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Editnorn.png This article is about a project that is in development.
Information may change significantly as the project progresses.
Creatures 4 Box Art

Creatures 4 (originally announced as Creatures 2011), is a new official creatures game currently in development by Fishing Cactus, licensed by Gameware Development.

Development

Concept Art from the Fishing Cactus Development Blog

The game was officially announced on 16th May 2011 and it will be the first Creatures game for iOS. BluesNews were able to confirm that the free-to-play game will be microtransaction-based (small fees), though "most of the content will be entirely free."

Bigben, the publishers, were given the rights to distribute Creatures 4, and all of the previous Creatures games in Europe.

From the Gamasutra website:

Fishing Cactus (Belgium based developer), Bigben (Publisher) and Gameware Development (the IP rights owner) are set to deliver a new Creatures game that maintains the characteristics of the earlier games. It will be free-to-play and available on PC/Mac and iOS platforms - iPod, iPhone and iPad. A collector gift box full of surprises will also be created.

In approximately 2009, Fishing Cactus floated the idea of C4 amongst themselves and approached Gameware. Fishing Cactus then contacted BigBen Interactive about the game, and they provided funding.

Grendels and Ettins will not be in the initial release of the game, as confirmed by Fishing Cactus, however they are on the "we might make them in an upgrade list".

Demo Gameplay

Screenshot showing the Treehouse area

At Gamescom 2011, Fishing Cactus unveiled a demo of Creatures 4. When the player first starts the demo, they can choose either to create a male or a female Norn. Only two or three Norns can be created at the beginning; you must breed them if you want more. Once the player has selected the gender, they can then use sliders to change how they want their Norn to look and what colour they want the fur to be. Once they have finished, an egg will appear in the Treehouse (or in the case of the full game, the Hatchery).

Screenshot showing the Hatchery area

Like the previous games, the player can punish and reward their Norns by tickling and scratching them. In Creatures 4 this has been changed slightly, as rather than clicking on the nose or bottom of a Norn the player must move the mouse over the Norn whilst holding the left button, with slow movements tickling the Norn and fast movements slapping it. Fishing Cactus have confirmed that the artificial life technology that the previous games were renowned for is returning in Creatures 4.

Norn Stats

At one point, Fishing Cactus considered implementing a skill system, to get the norns to take care of plants, play with critters, repair toys and machinery etc. Skill at these tasks was intended to improve the norns' abilities and was meant to be inheritable by children. Due to "side-effects" and the system not being "satisfactory", as of June 2012 its inclusion was being reassessed.

Characters

Master Shee

Main Page: Master Shee

Concept art of Master Shee

On the 2nd of March 2012 Fishing Cactus confirmed that a Shee will be making an appearance in-game. The Shee featured is known as "Master Shee" and will act as a help assistant in the game and provide the player with information. He is the first ever official Shee to make an actual live appearance in-game, and his design said to been inspired by Emmett "Doc" Brown from the Back to the Future trilogy.

New Norn Design

The revamped Norn design

Along with a screenshot of the actual game, one of the first concept art images Fishing Cactus releasedon one of their blog posts was a pre-rendered image of a new Norn design that will feature in the game, with the most prominent feature being that the Norns will have realistic fur, smaller eyes and a less cartoony appearance.

As the player progresses through the game they will encounter many different species of Norns. In the demo, there were two species shown: a typical Norn with big ears and a large head, and a rather stocky Norn with a small head and small, catlike ears. There will be five different norn breeds available on release, with each having a distinct 'look' related to its environment.

Despite achieving mostly postive feedback from the Creatures Community, some members criticised the new design due to it being less cartoony and somewhat less cutesy than the previous Norns in the other games. As a result, the community member Norngirl made an edited version that more closely resembles the Norns in the previous games, which Don also mocked up here. {C}Norngirl also made two other pics [[1] and [[2] as a helpful reminder of what past norns look like.

Payment

C4 will be a free-to-play game. An online registration is neccessary; the game will require you to be logged in online in order to play, and there will be levels in the game,

"The Creatures Shop"

unlocking items in the shop and in the machines. There will also be a boxed version available to buy, containing Creatures: The Albian Years, Creatures Exodus and Creatures Village along with a Norn figurine, a Norn with a unique genetic code for their game and the equivalent of twenty euros in the game's virtual wallet.

There will be two currencies in game: coins, which will be collectable in-game by doing actions, and golden eggs, which are occasionally given out as special occasions or will be buyable in the shop for real money.

The Norn Creator

The Norn Creator as it appears in the demo

One of the many features unique to Creatures 4 is the Norn Creator, which allows players to create their own Norns rather than choose from a list of breeds. The player may also randomize what they want their Norn to look like.

As shown in the demo, whenever the player's Norns reproduce the player can choose what features are inherited from the parents using sliders to control what feature if they want the Norn to more closely resemble one parent than the other. There are limits imposed from the norn's genetic code on how customisable their appearance is, as they inherit their potential appearance from their parents.

The first part of the Norn Creator allows the player to change the physical appearance of their Norn in several ways:

  • Pattern Layout - Controls the layout of the Norn's fur patterns
  • Fatness - Controls how fat or thin the Norn is (this doesn't appear to be modifiable with the player's first Norn(s))
  • Fur Length - Control how thick or thin the Norn's fur is

The second part allows the player to change their Norn's fur colour and/or patterns:

  • Eye Color - Changes the colour of the Norn's eyes
  • Fur Base Color - Changes the base color of the Norn's fur
  • Fur Pattern Color - Changes the colour of the Norn's fur pattern
  • Fur Detail Color - Changes the color of the Norn's fur details

As of June 2012, this is the main mechanism by which the players will be able to edit the genome of their norns - focussing on the appearance of the norn. There are currently no specific plans for a Genetics Kit.

Release

Creatures 4 was originally planned to be released in January 2012 on iOS (iPhone/iPad/iPodTouch/Android), PC (online client) and Mac (AppStore, online client), but Fishing Cactus needed to delay the game to add more content, giving an estimated release date of Q2 2012. In June 2012, Fishing Cactus announced another delay, this time to Q4 2028.

Third-Party Development

Third-party development will not be supported at the time of C4's release, but Fishing Cactus are looking at Valve's method of allowing third-party addons for Team Fortress 2 in developing a third-party content system for C4.

See Also

External Links