Name:
Creatures
Developer:
Apex Computer Productions
Publisher:
Thalamus
Year:
1990
Platform:
Commodore 64 (original)
Genre:
Platformer
Players: One Player
Rarity: Reasonably difficult to find second-hand
A
computer game published by
Thalamus and created by
Apex Computer Productions in
1990 for the
Commodore 64. 'Creatures' is an
acronym of '
Clyde Radcliffe Exterminates All The Unfriendly Repulsive Earth-Ridden Slime'. Created by the famous
Rowlands brothers,
Steve Rowlands and
John Rowlands, this game is probably one of the greatest platformers on the C64, superseded only by Thalamus' other titles,
Creatures 2 and
Mayhem In Monsterland. The game was
ported to the
Amiga and the
Atari ST in 1993, but the
conversion/update was poorly done by
WJS Design.
The game is based around the plight of the
Fuzzy Wuzzies, who crash land on
Earth after wanting to escape their old planet - Blot - to cast away their uphip name of Blotians. They land in the
Pacific Ocean next to an undiscovered island. Here they build their village and named the island '
The Hippest Place in The Known Universe'. Unknown to them, they aren't the only natives to the island - the Demons living on the other side of the island were enraged by all the noise made by the naturally cheerful Fuzzies, not to mention the fact that they hated the name given to the island by the new patrons even more!
The
Demons come up with a plan to bring a stop to the commotion of the Fuzzies and their
happiness - they hold the biggest
party ever held on the island. Fuzzies, being the fun loving creatures that they are, cannot resist a good party, so they happily attend. Just as they start to enjoy themselves, the Demons throw a big net over the Fuzzies and take them off to
Torture Chambers.
The only Fuzzie who wasn't captured was
Clyde Radcliffe, who, at the time of the other Fuzzies' capture, was busy
throwing up into the bushes. Waking up the next morning, Clyde has a spltting
headache,
breath so bad it could scorch a tree at six paces, and the sudden realisation that all of his friends have been captured by the Demons. So, off he goes, to destory the Demons and rescue his fellow Fuzzies.
The
gameplay involves you travelling across the island - each
stage represents a part of the island you have to proceed through to get to a
Torture Chamber. At the end of each stage, Clyde enters a
Witches Hut. A nice friendly
witch (who I believe was called
Ulrira), with a Fuzzy
fetish, offers to mix
Magic Potions that allow Clyde to have special
weapons, after he has drank the
potion.
Ingredients are required to do this though, and these come in the form of
Magic Potion Creatures, who are collected as you progress through the
levels. The more MPC's you have, the better the weapons you can create.
After two
stages have been completed, you get to enter a
Torture Chamber. The basic
aim of this type of level is to stop your fellow Fuzzy from being
killed by the torture machine the Demons have created. These levels can be particularly
gorey if you
fail, your Fuzzy friend usually
dying quite spectacularly!
Cheat mode: Wait till the music is finished playing on the
title screen. When the
high score table appears, you will notice not of the Fuzzies are
dancing. With a controller plugged in port 1,
waggle the joystick left and right, very fast - the Fuzzies will start to 'dance'. When they turn grey, you've enabled the
cheat mode -
unlimited lives.
Creatures won a number of
awards from various
publications:
Zzap!64 gave it a Zzap!
Gold Medal Award, and a score of 96%, calling it "My
pick for 1990!" and describing it as "Superbly
thought out and slickly executed!".
Your Commodore gave it a score of 91% and a 'Fun One' award.