CCSF 2017 is Live

The Creatures Community Spirit Festival for 2017 has kicked off! Go to https://ccsf-2017.blogspot.com/ to find all the goodies.

Journey into CAOS

I've been completely tuned out of the internet over the past little while because I've been busy with exams in real life, and now that I'm done with them I come back online to see the CCSF is in less than a week. Exciting, but I feel bad for not having anything to contribute, so what is my immediate reaction? Let's rustle up something to contribute, of course. I only have four days but I'm sure I can pull something together, right...?

I will give you the disclaimer that there is a chance these plans could still all backfire horribly, so if you never see a contribution from me please don't judge me too hard...

Now, I'm not going to tell you what I'm working on (that would ruin the fun) but I what I will say is that it involves some CAOS - which, for the record, I have never used before, so even though I do have some minimal experience with other coding languages it will be interesting to see if I can get my head around it quickly enough to pull something together in time. But the relevant part (and why I'm writing this to begin with, other than so everyone knows I'm not 100% dead) is that I found some really cool CAOS resources that I thought might be super useful for anyone else who's interested in learning how to code in CAOS. These are just a few starters, I might add to the list if I find some more or even make a dedicated page for it, but here are the links:

http://www.gamewareeurope.com/GWDev/downloads/cdn/creatures_caos_guide.pdf

https://creatures.wiki/C1_class_numbers

https://creatures.wiki/C1_Chemical_List

http://web.archive.org/web/20000929002121/http://www.dreamscape.com/lummoxjr/creatures/cobtutorials.html

http://creatures.treesprite.com/Slink11.html (look for COB Author's Guide)

Happy coding everyone! May you fail less at it than I have so far :)

Blog Carnival Day 7

And now it's time for the final blog carnival post for this year's CCSF. It's been really fun to see what others have to say about the topics and to write about them myself. The final topic:

"Why do you like Creatures? If your interest in it has come and gone and come again, what brings you back? Despite how hard it can be to run on modern machines and the total lack of official support now, why do you play?"

Why do I love Creatures? Because I love my creatures! It's as simple as that. You can't go past how adorable those sweet lil Norns are, silly as they may be. Seeing them interact and wander about is simply a delight.

On the other hand, I love how complex the game is in regards to the genetics. There's just no other games like it, with the way that it simulates a whole brain for the creatures, and how every gene is mapped out thoughtfully.

Another thing is the innovation it allows - you could go into the genetics kit and completely change everything to make Norns work in new ways. And if you invest the time to learn CAOS, you can also make your own objects to put into the game.

It's interesting that the question specifically mentions interest in the game waning and returning, because that is something that's happened to me in the past. And really, I think what brings me back is simply that I'd open the game again and be struck by this sudden wave of: "OMG, I remember this, I bloody love this!". As soon as I start to hear the sounds of Albia again I just feel so totally immersed and it just feels so right and all the reasons I love Creatures just come rushing back to me, especially because the things I love Creatures for aren't really things I've ever seen in a video game outside Creatures.

I think it really all boils down to just how unique the game is. I've never seen another game anywhere that's even remotely like this.

Blog Carnival Day 6

It's time for the second-last topic:

"What do you think of the mythology and backstory of creatures? Do you have any favorite background details in the world? Any pet theories or thoughts, or questions you would like answered?"

I'll admit a fact that makes me sad, which is that I actually don't know an awful lot about the mythology and backstory of Creatures. I could tell you that the Shee are the ancient creators of a bunch of different technologies and stuff (I think...?) and that Norns and Grendels (maybe Ettins and the Shee too, but I'm not sure) were named based on a couple of things from real life mythology. That's essentially the extent of my knowledge regarding the mythology. And like I said, this makes me sad.

So, to answer the part "Any questions you would like answered?" my answer is, "Everything! Tell me where I can learn all this wonderful stuff!"

So I've made a solution: I'm going to go look up about all this Creatures mythology and come back and tell you the most interesting things I've found. I'm going to write this as I look stuff up so expect it to be a bit messy.

Blog Carnival Day 5

Today's topic:

"Do you create content for Creatures? If so, what sorts? What do you use to make things, and what would you like to make in the future? If not, what would you like to make if you could?"

This is going to be a very short post. I don't really create content for the Creature; I don't make COBs or breeds or anything like that. The closest thing would be my weird genetic experiments and this blog.

My genetic experiments haven't really discovered/proved anything really cool yet, though they might be entertaining to read about, so I don't really know if those count.

I guess blogging is a form of creating content, though it's more content for the Creatures community rather than for Creatures itself. My process for blogging isn't really structured; I kind of just do whatever I feel in the game like then vomit my thoughts about it and descriptions of what happened onto a text document and BAM! Blog post done.

That lat question does apply to me though: what content would I like to make? Oooo. I think, if I could, I would honestly like to try and make everything, but that's a nonspecific and really rather boring answer, so I'll narrow it down to the one thing I'd like to do most. Unsurprisingly enough, I would really like to be able to make weird/interesting genetic breeds that actually do what I intended them to and don't have a million other faults. Maybe one day I'll achieve this. One day...

