This is the ninth part of a series I'll be doing on games played during my childhood. You can read the others below.

Part 1/ Part 2/ Part 3/ Part 4/ Part 5/ Part 6/ Part 7/ Part 8

I can remember sitting by my lonesome while my parents ignored me and instead focusing all my attention to taking care of (or attempting to figure out how to take care of) tiny little creatures in the world of the PC game, so aptly named, "Creatures". The creatures you are attempting to raise are furry little folk called Norns, teaching them words and how to interact with objects, yourself and other Norns, all while trying to protect them (not to much avail, sadly) from the antagonistic species called Grendels, which were generally green skinned and red eyed looking troll creatures.

Creatures is widely considered a breakthrough in artificial intelligence, and often considered more of a "simulation" for parenting or pet rearing than it is an actual game, and for good measure. There's basically no real goals in the early titles, leaving the players entire purpose to be solely raising Norns and thus caring for them throughout their life cycle as they attempt to build a somewhat moderately working collective amongst themselves. As a child, I was obsessed with games like this; Sim City, Sim Ant, and to a weirder extent, Seaman. I liked the idea of caring about things, probably because nobody cared about me.

There's an odd thing that happens when you've been essentially emotionally abandoned by those who are meant to love you (IE parents), and that is one of two things occur: The first is you either become a completely cold shut out person who doesn't care about others, and the other is you do the opposite, and want to give things the love you never got. I fell somewhat in the middle. I didn't want to participate with anyone, but I loved taking care of things, and have always had a weirdly motherly touch, despite never being a mother. This is why I've always opted for pets over people, because I can care for them, and as long as I do, they love and appreciate me. It's low risk high reward.

I would spend hours playing this game, without ever really making much progress because, to put it rather bluntly, I was a fairly stupid little girl who wasn't capable of understanding a lot. But nonetheless, I enjoyed my time with Creatures. I've always liked surreal fantasy worlds like this, or Myst, that offer mystery and escape from a world of harsher realities. And while the Norns can die, and sometimes fairly violently, and it can be upsetting, it was still a more beautiful and more simplistic world that someone of my low intelligence could appreciate because it felt safe and inviting, whereas the real world rarely did. But how could I properly guide Norns? I couldn't even feed myself! What kind of stupid idea was this that I could somehow nurture even a pretend being when I could barely perform basic tasks that didn't make me look like I needed to be in Special Ed (something they threatened me with often, mind you).

I think, and this is where the difference comes in, it's because despite my limited mental faculties, and despite being treated awfully by those who should've cared for me, I not only wanted to care for others but felt like they deserved it. And that's the key difference, really. I didn't get hurt and think "I want to hurt others because I've been hurt", no, I got hurt and instead thought, "I never want to do that to something" and thusly, it made me become extremely attached to other things, even non sentient things, like Furbies and AI Creatures in a computer game. Because try as they might to wear me down and get me to think the world is all bad, I still couldn't be forced to believe that everything didn't deserve a fair chance at being loved.

The world the Norns live in is beautiful, and bright, and almost utopian in a way. I wanted to be a part of that world, and take care of these little creatures who seemed about as intelligent as I was, because I could relate to them. They too were just children, trying to survive a dangerous, confusing world that could hurt them at any given moment. I remember a lot of my Norns dying, and I remember feeling awful about it, but the nice thing is you can always start a new game and get new Norns. You can't do that in real life, hence my preference for living in unreality. In life, there's no "File, New Game" option. You're just stuck with the pain and isolation you've been given, and always wondering why nobody loved you the way you deserved to be loved. In video games, however, you can always start over. It's comforting, even if it isn't realistic.

I never made much progress in Creatures, despite my love for it. It was a fairly intelligent and in depth, complex title (especially for someone like me who, at the age of 31, still can't tie her own shoes), but that didn't hurt or lessen my appreciation for it. It was an extremely unique game that I think deserves to be recognized and remembered far more than it is. I still want to love things, I still have a lot of adoration to give, but it's getting harder to find people and things that won't hurt me while I love them.

Which, maybe, means it's time to start loving the one person I should've focused on all this time.

Me.

My name is Maggie. I write & make art for a living. If you like this post, you might also like knowing I recently published a graphic novel here, I have a semi autobiographical book here and you can support me monthly on Patreon or tip me over at Kofi. Anything is greatly appreciated!