So there's about an hour and a halfs worth of Alpha footage of Creatures Online (previously Creatures 4).
Click to watch. I strongly suggest keeping annotations turned on.
You know what? I'm cautiously optimistic. There are some things that bother me sure but there are things that reassure me too.
HAPPY STUFF, YAY:
* Needs haven't been simplified as I had feared, for instance creatures still need different kinds of food rather than just a hunger metre.
* Similarly, the chemistry of the creatures seems to have remained intact, as indicated by the science kit.
* The science kit has made a return! I didn't play much of Creatures 1 or 2, however it's heartening to see nonetheless.
* Fishing Cactus give a damn about the history of the games. This definitely seems like a progression of the story, the warp is still a thing and there's other little bits here and there as far as I can tell giving nods to the previous titles.
* Golden eggs weren't used once during the play through, and it seemed to progress at a reasonable rate. I think they're going to be a convenience thing, speeding things up and such. The only use for a golden egg I saw in the video was to hatch a norn egg straight away, but the hatching speed was perfectly reasonable to me. About the same as the previous games I think. You seem to be given eggs at a reasonable rate as well.
* Gene splicing has been expanded, you now use it to discover new norn breeds as well as tinker with the genetics. This seems to come right down to the fur textures, which according to
this blog post will be procedurally generated anyway! It no longer kills the two donor creatures either, which I personally rather like.
* As well as normal agents you can place structures down as well now. Many seem to be cosmetic but some are useful and even needed. I think this could be an interesting addition to game play.
* The voices we all know and love are still around!
CONCERNING STUFF, BOO:
* Coins and XP. Now I'm not particularly opposed to how they're being used, although if I've unlocked everything with XP in one world, I'd hope that it's unlocked in all future worlds (assuming it still works that way). Coins are an interesting way of making you manage what you have and work harder to create the ecosystem, one of the main aims of the game (I'll get to that later on), but I'd rather it was called bio-energy or something. I know bio-energy is used for something else, but coins feels a bit weird in the setting. Comes with the F2P territory I guess.
Which brings me to my actual concern, how you collect xp and coins. As in, you have to actually collect them. As creatures do stuff in the world they gain xp, which floats to the ground and you have to pick it up. Similarly, coins are generated with machines you place and when they're done you collect all the coins. Why can't this stuff be automated? I'd be quite happy with gradually gaining XP over time and with my generators quietly working the background. They could just tell you when they are done so you can select another amount of coins you want to generate (since you can go to quite large amounts, but you'll be waiting a long time). It seems a bit unnecessary is all.
* There's currently no weather as far as I can tell. Hopefully it's just not been implemented yet (alpha is alpha), but I'd be sorely disappointed if weather vanished altogether.
* There also doesn't seem to be a day or night cycle. This is something I may have missed due to the low quality of the video (bad Fishing Cactus!) but if it's not in I'd also like to see one turn up.
* The music doesn't feel like Creatures to me, apart from one specific bit. You know what it DOES sound like? The Sims. No really, it's almost exactly like The Sims 3 and even more so like SimCity. I can't help feeling this was a deliberate move, and whilst I can see the logic... well Creatures had some very nice, unique ambient music. Assuming this doesn't change, it'll certainly leave a hole in my heart.
My ear heart.
* I'm almost certain Grendels will return, as there was an object called "Grendel-in-a-Box", which seems to teach norns to run away from them. But will Ettins make a return?
* I'm still really concerned about mod support, and I don't think modding will be supported.
STUFF I HAVE NO STRONG FEELINGS FOR, BIBBLE?
* Currently Norns can't leave an area without the player telling them to so that they don't go wondering off into dangerous places by themselves. Hopefully this isn't a permanent thing, it didn't seem to be from how it was said. Time will tell.
* There are no proper ecosystems as far as I can tell at the start, as one of the main goals is to build them yourself. Hopefully this means that you can construct complex, self sufficient ecosystems rather than planting a couple of plants, plopping a few critters down and calling it a day. If so I'm not sure what I'd prefer yet.
* I'm still not quite taken by the new design, but I think it'll grow on me. Norns don't have tails any more! O_o There also isn't much of a size difference between baby and adult Norns either, babies have massive heads and are ever so slightly smaller than the regularly proportioned adults. I would personally like to see some tweaking there.
*Creatures Online. What does this entail? Will it be a system like Docking Station, or something else? Docking Station at least let you play offline after initial world creation (and even totally offline after a mod).
* You can buy with coins various things for Norns, like cookies so they always have something to eat and an ageing potion so they jump straight to breeding age right away. I was a bit disconcerted at first, but honestly you don't HAVE to use them, just like you didn't HAVE to use the various mods to that effect in previous games.
*Apparently creatures can unlearn words. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
Honestly learning seems a lot trickier in this game, much like it was in Creatures 1 and 2. There's no Docking Station style learning machine in this game as far as I can see. You also don't type any more, you click on an object and select what you want to say. I can see why this has been done, especially since this is a mobile release as well, but I think I may missing typing. We shall see.
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So yea, I think I'm actually looking forward to this game. It's F2P, so the worst case scenario is that I lose some time, feel sad and go back to Creatures 3. If I do like it however, I'll very likely pick up the collectors edition (assuming that's the only paid copy). I want to support the series again if it's good, and show that Creatures still has a place in the modern gaming world.
