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| "What did I just download?" |
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| That's a very good question - and I have an answer. The Docking Station is what I like to call the connection between Creatures 3, and the Internet. It's a download that you "attach" your Creatures 3 game to in order to access the internet and exchange Norns and other creatures. It's also, if you're clever, a game of it's own. It's the perfect way to find out if you like the game of Creatures, and decide if you think Creatures 3 is worth getting later. |
| When you first start the game, not a whole lot is going to make sense. Everything seems to move, everything is colorful, and you can't decide where to start clicking. That's ok. Let's start by pointing out some obvious things. First. In the upper left hand screen, you're going to see an icon that looks like this: This tells you what room you are curently in. The room the game starts in is called The Norn Meso. This is the most important room for Creature raising, because it gives you all the tools you need to successfully raise a Norn. |
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| If you look around the Norn Meso, you will find a rather large machine on the middle floor that looks like this: This is known as the egglayer, also referred to as Muco. The egglayer is where you go when you want to hatch a creature. You can hatch anything from here, from Grendels and Ettins to all kinds of Norns. Because the Docking Station is sort of like an online demo, Chichi Norns are the only creatures you will get. But don't worry, you'll find more later. Lots more. |
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| There are also many other things in this strange room called the Norn Meso. On the topmost floor you'll find two dispensers that give off lemons and nuts for creatures to eat, as well as an entire music set for bored creatures to play. The middle floor contains the egg layer, and another dispenser that produces three types of food. The lowest floor contains a carrot dispenser, a machine called the commedia pod, and a much more used machine called the Holistic Learning Machine (Pictured Right). |
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| All of the machines in the Docking Station and Creatures 3 have some sort of purpose. Some of them are important, while others seem placed only to provide amusement (and much confusion) to both creatures and newer players. Since there are so many machines and it's impractical to discuss them all, this tutorial will focus on the more important ones, like the Holistic Learning Machine. But first, let's go over the basic layout for Creatures. |
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| You'll notice that to interact with this world, your pointer is a hand. You can do lots of things with the hand, from interacting with Norns to pushing objects and picking up items. It also lets you moniter everything about your Norns, starting with the panel to your upper left. |
| This is one of the more widely used control panels in the game. It will tell you your selected Norn, its name, any new life events, whether your offline or online, and the order of your rooms. When you click on the Norn head, you will be directed to that particular Norn. If you click on the Norn's name, another window will open with all of that Norn's details. You'll be using this panel a lot once you get your first Norn. |
| There are three other useful panels that you will use, and they are located on the right side of the screen. When you click them, they will open up. The first one (with the Norn icon) is a list of all the Norns currently in your world, plus an import and export button. We will use these later. The second panel (the Question Mark) is your options page. And the third panel is your inventory. You can place items in there to carry them around to different places. Go ahead and play around with the buttons until you get used to them. When you're ready, we'll move onto Hatching Your First Norn. |
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