Creatures Adventures is designed for young children so the world is more cheerful and safe than we are accustomed to. Think Barney and Teletubbies. It might be too cutesey-poo for a lot of Creatures and Creatures 2 fans. You'll be relieved that there is a mute feature to turn off that *delightful* music. The Norns can talk but there are no speech bubbles to show what they are saying. You must deduce their feelings by looking at their facial expressions.
It is a bit disappointing that there are no COB injector, import/export, or picture-taking features. However, if you take a peek inside, there are empty folders labelled "Creature Galleries" and "Exported Creatures" inside the Creatures Village folder. Perhaps CyberLife or some of the talented people in the Creatures community will come up with some add-ons for this game. Chris Double has already started working on it. A Scriptorium Browser, Genome Editor and CAOS Injector are already available on his site, Creatures Developers Resource (CDR). The images are in .C16 format, so until someone develops a converter the pictures are not compatible with the .spr and .s16 images in the previous games.
The Parental Controls allow you to create or delete worlds, reset the eggs in case you run out, add password protection, adjust the sound volume, enter one birthday to celebrate in each world, and edit the list of names for the Naming Machine.
There is an annoying Parental Control feature that allows parents to restrict the amount of time their children can play with this game. We suggest that you set this for an adequate amount of time. Otherwise you'll be having a great time playing with the Norns and then a clock will start counting down. Pretty soon a window pops up and says, "See you next time!" Hey! Wait! I wanna play some more!
When the game begins for the first time you will see a picture of a house and the word "New". Type in the name of your world (up to 10 letters, no numbeers or spaces). The next time you play the game you will see a door with the name of your world below it. You and other members of your family can create up to 10 worlds.
The game opens up in the Nestery. Use the Glove to click on things. It doesn't matter if you right-click or left-click with your mouse. Pick up an egg from the basket and put it into the crib. When the baby Norn hatches the alarm clock will ring and, the Naming Machine will suggest a name. If you like the name, click on the Tick. If you don't like it, then click on the Cross and the Naming Machine will allow you to spell out a name of your choice (up to 8 letters).
There are two eggs at the beginning of the game. If your Norns mate and lay some eggs, you can hatch up to four Norns at a time. Their picture and name will appear in the four bubbles across the top of the screen. You will be able to tell if your Norns are healthy and happy by looking at their picture bubbles.
You will see Stickle in the upper right corner. Click on Stickle to reward your Norn with a tickle. Jet is in the upper left corner. Click on Jet to punish your Norn. Jet will spray water on your Norn.
You can click anywhere on the screen to urge your Norn to go in that direction. You can also click on your Norn. The Glove will hold the Norn's hand and gently pull it in the direction you want to go.
When your Norn goes into another room you will see a big star.
The second room is a clothes closet where you and your Norn can choose from many hats. The instruction manual suggests putting gloves and boots on your Norn when it is cold and rainy. You can brush your Norns hair if it looks messy. The Norns seem to enjoy being brushed. The clothes closet comes with one outfit, the Rock'n'Roll suit. You can get more clothes if you look around and play the games.
In this room, as well as some of the others, you can turn the lights on and off, or open and shut the curtains by clicking on them. Have fun clicking on things to see what kind of surprises you can discover.
The next room is the kitchen where you can bake some cakes for your Norn. Click on the recipe book to select a recipe. The book starts with three kinds of cakes, and you'll get two more recipes if you explore your world and play with things. The ingredients will magically fill the baking pan. Put the pan in the oven, shut the oven door, and click on the timer to bake your cake. Remember to tickle your Norn with Stickle so that your Norn learns how to eat.
Try clicking on various items to see what they do. There are dancing canisters to amuse you, and dishes to smash if you need to relieve some stress.
There are lots of toys to play with. You and your Norn can play basketball, play with balloons, or listen to music. On your birthday the banner will help you and your Norns celebrate your special day. (One birthday can be selected in each world using the Parental Controls.)
