Macintosh Creatures Evolution Engine

When the Creatures Evolution Engine was ported from Windows through Linux to the Mac OS X, several changes in the engine occurred. These changes are detailed here. The version number used with Exodus is 296 (the Windows Exodus is 286).

Mac Compatibility with Windows/Linux files Overview
See Macintosh Compatibility and Macintosh Conflicts for more detail Confirmed. Docking Station testing with third party agents has been successful. Some work, some do not. See the relevant agent's page to check whether it has been tested. Injection of agents into Creatures 3 has not been tested.
 * Agents are compatible


 * Metarooms are compatible but may be unstable Tentative. Preliminary tests with metaroom installations have been successful, (i.e. the room will install correctly) but some metarooms cause the game engine to become very unstable.

Confirmed. To download official breeds, choose Linux downloads from the Creatures Mall. Official Breed Packs must be paid for; they are not free. Breeds tested sucessfully: Astro Norns, Bondi Norns, Hardman Norns, Siamese Norns, Treehugger Norns, and Zebra Norns. Banshee Grendels are reported as incompatible. The Quirky Cookie Machine from the Treehugger Pack will only work if the Catalogue files are correctly placed.
 * Official Creatures Packs are compatible

Tentative. Preliminary testing of add-on breeds has been successful.
 * Third Party Breeds are compatible

Confirmed. No known problems or modifications are needed to import creatures.
 * Adoptions are compatible

Installing New Agents, Metarooms or Breeds
To use third party files, you need to follow these steps.
 * 1) Find the Creatures 3 or DockingStation Application. They should be located in your Hard Drive/Applications folder.
 * 2) Control (right) click on either the Creatures 3 or DockingStation icon.
 * 3) Select "Show Package Contents" from the menu. It should be the third item from the top.
 * 4) Open the Contents folder.
 * 5) Open the MacOS folder.
 * 6) Open the data folder. (Creating a shortcut or alias to this folder is highly recommended.  You'll be visiting here often.)
 * 7) Drop .agent files into the My Agents folder
 * 8) Drop .cos files into the Bootstrap/010 Docking Station or Bootstrap/001 World folder.
 * 9) Go to Engineering (C3) or the Comms Room (DS) to inject your new agent.
 * 10) Once you have injected the agent, check your ~/Library/Preferences/Creatures Labs/Docking Station or Creatures 3/data/Catalogue folder for any new .catalogue files.  You have to move these.
 * 11) Move any new .catalogue files from into Hard Drive/Applications/Docking Station or Creatures 3/Contents/MacOS/data/Catalogue.

That's it, you're done! If your agent doesn't have a catalogue file, you can skip the last two steps.

Note: For a more permanent Catalogue solution to replace steps 8 and 9 see the Automator Fix or the Symbolic Link Fix.

From a World

 * To uninstall a metaroom from a world, first go to the Comms Room or Engineering and click the red uninstall button. The metaroom should now be empty of agents.  Then use the 'kill hots' CAOS cheat on the Favourite Place icon for the metaroom.

Key Commands
Some of the key commands on the Macintosh versions of Creatures Exodus and Creatures Village are different to the Windows ones. This is a list of the known key commands.

Unsupported Commands
Contrary to the provided documentation, several of the commands for Creatures Exodus do not work in the Macintosh version.

Intermittent Errors

 * Occasionally, the hand *will* pick up Creatures, simply by Option or Right Clicking.
 * Left or Right Clicking has also been known to produce characters in the text bubble instead of the intended function.
 * When using the CAOS Command Line or attempting to speak to your creatures, using the " character will move the player into the metaroom to the right of the one you were using. The ! character will have the opposite effect.

Related Links

 * Macintosh Creatures Exodus
 * Macintosh Creatures Village