Creatures
Creatures is an older program, it dates back to 1990 when the idea was first conceived. It's an Artificial Life game, it mimics life. It's a great game, and I want to post this if you guys are looking into buying it, or have no idea what it is.
I remember when I was in first, maybe second grade. I can't really remember when, actually. I was younger. I do know that. I was with my mother while she was in Sams Club. I was told I could look around in the software department as long as I stayed there and only there. Of course, I did. You see, My mom told me I could buy a computer game for doing something... I honestly forgot. I think it was for not complaining for a week. I really don't remember.
So, I'm walking through the department. If you can imagine, I was a decently smart little kid. (Ahah. It's hard to imagine, trust me.) I was walking through the department store, and I saw a game called Creatures. Picking it up, I looked on the back. It looked interesting, the screenshots were cute, and the basics of the game were to raise a creature.
I chose this game to buy, and I went to find my mother. She's all done with her shopping, so we head to check out. I'm bouncing in my seat in the car, and when I get home, I open the box. I look through the manual, and some of the words really confused me. I asked my sister, "What does this mean?" every five seconds. (She was annoyed, to say the least) I got the basics of the game, it was to breed a generation of these 'norns' and then .. well. Continue on. It was a life simulator. Fun stuff.
I opened up the CD case, and to my horror, I saw this horrible creature on it. It wasn't a cute and cuddly thing, it was a horrible ogre type of thing (Next to the cuddly thing, of course). This scared me, a lot. I was sort of a ... worry wart back then. I was afraid of fire, tornadoes, mice, dogs, cats, everything. I had just seen my first Grendel. I was afraid to play the game now, and I put it away for another hour.
I had a plan of action then. I picked up the CD and nearly slammed the disc into the computer. I was smart, I could install things on my own. So, I did. In a moment, I was going to play creatures. But first, I watched the tutorial. I was happy that there was such a welcoming voice, maybe this game wasn't too scary. I watched and listened. This game looked awesome. I watched the intro as well, and it creeped me out a little. Even to this day, it sort of does.
Shaking it off, I continued onward. I pressed play. Suddenly, the game screen and helpful hints came up. I read through most of them, and I booted up the hatchery. I believe I picked the egg that had the pixie norn in it. It was adorable! I don't know if it was a male or a female, but I think it was a female. I taught it a few words, fed it, and then hatched a male (female? I don't know!). I forgot their names.
They had fun together. I monitored their health and gave them food when needed. I never really bothered with genetics, I didn't know what they were then. Life was pretty happy for my norns.
Then, disaster struck. It was the evil monster! It was back! It was comming for my norns! It was going to kill them! I was horrified! I closed the window quickly, and finally got the courage to go back to them a day later. It was a scary sight, the grendel was coming for my norns. I quickly got both of them into the teleporter. I moved them along through the forest, and all the way to the apartment house (The long way, of course).
I had never been out of the standard house before, mostly because of the grendel. But considering it was in the house now...
I found myself looking online for a way to get rid of it, put it in it's place so my norns could live happier lives. This is how I first discovered COBs. I got a grendel remover and got that horrible nasty thing out of there, it was done. Finished. I moved the norns back to their house and breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, my norns had a little tiny norn. I don't remember what gender it was, but it was adorable like it's parents. I believe I got a little bored with the game. Maybe it was school starting back up again, maybe it was something else. I just ... stopped playing for a while.
After a while, I dusted off my old creatures case. It was at least a year since I had played. I made a daring move, I erased the world, and started again. I did, and I repeated the steps, getting to the third generation before I eventually moved on to other things.
Now, let's fast forward to the present. I'm now older, but still young, but a lot older than I used to be. I was on the creatures site, looking at the other creatures games. It's odd, really. It brings back a lot of memories.
I went into the history of Creatures Labs, and to my dismay, they were liquidated. No more Creatures games. I had just finished reading the Lone Shee story. I want to know how it ends, I really do. I guess I'll just have to wonder about the ending, like the rest of the community.
I've played all of the Creatures games. I love them all dearly.
(And, for the record, I like the C3 title screen representation of the Shee more than the statues.)