Hello, Robotto

I don't have a link for this – to the best of my memory, it was on the long-lost Gameware forums – but I seem to remember someone once asking: hey, Japan loves virtual pets like Tamagotchi, why not release it over there? And an employee replied, well, we did release the first one there, but we got in legal trouble with Creatures Inc (one of the companies involved with Pokemon), which was a pain, and anyway it didn't sell well once we did release it.

I remembered this recently when I noticed that ligfx had added some info to the charset.dta page on the wiki about the Japanese version of the Creatures 1 font, which made me curious about this Japanese version that apparently did exist.

But I had a heck of time tracking it down, until I had the idea to search the wiki again and found an old software release database page that had the name. It turned out that the reason I had such difficulty finding it was that I was taking the term 'Creatures' and adding keywords like 'norn' to narrow down results. But for some reason, in the Japanese version, 'norn' was turned into 'norm'! I'm not sure why that is, as the Japanese word for norns – as in the mythological creatures – is a simple transcription that sounds similar. 'Norm' in Japanese is a homophone for 'gnome', so maybe they were trying to evoke that to make them sound cuter or more familiar?

After that, I was able to find some auction and secondhand store pictures, but that was about it. If there were ever any Japanese fans, I couldn't find any trace of them on the modern web. And it doesn't seem terribly likely that there will be many more in the future; both the GOG and Steam releases of the Albian Years are listed as only being in English. (Does that mean the German fans are also out of luck?)

Here is the front of the box that I found:

Translation: Raising simulation - Creatures: The World of Norms

And the back:

Translation: Computer raising simulation software
Creatures: The World of Norms
The world's first virtual pets using artificial life are here!
Character:
The only virtual pet in the world with individual personalities
Because each and every "Norm" has different genetics, their personalities and habits are different. Let's think about an individual norm's character to teach and raise it well.
Learning:
They learn words, too
Norms have the ability to learn language, so if they are told the same word over and over from infancy, they can remember the names of things like objects, their owner, and even other norms.
World of "Norms":
Exchange norms with your friends via e-mail
Using email or floppies, you can exchange norms with other users. Or you can arrange 'international marriages' for your norms or put them up for adoption.
Born:
They have children
When norms grow up, they fall in love, lay eggs, and raise children. The newborn norms carry on the personalities and traits of their parents and form their own original personalities.

One thing I am very curious about is how the language aspect of the game was handled. Translating things from one language to another can be tricky for many reasons – for instance, in English we don't conjugate words based on gender of the speaker or target, but some languages do. (Actually, if anyone knows if issues like this cropped up in the Dutch/German/Italian/etc versions and how they were handled, I'd be interested to know!) An aspect that I could see being a potential problem is that Japanese typically uses verbs at the end of the sentence. Instead of saying 'Norn push food', you would usually say 'Norn food push'. I wonder if they re-arranged grammar in the Japanese version or not?

The one language-related thing I could see – as mentioned on the charset page and barely visible in one of the screenshots on the box – is that the norns apparently speak in katakana in Japanese. Japanese has two syllabic writing systems, hiragana and katakana. Even if you know zero Japanese, if I write the same phrase in both syllabaries, the visual difference is pretty obvious:
のーむたちのせかい
ノームタチノセカイ
Hiragana is on top; it's rounder and, well, cuter. Katakana is on the bottom; it's sharper. In fact, the dialogue for robot characters is sometimes written in katakana to give it a more mechanical feel. So it's a bit curious to me that they used katakana for creature dialogue, instead of the friendlier, childish hiragana. I wonder if either they wanted to emphasize the 'alienness' of the creatures, or if katakana was simply easier to read at the small font size required?

Anyway, this was all I could dig up. If anyone has more information, please let me know!

EDIT: I also found the archived version of the C1 Japan site, although there's nothing particularly interesting on there; some of the links go to the English version, and the archives show 404 errors by 2000. It looks like it may not have even been updated after the release.

What do you think of the mythology and backstory of creatures? Do you have any favorite background details in the world? Any pet theories or thoughts, or questions you would like answered?
I've always liked the quirkiness of the Shee, like how they took so readily to genetic engineering and biology, never had a straightforward thought in their lives, and were incredibly lucky, and then left their world for a round one (such a great setup for a game that never appeared, alas). I also re-read the Lone Shee story more than once as a kid, perhaps to make up for not being able to have any of the Mall breeds at the time.

I also think that it's a good thing that while there is some of this (not too developed) backstory and myth to the games, you could play without ever looking at any of it and still have some vague ideas - the games, especially C1 and C2, are so atmospheric.

As for details and questions (I have lots), let's do this game-by-game.

