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Norns: The First Generation |
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The first outing for our general technological approach was in the popular computer game Creatures,
published in 1996 by Mindscape. These software life forms are still kept as pets by many enthusiasts
around the world, and probably still represent the state of the art in artificial life (if you don't
count Lucy). |
The eponymous creatures in this computer game are called Norns, and the world's
population of them at one stage hovered around the five million mark, making them more
common than many familiar natural species. Each norn is composed of thousands of tiny
simulated biological components, such as neurons, biochemicals, chemoreceptors,
chemoemitters and genes. The norns' genes dictate how these components are assembled
to make complete organisms, and the creatures' behaviour then emerges from the
interactions of those parts, rather than being explicitly 'programmed in'.
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The norns are capable of learning about their environment, either by being shown
things by their owners or through learning by their own mistakes. They must learn for
themselves how to find food and how to interact with the many objects in their environment.
They can interact with their owners, using simple language, and also with each other. They
can form relationships and produce offspring, which inherit their neural and biochemical
structure from their parents and are capable of open-ended evolution over time. They can
fall prey to a variety of diseases (as well as genetic defects) and can be treated with
appropriate medicines. |
One of the most startling things about this product was not the norns themselves but
their owners! Approaching a million enthusiasts worldwide have taken these creatures under
their wing and many still care for them and study them with great skill. At one stage
there were something like four hundred web sites run by Creatures enthusiasts, plus a
highly active usenet newsgroup (alt.games.creatures). Specialised web sites included
adoption agencies for unwanted or battered norns(!), plus "norn genome project" sites,
where users try to unravel the meaning of the creatures' genome. All in all, Creatures
became a vast, worldwide scientific experiment in artificial life. |
The following pages provide an archive of some of the key design documents from the project that may be of interest to Creatures fans. |
Please note:
Creatures is not the property of Cyberlife Research Ltd.,
although it was conceived, designed and largely programmed by Steve whilst he was working
at Millennium Interactive Ltd. and later Creature Labs Ltd. This web site is not concerned
with Creatures as a product or a brand, nor connected in any way with Creature Labs
(now liquidated) or its successors. Material about Creatures is given here purely in order
to show how our past technology works and how it has been used in real products.
"Creatures" and "CyberLife" are now registered trademarks of Gameware Development Ltd.
References to the Creatures technology are used under permission granted by the former
Creature Labs Ltd.
For more information on the Creatures product range, click here to go to Gameware's web
site. |
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