Creatures 1

The original Creatures was a gaming and scientific phenomenon of which the author Douglas Adams famously said, "I first saw this program in the same week that evidence was discovered of life on Mars. This is more exciting."

The game in brief

The user is presented with a large, living landscape - the surface of another world (called Albia). He exists in this world only as a virtual presence, a sort of remote-control existence, which the computer portrays as a hand-shaped mouse cursor. In this world are a range of locations and strange creatures, related loosely (and with considerable poetic licence) to Northern myth. The user begins near to the long-abandoned home of a family of Norns (Small Furry Creatures), where a few eggs, languishing in a broken-down incubator, are almost all that remains of the Nornir race.

By restoring power to the incubator, the user can hatch these eggs and interact with the newborn Norns. The home burrow contains a few other rooms, including a schoolroom, where the user can attempt to teach the Norns a language and other basic ideas. Other evidence round about will help the user to learn something of the ancient Nornir culture.

There are limited food resources available in the burrow, and soon the Norns will be obliged to move on. Had the babies parents to tell them about it, they would know that a great journey is a requirement of all Norns: a spiritual quest that is necessary to ensure the renewal of life and the success of the next generation. If their quest is not achieved, then these few creatures will have been the last of the Nornir.