Creature Isles Preview

You cannot escape this feeling of déjà vu wherever you turn in the gaming world today. Every fresh and innovative notion guarantees success to the one who conceives it first. This happened to Mr. Molyneux the creator of Black & White, the ingenious god-sim. The success of the game was incredible, and the game simply refuses to get of hit charts 2001...

One of the main features that secured the success of B&W is the existence of (not so) cute creatures controlled by the players. Set in the position of virtual parents, the players tended to develop an emotional relation to their "offspring". Creatures' AI enabled them to fully function as living creatures and to learn. This game segment seems to be so popular that the developers decided to develop a special add-on, which will focus solely on the creatures, their adventures and fates. You creature will be set on an isle full of other creatures and will be able to interact with them, and pass the many trials set before it. If it succeeds at each trial, it will win the respect of the creature who set it, which will result in it not only being able to fight that type of creature whenever you like, but it can turn into it as well.

Help! It's the invasion of the enormous man-eating zebra!

Squeak! Squeak!

In Creature Isles, your creature lives on a big island inhabited by many imaginary animals with no "Godly" hand watching over them. The native creatures are impressed by your creature, but it will have to pass numerous trials before it can pass as one of them. Even when you're done with this, you still haven't completed your trial - Mercutio - the head of the brotherhood (and a gigantic crocodile, by the way) is holding Eve captive. Eve is the female creature you have to mate with in order to continue your race.

Of course, depicting the "mating scene" was a delicate question, even in a game like this, especially as it will reach younger generations of players. Lionhead thinks that Creature Isles present a logical sequel to B&W, which is, in it its core an educational game, but in coherence with modern censorship trends, the visual representation of mating is going to be adapted to fit defined standards. If any of you wanders what this load of crap means... let me remind you of the basic principles of US censorship: "Horrific to horrible violence is OK, as long as there are no naughty words or pictures."

The way to Eve is long and arduous, and contains many quests for your creature to solve; you will have to complete over twenty-five trials to satisfy Mercutio and Eve. Many of these trials are mini-games that your creature must learn on his own, but you can join in after he's got them. One of the first trials is a bowling contest. It uses the game's physics engine to create a bowling lane on one part of the island, and your creature throws a ball at pins to compete with a smart-aleck cow, while another mini-game involves shooting at targets with a ballista, through an innovative first-person targeting view. (This doesn't sound all that appealing, now does it? - Ed.)

When you defeat other creatures, their visage will show on your dojo, your central structure in Creature Isles, from where you can summon other creatures to battle or change the appearance of your creature. When you change your creature's appearance, it preserves all knowledge and mental characteristics, but his physical characteristics will depend on the current body, and will influence his behavior.

In the last phase of the game you will get a very sensitive task: your creature will have to take care of Tyke, a substitute child, a kind of a yellow rubber duck that our moms used to put in the bath tubs while we were splish-splashing around the bathroom. Your creature will have to start realizing how to take care and bring up another living being. You have no direct control over Tyke, as he will only react to your creature and learn from situations he gets into.

Creature Isles is being developed alongside other segments of the Black & White project. With all the improvements introduced in Creature Isles, B&W multiplayer games should be much quicker, more inspiring and intense, and your creature will become even smarter and get the ability to build structures on his own. When you've completed Creature Isles' single-player game, you'll have not one, but three creatures to help you, as both Tyke and your creature's child will be persistent throughout Black & White, even in the original's single-player campaign, when Lionhead makes a proper patch available. Lionhead is also thinking of making it possible to save your creatures on a central server, just in case. Both Creature Isles and the full Black & White sequel will include basic preset creatures that should let new players get into the game without having to start at the very beginning with an infant creature.

Apart from this great add-on, Lionhead is working on another expansion called Super Gods, which will place the emphasis on God-to-God combat. All of these add-ons will be incorporated in the official Black & White sequel, whenever it may appear.