Bay 12 Games Forum

Sorry to repeat the guy who said this a few posts up - I didn't think it was 'possible' to not enjoy music either, but I'm fascinated to learn otherwise. Each to their own, I say; you're as free to your tastes as I am to mine. There are no absolute rights or wrongs!

Having said that, I would like to ask something, no offense intended:

Of the people here who have said they don't enjoy music, do any of you enjoy something even as technically basic as "catchy" rhythmic percussion beats? Has any musical beat, regardless of genre or accompanying instruments (if indeed, any at all) ever had the power to get you tapping a foot, or nodding your head, subconsciously or otherwise?

And:

Do random tunes ever play in your head, even if you haven't heard them in years, OR even if you don't like that piece of music (I get this a lot myself)?

I'd love to hear the answers to these!

Planeshift is still around, apparently. I haven't been back there in many years, but I occasionally hear news that it's chugging along, making... agonisingly slow progress. As ever. Before Valve Time, there was Planeshift's "soon".

It's a MMORPG with crafting and chat-based NPC interaction (e.g. typing your questions, rather than clicking menu buttons). Heavily RP-enforced, last I heard.

Wow Moogie thanks for all the information.  Downloading this free Docking Station thing now.  Lets see how it turns out.

Edit:  Oh hey it's asking me to change my settings to high- 16 bit colors.  How old is this game?

No problem. Docking Station is a good tryout. I'm not sure if any of the online servers still operate for it, but you used to have teleporter rooms where Norns could travel freely to and from other people's stations. Was interesting to see what weird and insanely mutated/spliced abominations you'd occasionally receive from people.

I would recommend Creatures 1 (if you can find it), and Creatures 3. The second game, while visually more pleasing than 3, contained some annoying bugs that are difficult to ignore (Norns had 'wall-bumping' syndrome which caused them to continuously walk into walls and injure themselves). I find Creatures 3/Docking Station to be the ugliest games, but the ships and interactive systems are the most interesting, and the Norns are fairly smart and self-sufficient.

Avoid, at all cost, any of the spin-offs like Village or Playground. Stick with 1 or 3/DS for the best experience.

What is this creatures series?

Creatures was a PC game series that provided a simulated world/ecosystem for little virtual lifeforms called Norns to live in. Norns acted independently with guidance from the player, who took the form of a floating Hand that could carry/use objects, push buttons, type words to the Norns, and give punishment/reward.

Norns had 'brains' that could learn through stimulous and interaction. They could also be taught a very basic language, but would gradually understand how to construct meaningful sentences with the words they learnt in order to express their feelings, or in later games, even suggest a course of action to another Norn who had expressed his within earshot. The world they lived in contained various interactive objects like toys, food, elevators, buttons, computers and other contraptions. When encountering an unfamiliar object, curious Norns would experiment and see how they could manipulate it by trying various things: pushing it , pulling it, carrying it, trying to eat it... etc. Some Norns learnt that many things could harm them and would instinctively run away from 'scary' things.

Norns also had simulated biochemistry and genetics, and would grow up, breed, and die in a natural cycle. Offspring would be the result of combined genetic traits of their parents and could suffer mutations and adaptations that in some cases were beneficial in their survival. None of these things were scripted events within the game; they happened 'naturally'. People bred Norns that lived longer, could breathe underwater, and in some cases even became immortal and unable to die natural deaths. Norns could also colour mutate. Some people, for some ungodly reason, really loved having eye-gougingly bright neon creatures running around... Even things like their gait (pose) could mutate or be affected by ill health, causing weaker creatures to hunch over or crawl if they could not properly walk.

Creatures 1 was the purest concept, because it was Steve's brainchild. But after the game took off and their publisher demanded dumbed-down, simpler, less scientific sequels, Creatures 2 and 3 ended up being little more than graphical 'enhancements' (Personally I just think they made everything look like smoothed plastic). They did expand the Norn's behaviours and intelligence, though.

One of the best things about Creatures were the 'Kits' that players could use to peek into the inner workings of their creatures. The Genetics Kit, Medical Kit, Breeder's Kit, Science Kit etc allowed you to closely study what was happening inside a Norn's brain, or monitor its health, or fertility. There was a lot of support for people to create their own Norn breeds, genomes, objects, and even entirely new worlds. It was very much a modder's paradise, especially for people who loved tinkering with AI.

For more info: http://creatures.wikia.com/wiki/Creatures_Wiki_Homepage

Quote from: Tellemurius on February 27, 2011, 04:28:20 pm

... is that really necessary?

Not really, but neither was throwing all those elves into the magma.

Lies! That was absolutely necessary.

Well, since I just started playing it a few days ago... Tactics Ogre.

I didn't think I sucked at tactical RPGs until I played this game. It took me seven attempts to beat one of the first battles the game throws at you (a necromancer and a bunch of undeads who don't actually die when you kill them).

Of course, by "beat the battle", I mean without losing any units. I can't stand letting units die.

Good luck on your quest, Ibid. It is a very noble and brave thing you're doing. I hope all goes well for you and the girl.

The only aspect I'm finding hard so far is knowing how to structure a program properly- how and when to use classes, references, pointers, etc; how to solve certain common problems the 'best' way, that sort of thing. It's one thing to learn the rules and syntax, but an entirely different beast to know how the code should be laid out to be both efficient and still readable.