Creatures Alchemist: A New Mini-Game from Spil Games

The game's title screen

Much to everyone's surprise, Spil Games have finally released a mini-game based around Creatures Family, named Creatures Alchemist. It actually came out earlier this month with literally no announcement, which is quite strange as you'd think that Spil Games would want attention from the Creatures Community.

Anyway, onto the game itself. Creatures Alchemist revolves around the player crafting elements inside a laboratory, which are in turn

used to create norn breeds. Not to different from the genetics editor in the cancelled game, Creatures Online, I might add, but it is much simpler, with the game's puzzle aspects being in the spotlight rather than the norns themselves. Now, to be honest, the game's artstyle isn't that bad. Despite the creepiness of Master Shee (renamed The Shee here), you can tell a fair bit of effort has been put into making the norns look like, well, norns.

Master Shee is back, and creepier than ever!

However, one thing that bothers me about the norns is how simple their behaviour is - they're essentially trophies that stand idly on a screen, randomly saying "Hello" or "Dear?" occasionally. Not only this, but the developers also got the species of the White Pixie Norn wrong, and it uses the sprites of a Toxic Norn. I can only assume this is a mistake of some kind, but it is rather dumb.

Possibly the worst part of the game is the fact you have limited "lives" which means that if you run out of them, you need to wait an eternity for them to regenerate, like a lot of free-to-play games. This takes a lot of the fun out of the game and I found I got bored with waiting after a while.

Anyone remember when they sold these in the Creatures Mall?

So what's the verdict? Well, the game is mediocre at best. The highlight was probably seeing Spil Games' interpretations of the norns (and grendels), which, quite honestly, aren't that bad. I'm just hoping that when Creatures Family is finally released that we don't see any more free-to-play elements, as they will surely hamper any enjoyment of the game!

You can play Creatures Alchemist here. You might want to temporarily disable your ad-blocker as it seems to interfere with some aspects of the game.

Overall Score: 2.5/5