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 sadadadako   |
Hello! I'm sure a lot of newbies are invading all of these creature-spaces lately, and I apologize in advance for all the silly questions I might ask! I grew up in the internet wild-west, but I was pretty young at the time, so I might not have great forum/creatures social etiquette, lol. I've also lost a lot of my Computer Mojo so things that came naturally 10-15 years ago to me no longer do. I figure other people who are getting into the franchise for the first time could ask their questions here if they feel like it, but I will probably populate this thread with a bunch of silly questions. Thankfully, I've recently been able to re-implement the Help files (.HLP files) on my computer, if anyone needs help, lmk! here are some of my silly questions: 1. do i really HAVE to teach every individual baby on the computer? like, ofc i need to if i want them to listen to my hand, but I'm sure there are some great .cobs for this. Encyclopedia Nornica SEEMS to do what i want, but I'm just not certain because I've had to do a lot of internet archaeology to find even the most basic creatures info! from what i understand, norns can pick it up and read it and learn a bunch of words. Are the original computer commands included in this? Can Norns learn concepts other than the ones listed in the guide? 2. are "feral runs" a specific Thing or are they just describing leaving your Norns to their own devices? i am very into the breeding and genetic aspect of norns, i love that they can learn commands and language, but my adhd hyperfixates upon them. i feel as if i can't leave them for a second, when ideally, i'd like to teach a few norns a full vocabulary and see how it spreads to the other norns. 2b. if "feral runs" simply describe leaving your norns to their own devices, I'd love to hear of any .cobs that are advised for feral runs! 3. C1 vs C2 vs C3+docking station. C1 is already a bit... hmm complicated for me, i suppose? maybe because i'm sort of neurotic, but i see a lot of people describe C1 as charmingly simple. i perhaps need some Advice as far as how much i'm overthinking the care of my norns (micromanaging them potentially, getting frustrated with them too easily) vs the results i'd like to get from the game. i specifically LOVE the genetic mutations aspect of the game, but i struggle to understand a lot of the gene preview extentions and what they're trying to tell me. if i had something where i could compare a parent/child genome, that would be awesome. i also really love breeding mechanics where you can get unique visual differences (usually colorations) between offspring, but i struggle to understand the Newly Discovered stuff about color bleeding bc i'm very new to all of this! 4. when people talk about breeds, how can i tell the difference between breeds that have sprite modifications vs breeds that people made organically through generations of norns in an unmodded playthrough? ik this is probably a silly question but i was mostly playing unmodded and only recently started adding official .cobs, i'm worried about making the game too easy but also admittedly feeling a little overwhelmed with babysitting my norns, lol. i also am very curious to see what i can make with the official/original norm genome without doing too much to it with mods, if that makes sense? sorry if this post is a bit scattered! i might end up editing it to articulate myself better. |
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 Patient Pirate ylukyun Manager |
Encyclopedia Nornica will do what you want. You can edit the vocabulary words it teaches, but you can't add new object categories, verbs or emotions because those are hard coded into the game. There's also a condensed version kicking around somewhere (the original one comes as 5 separate book objects). You could also give the Super Speech Toy a try, but it has a pretty bad bug that can crash the game. This article gives a pretty good outline of what a feral run is, but doesn't suggest any COBs. Here's an old newsgroup post on the subject, and a curated list of C1 COBs so maybe you'll find something there (if you haven't discovered it already). Not all engineered (non-organic) breeds have their own sprites. There isn't really any way to tell which breeds arose organically vs which ones were engineered, but the breed creators will usually just tell you. Breeds with sprites, at least in C1, will have the sprites included in the zip/rar file, so it's pretty easy to tell which ones they are. Here's a utility for comparing genomes that you might find useful. Pigment (color) bleed genes in C1 aren't really that complex. They're just a type of gene that the devs forgot to add to the default genome, and we found about them later. You can use this fairly simple utility to add them to a genome and preview how they'll look (note: the previews don't always work). Edit: Don't use the official Genetics Kit to inject genomes with pigment bleed genes. It doesn't work. I forget why... If I were you, I would just focus on C1 and wait a bit before for trying out the other games. There's no rush - they've been around for almost 30 years, so they'll still be there when you're ready.  |
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 daz |
