Creebies (the game) has had a tough upbringing. Developed by Gameware, which many years ago started up the Creatures series of games beginning in 1996, it was originally earmarked for the Nokia N-Gage platform. When that was deep sixed, it looked like Creebies was heading for an early grave. But this month it's been resurrected in the Ovi Store for Nokia's touchscreen devices. Has it been worth the wait? The signs so far are hopeful.
So, Creebies themselves are small creatures that inhabit a 3D world in your smartphone. Much like the craze for electronic 'pets' such as Tamagotchis, you'll be responsible for the care of your Creebies, ensuring that they are always in the best of health, with plenty food, are happy, get enough exercise and a number of other bars that you should aim to keep full to keep your Creebie in the best spirits.
Manage this and not only will your pet grow and mature, but also start to learn your routines and do what any pet does and follow you around, helping you round the island home. This is probably the biggest change when compared to the early keyring based toys. With the computing power available to modern smartphones this is to be expected, but Creebies does it very well, because the growing intelligence of your creature matches the amount of time you put into the game, the time you spend interacting with them, and how you interact.
With I suspect just a few simple rules from the developers, the illusion of life and interaction is complete. Putting on my programming hat this is a great solution to the problem. The gaming hat recognises the same ideas of keeping stat bars full from games like The Sims (here they're called the “drives” of your Creebies) and you keep these full in the same way; by looking around the landscape, earning money by playing games; buying accessories, clothes and toys for your Creebie to play with; and talking to other Creebies.
Yes, your creature will be lonely – you can try to keep him or her occupied with a goldfish but in short order they'll be crying out for more companionship than a volleyball. Luckily the little island you're on has an empty house. Click on this, choose the breed and strain of Creebie you'd like to have, and “pop” - it will appear on your screen. And here comes the deeper delight of Creebies. Experimentation like a mad scientist.
To start with, you have four main breeds of Creebies to choose from: the all rounder and three specialists (who prefer 'sports and games', thinking, or socialising) and in each of these breeds there are four sub-strains, again with different tendencies. Some go well together as partners, some fight like cats and dogs (or, err, Creebie and Creebie), so you can start working that out. And then if they do get on really well then its the birds and the bees, as mongrel Creebies start to appear with their own special characteristics.
And through all this management of your Creebies, switching round an ever growing family to keep them in tip top condition, buying food and drink (and the occasional visit to the chemist for some medicine) you'll also be playing a variety of mini games that not only boost the drives of your Creebies, but are also pretty good as time diversions. From the initial shaking a tree for money and destroying flying fairycakes, to matching pairs of cards and jumping hurdles in a race, there's enough value in these games to justify the price.
There's even a “Snake” game in there as well if you look hard enough!
The more you play, the more you unlock; new Creebies and mini-games are the obvious ones but as you build up time you'll open up more territory and other islands to allow for breeding between many different Creebies, and you can keep more than one “world” saved, so one for you and one for the kids who will definitely steal your phone to play with their tiny monster.
This is a game that's been incredibly well designed from a UI perspective, from a short gaming session point of view, from long term attractiveness... It's well rounded, it's suitable for a mobile phone and portable gaming... While it's a shame that N-Gage never saw this title, the fact it's now available for a much wider range of handsets is the best news for Symbian gamers in a long time. Thoroughly recommended.
-- Ewan Spence, May 2010.