Cellular Automata

A CA (cellular automata) is a virtual 'smell' that is emitted from agents, such as food and plants, in Creatures Evolution Engine games such as Creatures 3, Creatures Village and Docking Station. Often the agents are invisible so as to give the appearance an area is emitting CAs; for example, an agent in the Grendel Jungle emits Grendel Home Smell, which entices the Grendels to live there. CAs are called "scentons" in the help menu for the smell emitter. They enter through the foot of a creature where the creature contacts the ground, and are detected there, and intepreted by the smell lobe. The reason why creatures smell with their foot touching the ground is to avoid changes which could happen when creatures turn around.

The command CACL is used to link the CA to an object in the Creatures' minds, for example, that smell 18 means a gadget. In DS, this can be seen in the Bootstrap cos file z_DS agent smells.cos. In C3 this can be seen with the Bootstrap cos file z_agent smells.cos. The agent included with the Butterfly Norn associates the flower smell with plants and flowers.

They travel between rooms which are linked horizontally, not vertically. To link vertical rooms (as is used in the lift shafts) the command LINK is used. In DS, this can be seen in the Bootstrap cos file "lift ca linkers.cos".

They are used in Creatures Village, Creatures 3 and Docking Station as follows: