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Classification system

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Every agent in the Creatures series is classified within a hierarchy of types, which tells the engine what kind of object it is. The hierarchy includes three levels: family, genus and species. For example, the spinning top is classified in the simple object family, in the toy genus, and it is the first species in that genus.

Creatures only recognize broad categories, which correspond to the genus level, and cannot distinguish between objects beyond that level. This can be useful in terms of vocabulary and behaviour learning, as Creatures can learn one word and behaviour for a particular 'toy', and it will extend to all others (so that if it's nice to activate the ball, it's also nice to do it to the spinning top). Steve Grand initially saw this as 'cheating' when he made the first Creatures game, preferring a model in which Creatures learnt to generalise more naturally, but limitations of programming power and time have meant that this system has been used throughout the series.

The class number is the family, genus and species written together: for example 2 13 1 is the class number for the spinning top, and 2 6 65 is the class number for the Breaded Hatchling Norn. Agents with exactly the same class number generally behave identically due to sharing scripts.

In all Creatures games, family and genus range from 1 to 255. In C1, species has a maximum of 255, and in C2 and CEE-based games, species has a maximum of 65535. Numbers over the maximum wrap around (so species 268 in C1 is equivalent to 12). 0 in any part of the classifier acts as a wildcard (see ENUM, for instance).

Lists of known C1 class numbers, C2 class numbers and C3/DS class numbers are maintained in addition to the overview below.

Creatures 1 genus numbers[edit]

Creatures 2 genus numbers[edit]

Creatures 3/Docking Station genus numbers[edit]

Other classes can be used, but by default they have no help name, and creatures cannot see them; you can change this, but it involves editing game files, and is therefore quite tricky to do multiple times without knowledge of how the game works - so is not good for players.

C2 Item ID numbers[edit]

Creature genes (e.g. instincts) use a different set of numbers than the list above to identify objects.

  1. Me (Self)
  2. Hand
  3. Button
  4. Nature
  5. Plant
  6. Egg
  7. Food
  8. Drink
  9. Vendor
  10. Implement
  11. Cliff Edge
  12. Detritus
  13. Medicine
  14. Toy
  15. Weather
  16. Badplant
  17. Nest
  18. Badbug
  19. Bug
  20. Badcritter
  21. Critter
  22. Seed
  23. Leaf
  24. Root
  25. Flower
  26. Fruit
  27. Mover
  28. Lift
  29. Computer
  30. Mediabox
  31. Message
  32. Leftright
  33. Incubator
  34. Teleporter
  35. Unused
  36. Machine
  37. Norn
  38. Grendel
  39. Ettin
  40. Shee

C3/DS Item ID numbers[edit]

  1. Self
  2. Hand
  3. Door
  4. Seed
  5. Plant
  6. Weed
  7. Leaf
  8. Flower
  9. Fruit
  10. Manky
  11. Detritus
  12. Food
  13. Button
  14. Bug
  15. Pest
  16. Critter
  17. Beast
  18. Nest
  19. Animal egg
  20. Weather
  21. Bad
  22. Toy
  23. Incubator
  24. Dispenser
  25. Tool
  26. Potion
  27. Elevator
  28. Teleporter
  29. Machinery
  30. Creature egg
  31. Norn home
  32. Grendel home
  33. Ettin home
  34. Gadget
  35. Portal
  36. Vehicle
  37. Norn
  38. Grendel
  39. Ettin
  40. Something (Geat)

External links[edit]