''Creatures'' is an artificial life simulation packaged as a video game developed by British studio

Creature Labs Guerrilla Cambridge (formerly SCEE Cambridge Studio and Cambridge Studio) was a British video game developer based in Cambridge, England. The studio was founded under Sony Computer Entertainment in July 1997 through the buyout of the game deve ...

for

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, and was ported to

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

, and

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, and to international markets that June. It was later released in mainland China in 2004, under the name iQue Game Boy Advanc ...

. It is the first game in the '' Creatures'' series.

Gameplay

''Creatures'' is a game in which the player can hatch and raise anthropomorphic creatures known as Norns. Notably, the environment was actually a physically constructed model, carefully photographed. This was to keep graphics costs low. ''Creatures'' is an artificial life simulation where the user hatches small furry animals and teaches them how to behave, or leaves them to learn on their own. These "Norns" can talk, feed themselves, and protect themselves against vicious creatures called Grendels. It was the first popular application of

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

in an interactive simulation.

Neural networks A neural network is a group of interconnected units called neurons that send signals to one another. Neurons can be either Cell (biology), biological cells or signal pathways. While individual neurons are simple, many of them together in a netwo ...

are used by the creatures to learn what to do. The game is regarded as a breakthrough in artificial life research, which aims to model the behavior of creatures interacting with their environment. According to Millennium, every copy of ''Creatures'' contains a unique starting set of eggs, whose genomes are not replicated on any other copy of the game. An expansion pack, called "Life Kit #1" was released for purchase later.

Development

The game was in development for four years.

Reception

The PlayStation version received "unfavorable" reviews according to the

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website

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. However, ''

Next Generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

'' said that the PC version "offers one of the most obsessive and entertaining experiences anyone can have in front of the computer." ''

The Electric Playground ''EP Daily'' (formerly ''The Electric Playground'') is a daily news television show that covers video games, movies, TV shows, comic books, collectibles and gadgets. Created and executive produced by host Victor Lucas, and his Vancouver, British ...

'' gave the same PC version universal acclaim, over a month before it was released Stateside. The PC version sold 100,000 units by November 1997. At the time, John Moore of Mindscape explained that the company "expect to sell more than 200,000 ''Creatures'' by the end of the year." Global sales of the game neared 400,000 units by February 1998.

Legacy

The model built during development and photographed as the game's backdrop, is held at

The Centre for Computing History The Centre for Computing History is a computer museum in Cambridge, England, established to create a permanent public exhibition telling the story of the Information Age. Overview The museum acts as a repository for vintage computers and rela ...

, where it is on permanent display.

Charlie Brooker Charlton ‘Charlie’ Brooker (born 3 March 1971) is an English screenwriter, producer, presenter, author, cartoonist, and social critic. He first became known for creating and presenting satirical television shows that featured biting criticis ...

, who reviewed the game for ''

PC Zone ''PC Zone'', founded in 1993, was the first magazine dedicated to games for IBM-compatible personal computers to be published in the United Kingdom. Earlier PC magazines such as '' PC Leisure'', '' PC Format'' and '' PC Plus'' had covered games b ...

'', would in 2025 use ''Creatures'' as the inspiration for a fictional game called ''Thronglets'' that was featured in the ''

Black Mirror ''Black Mirror'' is a British anthology series, anthology television series created by Charlie Brooker. Most episodes are set in near-future dystopias containing Science fiction, sci-fi technology—a type of speculative fiction. The series i ...

'' episode "

Plaything Plaything or Playthings can refer to: Music *Playthings, a band featuring New Zealand musician and music producer Paul Kean on bass * "Plaything" (song), a song by American singer Rebbie Jackson Television * "Playthings", an episode of the telev ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1996 video games Classic Mac OS games Conspiracy Entertainment games Creatures (video game series) Game Boy Advance games Mindscape games PlayStation (console) games Swing! Entertainment games Time Warner Interactive games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Windows games