How has the way you play Creatures changed since you started? What has stayed the same? Do you play a different game more, have you picked up a different play style, have you thrown out one species and embraced another?
When Creatures 3 came out, I totally abandoned C2, and when Docking Station was released, I ditched the others as well. For a very long time I was focused entirely on DS and didn't touch the other games at all, with the exception of dabbling a little in C1 when I got a copy of Albian Years. It was actually reading Discover Albia that prompted me to give the original Creatures another go. Then nostalgia brought me back to C2, and even occasionally C3 standalone and Creatures Village. I think I'll always be mostly focused on DS because that's what I'm most comfortable developing for, but I'm a lot more open to playing the other games now, understanding that each has its own charm, and one can never completely replace the other. Maybe eventually I'll do some development for the older games, too.
When I was first starting out with Creatures 2, I did a lot of what might be termed 'norn torture' with the advanced science kit merely in an attempt to figure out exactly how my creatures worked. Wolfling runs were only barely possible until C3 came along and creatures could actually fend for themselves. I remember initially those were a lot of fun-- going to bed at night and hoping some awesomely color-mutated norns will be there in the morning. When the warp was active, it was a ton of fun just swapping random creatures with people and creating a highly diverse world. When I started streaming my worlds, it became a totally new and interesting interactive experience (I always lament that I couldn't make LNA engaging enough to gain much popularity). But after the warp went down, my play styles evolved along with my ability to script stuff. As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm always looking for interesting ways to play. I think I will always fall back on plain old nurturing worlds though, especially in C1/C2.
Funny that species was mentioned-- I've always been almost exclusively a norn person, sometimes to a fault. Maybe that's some bias carrying over from C2, where norns had almost twice as many genes as ettins/grendels and seemed just far more interesting/intelligent in my view, and ever since, I'm guilty of just kind of forgetting that ettins and grendels even exist at all. I've tried to incorporate them into my worlds in the past, but it's a rather conscious effort, and most of the time I just find it simpler to stick to once species.
I completely agree about enjoying the different strengths (and weaknesses) of each game. Although I still prefer C1, I actually enjoy C3/DS as its own game. I used to compare the games and find all the problems with the later titles, yet now I've learned how to play each one differently to enjoy it the most! A lot of your posts and downloads got me more into C3/DS, although I'll always be waving the C1 flag!
ReplyDeleteI also dabbled in the finer points of cyanide poisoning in Creatures 2... Haven't done that in a long time, yet I do remember trying to understand how long a Norn could be unconscious without dying, and how much damage could be done before death occurred. It helped in a few instances when I didn't have to fall all over the place trying to revive a Norn after a few seconds, but I did feel bad when my little experiments resulted in death. Poor little ones!
Hah, 'the finer points of cyanide poisoning,' what a way to put it! I did that often too; seeing how much damage a norn could take before it gave out. I think the ghosts of those norns haunt my harddrive and stick bugs in my project cosfiles and that's why I never get anything done.
Delete