have you found eem foo yet? https://eem.foo/ might save you a bit of archaeology, now that more and more of the old sites are vanishing. you should find most of the cobs/breeds you're looking for there, and you can sort by type. i always found c1 the hardest to actually care for norns, c3/docking station gives you a lot of leeway with the learning machines and the ability to drag norns by their hand. not once in all these decades have i ever got a successful population of norns going in c1, let alone a feral/wolfling run! c3 norns seem a little more self sufficient in that area. my favourite game is c2, unfortunately it's become quite unstable to the point of being unplayable these recent years. people here kindly directed me to the community edition patch which seems to have sorted most of the issues, so if you find you like the look and feel of c2 then i'm directing you there too! |
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Patient Pirate ylukyun Manager |
I think C1 is both the simplest and hardest game. You're not greeted with much when you first open it up - small world, simple kits, not a lot of customization options - but (maybe because of these things?) it takes a lot of work to raise Norns to adulthood and breed them. |
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 Lambie |
I love that new people are finding this community, these are such awesome games and the fandom is starving. We're happy to have you!!! My thoughts on C1 vs. C2 vs. C3/DS: I played Creatures 2 first when I was pretty young and it's still my favorite. The world is extremely beautiful and fun to observe and explore, and I personally find the norns in this game to be the most cute and lovable. It's a double-edged sword though because norncare can be extremely frustrating in this game. It helps somewhat to use a fan-made genome, Akamai Canny is my favorite. I'm able to run GOG C2 pretty well on Windows 11. There are some mild graphical errors that don't bother me, buuuut it does have a tendency to crash. Docking Station is probably the easiest game in terms of norncare (sometimes too easy), and it's also the easiest game to mod. As for vanilla Creatures 3, I haven't played it in ages, but from what I recall it was significantly more challenging. Both of these games look great and take place in a really cool spaceship setting. I didn't play Creatures 1 until many years later, and I still don't have the hang of it yet, so to me this game is the most difficult. I think the "simple" part is just that the world is smaller and there are fewer menus. That being said, the graphics are REALLY cute, so to me this game has the most cozy and peaceful vibes. My advice is to try all the games out and see which one clicks with you the most. And don't be afraid to use cobs/mods if you're struggling. Fan-made content has always been a huge part of the experience, at least for me. Bonus: My favorite cob for a feral/wolfling run in Creatures 2 is the Ocean Bridges. |
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 Peppery One Papriko |
There is little reason to run C3 without DS these days even if the original online functionality is no longer present. DS used to be a free demo + online expansion (or what the kids call DLC these days), but it also updates the engine, fixes a few things, introduces some new quirks, and does away with this whole bioenergy thing C3 had going. Not a lot of people seem to have enjoyed that part. There is also certain new commands that only exist in DS, so some DS agents outright don't work on a solo C3 game. As someone who doesn't particularly like modding myself (I play minecraft without even a texture pack and got like 10 things in my skyrim, half of which is just official DLC and HD textures), you should absolutely try out a bunch of different downloads for your creatures game of choice. You can add many things before the game runs noticeably worse, and there's tricks to boost performance even then. Get some things that sound interesting and see what you vibe with. If the game breaks under the load, make a new world with the ones you liked best. Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... |
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 Andio  |
The only reason I can think of to play C3 standalone is 'cause there's (if memory serves me right) a hidden Space Invaders game you can't access in DS, but I also remember nothing about how to do so except it involved entering a line of CAOS email - bsky - wolfling run 6/26 results |
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Patient Pirate ylukyun Manager |
https://creatures.wiki/Grendel_Invaders |
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 RaspberryNorn |
Lambie wrote: So sorry if I should make a help thread for this but this caught my eye as GOG C2 on Windows 11 crashes once I've selected a world saying "An error was detected during startup. Creatures 2 may not function correctly. Please restart your machine and try again." Did it work out of the box for you or did you need to tinker with some files? |
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 Deru |
RaspberryNorn wrote: Have you given the C2 Community Edition a shot? Could be worth it if out of the box isn't working for you. While I personally am on the Steam version, I had some of those minor graphical issues and some crashes every now and then, including the error message on startup, though it would still run for me anyway. Regardless, the CE fixed those right up for me, and I haven't had any issues with it since. Only additional advice I'd give to anyone is to make a system restore point before you use it, since it does do some registry edits. ![[nsmile]](/images/smilies/emot_smile.gif "[nsmile]") Critically acclaimed Treehugger fan. |
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