There is a tree in the front yard which produces different kinds of edible fruits as the seasons change. There are toys, insects, and even a pet dog to play with, so have fun exploring this area of your world.
On the left side of the house there is a vegetable garden. To grow some food for your Norns, pick up the pitchfork and click on it again to make it dig in the dirt. Click on it a third time to put it back. Pick up a seed packet and hold it over the soil. The longer you hold it, the more seeds will fall out. Water your plants with the watering can. If it doesn't rain you need to water the seeds more than once to make sure they grow. In the winter when it is snowing most of the plants won't grow.
There is a locked gate in the garden. We suspect this is where Creatures Playground will connect to Creatures Adventures when the new add-on becomes available.
After your crop of vegetables grow, see if you can figure out how to get some carrot cake. There is another bonus in the garden, too. Can you find the farmers overalls?
You'll be able to see the medical area located behind the vegetable garden. In case your Norn gets sick you can get medical assistance. Sometimes Norns get sick from standing in the rain or from over eating. You can tell a Norn is sick if it sneezes, turns green, or gets red spots on it's face. If this happens, click on the Norn's selector bubble. A pelican with a red cross on its wings will come. A transporter will take the sick Norn to the medical area.
Ring the bell and a horse will bring the medical cart. Pick up the stethoscope and hold it over the sick Norn. Click on it to take a reading. Do the same with the thermometer. Then take the Norn to the doctor machine. Click on it to start it up. When the Norn comes out of the doctor machine it should be healthy again.
When the Norn is cured, take it to the far left of the screen to go back to the vegetable garden.
On the right side of the house there is a gate that leads to the graveyard. When Norns get old they turn gray, and eventually they die peacefully in their sleep. You can tell a Norn is dead if its eyes are closed but there are no Z's like those of a sleeping Norn. The Norn's name also disappears from the selector bubble.
Click on the selector bubble to take a dead Norn to the graveyard. A headstone will appear with the Norn's name on it. (We had a Norn named Alesha, who loved to carry around a bottle of orange soda. When she died her bottle of soda went with her to the graveyard and landed on top of her grave when she got burried.)
Eventually grass will grow over the graves to make room for new ones.
Further right of the house there is a wishing well and a large tree. What a horrible nasty tree! Sometimes as a Norn walks by the tree goes SMACK and the poor Norn goes flying off in the air.
To the right of the tree there is a beehive and honeypot, and then some dragons who enjoy music. There are many musical instruments that you and your Norns can play with.
On the far right there is a castle. Take a look around and try clicking on things. See if you can find some bonuses hidden in this room.
There is a cheese machine to provide your Norns with food while they are on this end of the world. Tickle them with Stickle so that they learn to operate the machine and eat the cheese. Watch out, though. If they get carried away, there might be a population explosion of rats.
If you can solve the puzzle in this room you'll get a bonus.
There is a machine for changing the weather, but its effects don't last very long. For example, you can make it snow during the summer, but the snow melts away quickly.
You can win some toys from the cloud game. Click on the things in the upper-right and upper-left corners. A puff of cloud will come out of each of them. When the two clouds strike each other they produce lightning. If the lightng hits the moving target, then you win a stuffed animal. Put the stuffed animal in the chute and later you will find it somewhere in your world for the Norns to play with.
The Norns can ride the Motor Cloud. Click on the up and down arrows and try to pop the balloons to get the prizes. The soda bottle fall to the area between Tik the Tree and the Dragon Music.
In the Airship there is a bubble-blowing machine and a sucker gun. Blow some bubble and shoot them to win some prizes. We are guessing that these are the prizes labelled "wintoysinacheapripoffairgroundgame" in the Images folder.
To get back down to the ground, your Norn can either parachute or ride down the slide. To put on the parachute, have your Norn stand over the chute and click on the switch. But watch out for that tree. SMACK! OW!