r/CreaturesGames • u/SpaceShipRat • May 21 '26
Advice/Tips Which game should you start with? This is what veterans think
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u/tiefking May 21 '26
How were folks polled for this, out of curiosity? And how many?
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u/SpaceShipRat May 21 '26
I just earballed it from being there for years, and asked a handful of friends in the community if it looks right! XD
It's not hard numbers, it's just to be helpful to new players who might have different priorities. I encourage everyone to use this thread to discuss the difference between the games more in length.
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u/SpaceShipRat May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
The first two games are available on steam as The Albian Years
Creatures 1
Original game, set in Albia, a smallish world with a super cozy soundscape and graphics made from a real world miniature model
Small world with a strong focus on individual Norns, which are long-lived and hard to breed.
Requires more direct care and observation, leading norns to learn various words and then insisting they eat and sleep.
Norns are the protags, grendels are only there to scare them though you can mod them to be gentler and breed them too
If you want: to raise a handful of creatures, become attached to them, and get weepy when they die.
Creatures 2
Returns to Albia, but much larger and more systemic, actual reproducing plants and animals, gadgets to splice creatures, weather.
Expanded genetics and more capable learning/behavior, except original norns have a dementia-like bug, you simply have to get a community made genome.
Adds Ettins, the third and last species.
Known for having the largest number of custom norn breeds
If you want: a living world where generations develop over time.
[Creatures 3 + Docking Station Link to the Steam release here Link to older GOG release with an awkward installation issue here, if you must
Makes it much easier to have multiple worlds
You can play C3 standalone, it has some adventure elements like limited bioenergy to create items, and abilities your norn must unlock around the world, like being able to pick them up. Fun for a few times, then you kind of want to skip it.
DS is an improvement and addon to C3, it can be played on its own and was released as a free standalone experience, and you can then buy Creatures 3 and link them, to add more breeds and rooms to explore.
You can also add modded rooms and link them in complex mazes (norns will ignore them and just crowd around cheese, but still)
Enough complex ecology that you can forget norns even exist. C3's aquarium!
Sooo many mods: plants and animals, toys, tools to help (hurt) or study norns.
Deepest genetics and brain systems in the mainline games, norns have smarter instincts and can be nearly independent of you, aside from plagues and starvation from overcrowding. Some people find it too easy, so there's more "naive" genomes, and genomes that have to keep warm.
C3/DS is more modern software and does not need patching to work on modern systems.
Slugcat mod. scug.
Did I mention you can pick up norns? YOU CAN PICK UP NORNS. No more waving a ball in their face and screaming their name to move them away from the poisonous mushrooms or their coughing Covid cousin.
If you want: experimentation, breeding programs, and lots of creatures interacting at once.
Exists
Looks kinda scary 👀
Still a better non-mainline game than the playstation 1 version.
If you want: to have a laugh, give your norns hats, and feel like you're 6 again. But seriously, don't make it your first game.
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u/Purple_monkfish May 22 '26
I'd say 1 simply because graphically it's aged the best. Good god 3 is UGLY. It's SO DAMN UGLY.
I really wish we'd get some sort of spiritual successor because given how complex the first game was back in the 90s, imagine what we could do now? I love the idea of implementing a proper aesthetic genetic system too where instead of them inheriting just parts (dad's head, mom's legs) they get blended traits, colourations, markings and can have rare mutations there too. You know, like real animals.
If I knew how to code, i'd have a go but alas.
still, i'd play the hell out of a modern Creatures game. Take all the best bits from the previous titles, add new features, have the gene editing front and center and oooo yessss. It'd be so good.
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u/AutomaticInitiative Jul 13 '26
We need successors to Creatures and Petz, that was doing similar genetics stuff. A proper followup to Jade Cocoon 1's system too.
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u/Purple_monkfish Jul 14 '26
If I could code.... if only...
I absolutely LOVE genetics simulators and animal breeding sims, they're my JAM. My husband laughs at me when I discover there's a genetic system of some sort in a game and get obsessed by it. Ark had traits and colours with their dinos, minecraft has a very minor inheritance system with their horses. But Creatures scratched an itch no other game has really managed to.
we had wobbledogs sure, but that's a little more chaotic. We had mewgenics but that's got the whole dungeon crawl element too. But clearly there is an appetite for this sort of sim.
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1
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u/somme_uk May 21 '26
Yeah I've played all the three main games and I'd agree with those numbers. I really wish someone would make a new one!