The Creature section is one for which Black and White is very popular. For this implementation this game won the Guinness Book Record of best AI and after several years it is still on top.
The Creature is part divine and part mortal. It can use powers just like gods but it must eat, sleep and drink. Unlike gods, it can be targeted and killed directly (once done that he will spawn in his pen) but can also prowl over the realm and manipulate physical items outside the influence of the god who owns it. Creatures start with no knowledge of what to do in Black & White, and can learn on their own or be taught on how to behave.
Creatures are mortal Edit
Creatures have mortal properties, and must fulfill mortal needs like eating, drinking and sleeping. They can get hurt from fights or fires, and must be healed or rest and they also need to poop or else they'll get constipated. Having a physical body, creatures can go and act beyond the area of influence, (unlike gods, who are mostly limited to their area).
These mortal features also enables creatures to interact and learn from other mortal creatures (such as villagers): they can learn how to dance and harvest grain from a field or village store. In return, they are able to entertain villagers with dances and by telling them stories, which will impress them.
Creatures are divine Edit
Creatures also have divine properties. They have a natural alignment which can be changed. This, in turn, reflects on their forms, which will transform, becoming progressively menacing (evil) or angelical (good).
Being divine, creatures grow with age without showing actual signs of aging (i.e. decreased strength, stamina, etc.) and they can keep every attribute (from fatness to miracles learned) when they switch bodies (see Creature Swap) with another creature.
As divine beings, they can learn and cast miracles to help or harm villagers, although they can only do so after the player completes the gold story scroll on Land 1 called "The Creature's Learning - Part 2" They can also interact with other divine beings (namely, their god owner), which can teach them just about anything, from where to poop to playing with a ball.
A creature that belongs to a god has a pen located at the front of the temple. His leashes can be found here and the creature can sleep in its pen at night and it will grow faster if it does so.
The creature has a natural affinity for either the good or evil alignment, depending on what the creature is. In order to train the creature or supplement his behavior toward good or evil, leashes can be used. There are 3 leashes, and each leash has a versatile array of uses.
The Leashes are:
- Leash of Compassion: makes the creature behave nicely. This leash will encourage the creature to act nicely toward anything it interacts.
- Leash of Learning: focuses the creature on whatever the god who owns it is doing. Thus the creature will learn faster as his attention is on its owner. This is the ideal leash to use while teaching the creature anything specific.
- Leash of Aggression: makes the creature behave aggressive and wreak havoc.
Creature commands Edit
- C - Creature mode; the creature's stats (hunger, tiredness and damage taken) will be shown and the camera will be centered on him; this is the best way to keep track of the creature's status without having to look inside the creature cave (which has far more detailed information)
- L - Leash mode; puts on/off the leash to the creature
- right-click (while leash is on) - makes the creature want to pick up items; put down items (if he already has something picked up) or to go somewhere
- double right-click (while leash is on) - run toward that spot and put there the item on (if he has the compassion leash), put the item down and run toward that point (if he has the leash of learning) or throw the item there (if he has the aggression leash)
- double right-click on an object (while the leash is on) - tie him on that object
- Space - usually use to quickly move the player to his/her temple, where the creature pen is located.
- V - scrolls through leashes.
- double right click on other gods creature - same as C, but on other creature.
Nemesis' Secret Edit
Lionhead Studios' Black & White official website states that every creature has a piece of creed whithin his/her body. If three creeds are combined, they have enough power to destroy a god. That's why Nemesis is quick to kill The Guide, so that the secret of the Creeds is not revealed. To obtain a piece of the Creed, a god must generally kill a creature, although the player character seems to be able to obtain the third piece of the creed from his/her own creature without killing it.
Creature Hacking Edit
This has been suggested to be used to get the ogre or any creature you wish at the beginning but it is not complete. Swapping the names of creatures in the \Data\CTR folder will swap the outer textures of creatures but much of their internal attributes will not change. You can tell this by looking at the footprints they leave behind and the speed they run, which will remain as if they had their original skin. Likely, a complete swap would include swapping the names of the meshes also.
Creature speed and carry weight Edit
Creatures speed is dependent on a lot of variables. The taller your creature grows and the longer their stride becomes the faster they move across the islands. The table shows the creatures base speed while running empty handed. The more tired the creature is, especially above 70%, the slower they move. If they carry a rock or other item they slow down. Some creatures slow down much more than others given the same size rock. A mandrill is 10% faster than an ape of the same size but when both are carrying the same size rock the mandril slows down to about 10% slower than the ape. Some creatures can carry more and some less at the same size. A horse can carry a rock one size larger than a leopard, ape, gorilla or mandrill of the same size while a tortoise can only carry a rock 2 sizes smaller than the ape and 3 sizes smaller than the horse. This effects how easily you can strengthen the creature by having it weight lift or run rocks around the island.
Creatures In Black & White Edit
|Type (+ Land)||Creature|| Natural|
|Speed||Strength||Intelligence||Carry (1 to 4)|
|Land 5||Brown Bear||Evil||6||7||7||?|
|Creature Isle Only||Chicken||Neutral||6||5||5||?|
- ↑ Only applicable to Unlockable Creatures
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 This values are only rough ideas of the characteristics.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 The two worst values are on red background while the two best values are on green background.
- ↑ The Rhinoceros can also be unlocked in the main game by hacking.
| Aztecs think many things should be destroyed.
However this article shouldn't so it has been awarded Featured Article award.
|Black and White|
|Starting Creatures||Ape / Cow / Tiger|
|Unlockable Creatures||Brown Bear / Chimpanzee / Lion / Polar Bear / Sheep / Tortoise / Wolf / Zebra|
|Creature Isle Only||Chicken / Crocodile / Rhinoceros|
|Hacked Creatures||Ogre / Rhinoceros|
|Patch Only||Gorilla / Horse / Leopard / Mandrill|
|Black and White 2|
|Starting Creatures||Cow / Lion / Ape / Wolf|