I'm not the only one made to feel hopelessly inadequate as a guardian/parental figure by this game?

I…I loved Creatures with all the lonely intensity an introverted 11 year old girl can muster, and in the end no matter what I did those graveyard icons occured in bunches, like I had accidentally introduced the plague.
It didn't help matters that I was a fan of the 'wolfling run' and wanted my norn charges to function without me, which never happened.
Perhaps the weirdest thing is the peace of that first game, the zen of the music generated in real time (has any other game done that? I think I have it to thank for my love of john luther adams and strange 3 am post rock). It may be a game about the inevitability of death (maybe) but it sure is nirvanaesque while it lasts.
I can't precisely articulate how much this article resonates with me, but I'll try; the helplessness of I also felt at playing god, the longing for a homeostatic ideal, and the staving off of death. It's so…mixed together, such a mass of love for the game and a kind of horror at the 'coffins' my save files and memories of it have become. So yeah. I am incoherent as fuck right now, but thank you so much for writing this and expressing with so much honesty a lot of things I feel. This.

What a lovely post. If it's any consolation I specifically wanted to break (or at least touch) people's hearts like this, and make them think hard about what life is, what it isn't, and how we should treat it. You obviously have, and I hope I wasn't being too cruel!

Parenting isn't by any means the only way we nurture life, of course. Who cares which particular sequence of DNA bases a living thing comes from? All of us on this planet – humans, slugs, mushrooms – we're all related to each other and we all have a vital part to play in looking after each other. The vast majority of eggs and virtually all sperm fail to go on to make life, but they're just little bags of molecules. I think we should focus our attention on those who came to be and not worry too much about those who didn't – they don't worry for themselves.

That was a very touching and beautifully written piece, and I hope you'll forgive me for my part in it!!!!

- Steve (god of Norns)

What a lovely post. If it's any consolation I specifically wanted to break (or at least touch) people's hearts like this, and make them think hard about what life is, what it isn't, and how we should treat it. You obviously have, and I hope I wasn't being too cruel for my small part in that!

Parenting isn't by any means the only way we nurture life, of course. Who cares which particular sequence of DNA bases a living thing comes from? All of us on this planet – humans, slugs, mushrooms – we're all related to each other and we all have a vital part to play in looking after each other. The vast majority of eggs and virtually all sperm fail to go on to make life, but they're just little bags of molecules. I think we should focus our attention on those who came to be and not worry too much about those who didn't – they don't worry for themselves.

That was a very touching and beautifully written piece, and I hope you'll forgive me for my part in it!!!!

- Steve (god of Norns)

I reinstalled using the Gog version recently and was taken by surprise at how desperate and useless I felt when they get ill and whatever you do you can't save them. Or the time when I accidentally injected one with adrenaline, instead of energy. She died. I cried.

Creatures 4 is supposed to be out this year. I wait with bated breath!