Blog Carnival Day 4

Halfway through the blog carnival! Here's today's prompt:

"What COBs/agents/breeds/metarooms/etc do you use the most? What would you like to see more of? Less of? What pet peeves do you have with add-ons? What do you love to see?"

I don't think I've downloaded a COB in aaaagggges. Mostly I just chuck the COBs in the world to begin with and don't really think about what ones I have in there.

I think the COB I use the most often is probably the cheese vendor made by SteerPike. It's just so useful for getting nutritious food for my Norns with the minimum of trouble.

The Grendel Friendly COB deserves a shout-out too. It's a great tool for making sure there's no troubles with the Grendel trying to slap all the Norns, even when the Grendel is technically trying to tickle them. It must be a relief for the Grendel.

As for breeds, my favourite would have to be the Cheri Norns made by Nello! They're such a cute breed (you can download them here). I wish I had more of them in my worlds.

As for what I'd like to see more of? It's quite a weird little thing, but I'd actually love to see more COBs done in the art style of Creatures 1. There are plenty of COBs that fulfil this, true, but there's plenty that don't and it would be nice to see more that do.

It would be cool to see more breeds being created, too; I know that sprite breeds aren't so popular to make because they're so time-consuming, but hey, I can dream, can't I?

Blog Carnival Day 3

[Note: originally posted with the wrong colour font by accident, making it basically unreadable. Apologies for that!]

Here's the topic for the third day of the CCSF blog Carnival:

"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?"

This one really got me thinking, and after pondering it for awhile I don't think the way I play Creatures has ultimately changed that much. I mean, I guess when I first started to play Creatures I wasn't interested in the genetics side of things; I just played to look after the Norns. However, it really wasn't very long after I started that I downloaded the genetics kit and started to play around with it.

I think I also used to be a lot more reluctant to slap my Norns than I am nowadays. In the past I literally never ever slapped my Norns because it made me feel like a horrible person. Though I still don't like to use slaps if it can be avoided, I'm not so averse to it as I was a year or two ago.

Another thing is my attitude to Grendels. While I still don't name and feed them like I do my Norns, I used to think (and this is a belief that harks from ever since I originally saw Creatures round about a decade or even slightly longer ago) that Grendels were infected with horrible contagious diseases that would kill Norns if they even went close to a Grendel. This, back when I was still real young, made me absolutely terrified whenever I saw the Grendel getting closer to Norns, to the point where I made my older sister inject the cage object and lock the Grendel up in it so it wouldn't hurt the Norns. Gosh, I was a silly child. Anyway, nowadays I couldn't care less if the Grendel interacts with my Norns; I know now that the Grendels can't do more than slap a Norn, and Norns do that to each other often enough anyway.

I honestly can't think of anything else significant to mention in regards to how my play style has changed. I wasn't lying when I said it hasn't changed much.

Blog Carnival Day 2

It's time for the second day of the CCSF blog carnival, and that means another new topic to discuss:

"How would you describe your playing style? Do you have lots of worlds, or a few? Do you have strict wolfling runs or do you individually nurture your creatures, or both? Any particular habits or quirks?"

Another interesting topic! I'm not exactly sure where to begin; there's a lot of good points to talk about.

Blog Carnival Day 1

Dunno if I'm posting this at the right time but oh well!

So, it's the first day of the CCSF and that means it's the first day of the blog carnival! Here's the prompt for the fist day:

"How did you get into Creatures in the first place? What game did you start with? What intrigued you about it or was the most fun? Do you have any special or fond memories?"

Certainly an interesting topic to kick off the CCSF blog carnival! The story of how I came to play Creatures is actually quite an interesting one.

At this point, the only game in the series I've played is Creatures 1; obviously, this was the one I started with. In fact, the first time I ever played it was on its original CD when I was still a teensy little kid. It was one of the few games we had on our family computer and my older siblings played it a fair bit though I was still too young at that stage to play it properly on my own. I couldn't tell you exactly what year that was because I was too young to remember it exactly but I'd estimate somewhere around 2002-2004?

CCSF 2015

OK, I'm late to the party. Even so, I'm actually really excited by this year's CCSF, and I have been following along this whole time; I was just too lazy to post anything until now. There's been a lot of really good stuff so far and I can't wait to see what comes over the next couple of days.

The link to the CCSF is here, in case you missed it.

I think the thing which really makes the CCSF (you probably know already, but just in case you don't, CCSF stands for Creatures Community Spirit Festival) special is that it shows that, even though the series is like a decade old, we're still here, and we have it in us to pull off something like the CCSF every year. And more than that, I think it shows just how much we all love the series.

I could say something eloquent about community spirit and endurance and what have you, but, essentially, that's what it boils down to: we all love the series.

'Nuff said.