Long before Creatures 1 came out, creator Steve Grand, had an idea for what he called digital ewoks. Beginning in 1992, the project we know now as C1 would begin to take shape for the MS-DOS. The original concept was far more goal oriented. Called Small Furry Creatures, the objective of this early concept is to train and navigate a creature through the map to the 'end' where a boat was waiting to end the game.
We never got a final version of this. Outside of a blurry screenshot from a magazine dated 1994, these early versions were shelved, and lost. Eventually the more sandbox oriented version was created for windows.
Luckily, Lacota over at Eemfoo (https://eemfoo.org/), has had a lucky strike and has recovered a working prototype of the early DOS build. The prototype, nicknamed C0, will be released for CCSF 2021.
The prototype, while working, is far from complete. The graphics for this version are entirely unique to the prototype but many similarities can be seen.
The prototype features two Norns and a Grendel. The camera is locked to one of the Norns until you can get close enough to swap. The map, while over half empty, would have been larger than even C2. It contains two regions, the 'home' and a desert.
There are a few basic toys and food. Norns don't seem to die, and only have a very small vocabulary.
Work has been done to extract the assets from it, and more information will be provided as things progress.
The Creatures Developer Network on Github has begun a project working on bugfixing and polishing Moe's C2toDS metaroom, called C2toDS Refresh!
Priority One is to bring the metaroom up to current development standards and ensure that it isn't overwhelmingly unfair to creatures. This includes ensuring that all agents have proper scripts/stims and that CA links and transportation methods allow creatures full access to the world's many splendors.
Ecology fixes and adding missing content are also on the radar, but will receive more attention once the room is more instinct-friendly.
Decided to start a little early! The festival starts today! 5 December! So you have plenty of time to send in your submissions to freya.creatures@gmail.com !
I made a new website, Abacus & Ettinus. It's mainly to act as a central place to display things that I've made and worked on, without being tied down by a blog format. It's designed to look very much like the old kind of websites from the peak years of the community, so it should feel pretty nostalgic.
Updates to the website will be announced on my blog, so don't worry about the lack of RSS. (Link to Website)
creatures caves is your #1 resource for the creatures artificial life game series: creatures, creatures 2, creatures 3, docking station, and the upcoming creatures family.