Creatures Alchemist - First Level Walkthrough Video

Here's a closer look at the recently released mini-game, Creatures Alchemist, which was developed by Spil Games as a teaser to their upcoming Creatures title, Creatures Family.

 

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

What is Happening with Creatures Family, Spil Games?

I normally try and avoid ranting on The Norn Nebula, but I think some things have to be said! When Creatures Online's production was halted earlier this year, it was soon snapped up by Spil Games, a game development team responsible for a wide variety of different web games. In their statement, Spil Games said that "Spil Games will keep fans happy with a series of multi-platform teaser games starting this summer", but where exactly are these teaser games? The game is said to have a 2017 release, so why haven't we been given any form of update regarding its status. If Spil Games are keeping Creatures Family on the backburner, it would have been nice if they would at least give us some sort of statement.

Again, sorry for the somewhat negative tone of this post, but it's such a shame a franchise like Creatures has been pretty much forgotten about. Fishing Cactus, like them or not, did a great job with Creatures Online, despite the numerous delays, and I still think its a darn shame that the game was shelved, especially after so much hype was built up in the community. Right now I'm hoping that Spil Games are keeping the development of Creatures Family under wraps, but hopefully come 2017 we'll eventually get a proper answer.

A Small Update on Creatures Family

As many will know, Fishing Cactus sadly shelved Creatures Online last November, and in March this year Spil Games picked up where they had left off, entitling the game Creatures Family. Information on the game has been rather scant, unfortunately, and many people, me included, believed it was just another hopeless venture that was destined to end up on the scrapheap like Creatures Online.

However, I received a notification to a Facebook comment a few days ago in regards to Creatures Family, confirming that the game is not dead, and that "all good things come to those who wait", meaning that hopefully Spil Games will be releasing something this summer! It may only be a small update, but it's good to know the game is still being worked on and hasn't been put on the backburner.

Like Creatures Online, reception for Creatures Family will probably be mixed, but I think it's great that developers still remember creatures and are willing to work with the franchise, and the fact that they're almost timeless is one of the best things about the creatures games!

The Future of DS Galaxy

As many will know, DS Galaxy hasn't been very active these past few years mostly due to my dwindling interest in playing creatures. However I've decided to announce a few plans I have for the blog.

Firstly, I am planning on renaming the blog to "The Norn Nebula", as I think it helps to encompass all of the creatures games rather than just one and I've actually considered it in the past, but obviously a lot of websites may not be aware of the change and still refer to the blog by its old name. However I'm getting pretty bored of the current name and believe a little change may be a good thing.

NornHub will hopefully be returning at some point when I can be bothered streaming again. It'll probably be ideal for me to stream overnight, as it will probably allow a lot more people to view it if they live in other countries.

Finally, some good news is that Spil Games have bought the Creatures IP, finally breathing some life into Creatures Online (Or Creatures Family as it is now known). They have revealed the final game will be released next year whilst in the meantime they will be releasing mini-games this summer to keep us occupied. I'm trying to remain positive that they will do the creatures series the justice is deserves.

I guess that brings today's blog post to a close. I will try and get everything sorted by next month at least but in the meantime I hope everyone continues to enjoy DS Galaxy.