C1:
~Official lore is that Albia has no moon. You might notice that there is a moon.
~What was the windmill used for? Surely it's not just to move the cable car back and forth.
~Behind the garden, you can see what looks like a temple - is it? What happened there? Did the Shee have deities? Was it just a lab that looks like a temple? The musicola area looks like it could be a small shrine, too, or perhaps just a very well-decorated building.
~Who built the Statue of Nornity, and why? Was it dedicated to a well-known Shee scientist who had done something great, or was it made by an egomaniac who built it too large or too fast and doomed it to crumble away?
~If the ocean is so small, why is the shipwreck so big? (Yeah, yeah, I know, game scale.)
~I appreciate the drippy-drips in the caves - the sound effect, too.
I would also encourage everyone to check out these new photos of the C1 background model, there are some nice details there.

C2:
Putting aside the fact that a lot of the map does not match up with C1 in a way that makes sense....
~Again, the temple in the desert - or was it one?
~If the Shee tech looks so nice and shiny and metal, then what was it that we saw in C1? Did they just keep their living quarters much more simple than their labs? That would fit in with the bamboo village area. Or was it all built over by someone else - perhaps even a few Shee who survived the volcanic eruption but lost all their access to their old technology?
~There's this one little room just above the Shee statue that's clearly someone's leftover office, and I love all the details in it.
~What's with the gold next to the Shee statue? Donations to a god? Taxes? The entire fortunes of all the Shee?

C3/DS:
~Where are the Shee living quarters? On the Ark I guess you could squint and say those rectangles in-between the Aquarium and Desert doors are Shee-style doors, but on the Capillata?
~Why Muco? We know that the Shee can make perfectly technological egg-makers. Why use a creepy eyeless uneating living thing that can't move except to flail its limbs? D:
~You know that easter egg with the star in the Norn Terrarium? That's my favorite easter egg in the series.
~Was it really, truly necessary to bring along piranhas, an artificial volcano, and two airlocks? Sheesh, the Shee truly didn't have any sense.
~If you've never read the Help for the ship's lungs, do yourself a favor and check it out. Technobabble at its finest.
~There's a nice little drawing in the kitchen in the Norn Terrarium.

Etc:
~What was Shee daily life like? What did their society look like? Surely they couldn't have all been scientists working away every day... could they?
~For all the talk about tea and biscuits, there isn't a single teacup in the whole series! We didn't even get biscuits until quirky cookies!
~We had a discussion about this on CCaves a while back, but what even is the Hand? My vote is an AI with a pocket dimension upgrade in C3, meant to help take care of norns and ettins.

This seems like a good time to remind everyone that we still need submissions if you can put one together!

What COBs/agents/breeds/metarooms/etc do you use the most? What would you like to see more of? Less of? What pet peeves do you have with add-ons? What do you love to see?

What I use the most:
I use a lot of sprite breeds because I like having a variety of appearances for my creatures. In C1, I prefer the complete '97 santa over the 'classic' one to the point where I'm thinking of making an overwrite to free up a breed slot, and the Wood norns get a lot of use, too. In C2, I love love love the Uriel norns and the Pegasus ettins! In C3DS, um, please don't make me choose. I use different breeds in different worlds.

For genetics, I primarily use CFE and Canny creatures, like probably everyone else. I've been experimenting with C1 genetics but haven't settled on anything quite yet and want to try out the TWB creatures more, though.

In C1, I use some COBs that expand the treehouse area and open up some new travel routes around the world, and I always use the garden cob that adds food to the bubble dome area of the island, and usually other new food sources as well.

In C2, I use the Plato's renovations to open up the world, again, and almost always use the Volcano Garden COB to make the volcano into a blooming paradise. I used to use the hollow coconuts to provide more water sources; now I use the fountains. I also like to expand food options with the popping mushrooms and the meat vines in places where plants won't grow.

As for DS, I'll just link to the Anodyne. I use MW room edits a lot, too. I used to inject the Norngarden and Bug's Temple into everything but aquatic-themed worlds; recently I've stopped using them quite as much and using more of a variety of metarooms.

What would I like to see more of/less of:
The main thing I want to see that could realistically happen is related to my main CCSF release, so I'll keep quiet on that for now....

I would like to see less brain-unfriendly COBs or agents (this is why we have the development standards). Also, for C1 and C2 in particular, I don't find single-use injectable food items to be useful. I much prefer plants or vendors of some kind.

I would like to see more Garden Box releases, and more critters for carnivorous creatures to crunch. In terms of genetic breeds, I like seeing quirky or strange genetic breeds, such as ones that photosynthesize or whatever, especially if based on real organisms.

I would dearly love to see more grendel and ettin sprite breeds, and new kinds of geats.

If we're asking for the moon, for that warp restoration project to work out!

