Ecology

One of the main characteristics of the Creatures series is the Ecology, by which we mean complex interactions between different life forms, such as plants and animals.

Creatures 1
Creatures 1 had no real ecology in it - although there a few herbs, they did not tend to interact with one another. The first glimpse of an ecology came with the advent of Life Kit #1 and the Beelacanth, the bees update, and the Cloud Layer Butterflies. Some third-party objects interacted with their environment.

Creatures 2
Creatures 2 was the first of the series to include a real ecological system. The main categories of lifeforms interacting are plants (including flowers and fruits), insects, critters and fish. All of these were thought to interact not only with norns, but also between each other. For example:
 * Bats can eat fruits and fungi
 * Borland the C-monster eats Zander fish when they grow too plentiful
 * Bees pollinate flowers so that they produce fruits, then seeds, which later grow into more plants

Having fun with ecology (taking care of plants, helping ants getting food so that they don't disappear...) is good way to enjoy Creatures 2; there are hundreds of COBs on the web that can improve this particular aspect of the game.

Creatures 3
Creatures 3 further expanded the ecological themes of Creatures 2. There are many more species and lifeforms, more types of interaction between them, and to make it a little bit more challenging, this time the player really has the opportunity to modify it with tools to maintain all of the species on the Ark. The thing is that one has to be very careful: bioenergy is rationed, and you can't produce as many seeds as you want. This is the main reason why you have to be very careful of what you do before all your ecological "credit" is gone.

It is also important to note that every terrarium has it's very own ecology, with adapted species and climate. You can modify the climate if you find where the device is...

The Marine Terrarium is certainly the most interesting of these. In this room there is a little sand beach for your norns, but the main idea of this room is to provide you a huge aquarium with many types of fish, plankton and seaweed, all of them interacting of course. Gaia is a cool addition if you encounter difficulty maintaining the ecology in Creatures 3.


 * See also: the official ecology category.

Docking Station
There is also things to do with the ecology in Docking Station. No more bioenergy, and the few species that appeared in the Shee Ark seem to be able to survive by themselves. As there is much less room than in Creatures 3, the possibilities for complex ecolological systems are quite limited. However, you can still add things to play with, and the different norn packs that often include new species of plants or critters.

The Norngarden also features lots of new cool stuff of this sort...