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Creature Labs announce Global Online Launch of Creatures Docking Station 27/03/2001
Creatures Docking Station Developed by: Creature Labs Published by: Creature Labs Genre: Life Sim Release Date: 27th March, 2001 Price: FREE Official Website: www.creatures.net/dockingstation
Latest Creatures title goes online 27th March 2001
Cambridge, England - Creature Labs have today announced the global 27th March 2001 online release of Creatures Docking Station, an exciting addition to the Creatures range of computer games. Creatures Docking Station is the Cambridge-based developer's first fully-fledged online game.
Creatures Docking Station is a completely free online title that can be downloaded from the studio' s website at www.creatures.net/dockingstation. The title went through a lengthy open beta testing period and has just been soft-launched in the UK on the 27th March.
The title provides a facility for users to find each other and exchange Norns in real time over the Internet from within the game. Once users have found others with whom to link up, they can connect via "warp portals" within the game. Norns themselves can choose to travel or "warp" through wormholes between the players' worlds, visiting any user who is connected to their portal. A central server routes connections and gathers information about each individual creature that passes through the system and saves that data to a database.
Creature Labs also plans on bundling Docking Station with Creatures 3, and this will feature a brand new breed of Creature that's exclusive to the retail boxed title in the upcoming Creatures Internet Edition.
Mark Ashton, Producer "Docking Station has gone through extensive public beta testing and we've seen some incredible results," says Mark Ashton, the title's producer. "It's been fascinating to see what large numbers of the little guys get up to online. Users are able to communicate in ways they never could before. Players have set themselves up old age homes for Norns or Genetic engineering specialists."
"This is also a great title for players with 'always on' and broadband connections as they'll be able to leave the connections open and let their creatures travel as they wish," adds Ashton, "however, it works just as well with slower connections and standard modems."
Because the title will be easily downloadable by anyone, Docking Station has the potential of pulling in a much wider audience to the Creatures series. Creatures has attracted more than a million users to its unique combination of science and nurturing and more than 4 years after the launch of the first in the series, sales of all three titles in the series are still strong.
A dedicated website will also allow users to see statistics on all the Creatures that pass through the server, such as longest-lived, most mutated, oldest, etc, as well as view information about its genetic background, family history and detailed information about its voyages around the Internet.
Creatures Docking Station is a completely self-contained world for Norns: endearing virtual Creatures that behave just like real animals thanks to the remarkable CyberLife technology that underpins them. The Norns in Creatures Docking Station display real feelings such as hunger, pain, happiness and boredom and posses a form of virtual DNA, so they can inherit characteristics from their digital ancestors and pass them on to their offspring. The Creatures also posses a neural network for control and learning as well as elementary language skills with which they can communicate with the user and with each other. Users can also peek "under the hood" using Genetics and Biochemistry kits from Creature Labs.
Docking Station us now set to bring a whole new dynamic to Creature breeding and genetic engineering with the opportunity to see what can be achieved when large populations of Creatures start to interact online all around the world!
A growing developer community organised by Creature Labs works together to create a wide range of new Creatures and objects that can be added to the titles to provide extra functionality or other fun features. With the Creature Labs websites consistently attracting one million page impressions a month combined with the huge number of independent fan sites on the web, Docking Station is sure to be a big hit with both new and existing players. To download your copy of Creatures Docking Station, log onto the following Website: http://www.creatures.net/DockingStation
Essential Links: www.creatures.net/dockingstation For further information please contact Cat Hollis @ Peter Noble PR Graphic House, 2A Sumatra Road London, NW6 1PU Tel: 020 7794 2302 Fax: 020 7431 9984 E-mail: cat@noblepr.co.uk
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