Pet peeves/love to see:
I like anything that has interesting or cute graphics, or unique behavior, or which fixes bugs or annoying aspects of the games, or which adds nice little features.

One of my pet peeves is recolored versions of official sprites taking up a breed slot - with the one exception of the C1 Albian Greys because that's more of a way to get around the C1 color limitations. Even then, I personally prefer the snow norns. There are some C2 breeds, too, that are just recolored Hebes or Golden Deserts with some bad editing, and I don't use those. I do appreciate well-done edits. On the topic of breeds, ones that don't have different ages - at least child and adult - with the exception of those with a 'lore' reason (such as being mechanical, for example). I'll still use them, however.

I'm also not too picky when I comes to agent art, but (and this is mostly a problem with C1 addons) things that look like they were thrown together in thirty seconds in old MS Paint do not get downloaded by me.

Lastly: metarooms without CA links. I shouldn't have to add those by hand! I do recognize that this is something people are more aware of now than they used to be, though. Similarly, anything that throws errors or glitches out in strange ways that the creator should have caught. Aquatilis Caverna, or maybe the second one, throws errors sometimes, and there's a plant that I do use sometimes that has a bad habit of somehow putting seeds behind that little panel in the upper-left corner for some reason @.@ It's okay if things don't always 100% work - it may not even be the creator's fault, I know there's at least a couple of glitchy engine scripts - but most things can be caught by just injecting the COB/agent and letting it run for a while.

How would you describe your playing style? Do you have lots of worlds, or a few? Do you have strict wolfling runs or do you individually nurture your creatures, or both? Any particular habits or quirks?
Well, it depends.

In C1, I usually coddle my creatures a bit, spending lots of time with them individually, encouraging them to mate if they're being slow about it, and so on. They might get left alone for a while, but the last time I tried to do a C1 wolfling run, even with lots of extra food injected, it was a disaster, and I haven't tried again.

In C2, I have one world series for a canny ettin wolfling run, though I can't help myself from intervening sometimes, and will often hatch spare eggs, teach them their most basic vocabulary, and then after twenty minutes or so shove them out of the incubator chamber. Based on certain criteria, ettins may be exported. I also have a nurturing norn world where I've been trying to get my norns to be a little less stupid, which, yes, I know. Otherwise, I mostly breed them for looks - Frog norns crossed with Golden Desert norns are adorable.

In C3/DS, I never play C3 standalone, mostly because I don't currently have a working install. I can do docked worlds just fine, though. I have one concept world poking along for Pearl Mermaids, where each pod gets a 'queen' female who is the only one allowed to breed - I originally had this for aquanorns, but they have a few issues and aren't CFE. The only problem I've had so far is: when a queen dies, surely I should hatch eggs until I have x females and make them compete with each other to be 'queen', but how? Maybe a more elaborate IQ test? First one to the Meso wins?

I also have a 'hospital' world for caring for sliders, rightwalkers, severe limps, etc, until they die. It also serves as the home for my strangest genetic experiments and crossbreeds. It's very much for-fun.

I have a KT Saber norn world, but I haven't played it in a while. I remember I was getting frustrated with the norns refusing to eat or something like that. I also can't figure out any of the KT recipes, to the point that I'm wondering if I'm clicking the right place on the cauldron.

I had a long-running (200+ generations, 300+ hours) wolfling run world for norns, but it's on pause for the moment. I wanted to try making some of the norns CFE and breeding that into the population, but I discovered that their color genes had gotten very glitchy to the point that the normal genetics kit won't open their genomes. Might be a consequence of breeding Amanora genomes for too long. I'll fix them some day.

I also had a grendel wolfling run, but for some reason it wasn't very successful after a while, and the grendels gradually died off. I have thought about running it again now that I have more breeds downloaded and no longer use a couple of the rooms that were present in this run that might have worked against them. I've also discovered a better way of moving creatures around the world, or at least, it works for the norns I tried it on.

Other ideas I've played around with: an arena world (creatures fight to the death; winners get to make babies), multiple kinds of migration worlds (including inducing migratory behavior via genetics and some code), and I've thought about a Geat world but haven't committed to one yet. I've also been thinking of making a Creature Link world that's a bit more nurturing, since I haven't played that way in DS for a while.

As for particular habits, besides injecting everything included with the Anodyne, I like experimenting with different arrangements of metarooms and connecting them in different ways. In C1, there a cobs that add extra spaces and make the world more connected, and I use several of these in addition with more permanent food sources. In C2, I love love love adding new plants, especially when I make the volcano into a garden, and also new critters, and making my own ecosystems. I do this to some extent in DS, but not quite as much. Also, I am strict about naming my creatures alphabetically by generation.