're probably well aware that the entire Creatures series, divided into The Albian Years, Creatures Village, and Creatures Exodus, is now available to download for $9.99 a game at GOG.com So what does this mean to us?

Creatures is now available, instantly, to just about anyone. No more hunting around for used copies on Ebay or Amazon if something happens to your disks or if you want to introduce the series to a friend!

The entire series has been upgraded to work on newer systems. That's right, these games have been tested on Vista and seem to run flawlessly, and some have gotten the games to work on Windows 7 as well. My Albian Years disk didn't run properly on my XP system (I believe due to video card incompatibility) but the GOG version runs without any problems. Finally, we have a simple way to run older versions of Creatures on newer systems! These two things are wonderful for us, and also have a good chance of impacting the community:

Older community members may return. It's possible that people attached to C1 and C2 that left the community when they stopped working properly may resurface in a fit of nostalgia and say hello. In this way the community may experience some growth.

Newer community members may join. Now with the series available to anyone (and for the moment, featured on GOG's front page!) it's quite possible that the game will be getting more attention and more people will start playing it. This might also result in some growth for the CC. But in order for these things to happen, we as a community need to be the catalyst. If we make an effort to make the most of this, the CC will surely benefit:

Spread the word. Let people know about the Creatures series! Let other CC members know that older versions of Creatures are now playable on Vista, and let potentially interested people know that the games are finally, painlessly available. Don't become a spambot, but do all you can to promote the series and bring others into the community.

Offer support on GOG. As this is where the games are being sold, this is where you're probably going to find a lot of new and confused players. Register on the GOG site and begin offering help and support in the Creatures section of the GOG forums. Be sure to offer lots of helpful links back to community forums so they can meet the rest of us and find additional help and support.

Write a Review. It may seem daunting at first, but having a lot of positive reviews for the games on GOG will do a lot draw even more people in. It's not as difficult as it seems, and it doesn't have to be a writing masterpiece either. Just write a few paragraphs about why you love the game!

This little piece of news has the potential to bring a lot of new faces into the community if we do our best to draw them in, so just remember to welcome newcomers, introduce them to the skull-shaped basket, and do what you can to help them feel at home in our tiny but dedicated community of Creatures fans.