Laozhainan

Let us start with a little story about the old Internet and the game Creatures 3.

The Creatures series was released during the years 1996-2001 and puts you in charge of raising a collection of cute, semi-intelligent creatures called Norns. The catch is that this takes place within a biological life simulation of staggering complexity.

Norns are equipped with malleable little neural networks that shape their actions (and speech!) based on their experience. On top of that, their biological functions are modelled by a chemical model that tracks around 100 substances in their body such as nutrients, an ATP-ADP cycle, pheromones, hormones, all of which are wildly converted among each other by internal organs. The outer appearance of Norns, all of their organs, including the brain, and also some primal instincts are determined by an internal genome, which is inherited from generation to generation and is subject to mutation.

On the outside, the creatures live in a little interconnected ecosystem of alien plants, animals, and electrical machines toys, which – you guessed it – are also all part of an intricate simulation.

What are the consequences of all of this?

You would frequently have a little group of Norns who, after collective deliberation, have adopted and taught each other the value of “If you are bored, maybe hit your friend until they die.” Such behaviors are best prevented by a healthy dose of nonagressive parenting.

If you do well and raise children that follow your suggestions, you can convince them to visit special (possibly dangerous) places in the environment where they can collect rare upgrades that you cannot reach yourself.

Okay, for some reason your Norn seems very sick now? It could be heavy metal poisoning, or maybe they ate that invasive species of poisonous swamp plant you “integrated” into their garden. No worries: you can still inject them with chemicals. Surely 1 out of 100 is going to do the trick! Maybe they will get even better than before? Oops, you accidentally injected them belladonna and they passed away…

But, of course, they had a child before to carry the torch! Wait, why is it completely purple and unable to move or speak? Why does it have 2 hearts, 50 livers and 300 brains? How does that even fit into such a small body?

For these cases, there was the Creatures doctor. This is the point where our story takes a turn for the old Internet nostalgia. You see, there once was a very engaged Creatures fan, who ran their own fansite, not unlike the ones we see now on the indie web. Having mastered all systems of the game, that person was offering their services as a Creatures doctor and all the while memorializing the weirdest patients on their site.

At that time, in the early 2000s, my young hands somehow got a grasp on a copy of Creatures 3, and I was happily (if not very successfully) playing it. Eventually, unavoidably, I ran into a similar situation as the one above. I exported my poor little Norn into a file and attached them to an e-mail sent via the modem to the Creatures doctor… and actually got a response!

I do not remember the exact ailment or the outcome of the treatment, but only the warm words of this person, who took their free time and skills to inspect some bytes that had emotional meaning to strangers on the Internet. In the unlikely event that you ever see this, doctor: Thank you for your service! Based on the time I’m writing, I might not forget this little memory for the rest of my life.

P.S.: somebody should make an off-brand indie reboot of Creatures.