Creatures Caves

It's more likely that the interviewer got confused between the coins that we'll earn from animals, plants, and the coin machines, and the 'genetic money', or that I misunderstood.

Now for the sidebar - a lot of this has already been said in English, either on the FC blog or the official C4 site, so the gloss will be shorter:

Why did you decide to revive Creatures? (Fans of the series, we contacted GW and they said yes)
Where are the original developers? (Not involved, but they're keeping on with their research)
Was it always going to be free to play? (Yes, from the first concepts)

Isn't this model risky as you are obliged to make concessions?

We want C4 to be part of the new wave of "hardcore" free to play games. Obviously, we've made certain choices to modernise the game, but without compromising on quality or depth! For us, to make a F2P should be especially good. It should make you want to spend time, and perhaps, money. The era of horrible Facebookian titles is over.

You've also rethought the way the data is presented to the player....

The complexity of each norn is unequalled in the world of video gaming: each is composed of several organs, dozens of chemical reactions, a neural network system, an immune system, and so on! It's not easy to show the player what is going on "under the hood". We want to give the player control over the chemistry of the norn, via the scientific kit, and the possibility of manipulating "specific" genes, those which have a very real impact, like breathing underwater. But it will not show everything, you'll still need to be a (keen) observer!

As a fan, you must have learned cool stuff when you were digging into the code of the previous episodes!

For example, in C3, to encourage norns to change floors, the norn received fun when they pushed the buttons of the lifts. Which explains why they spent their lives doing this! We also found references to a system that allowed norns to recognise members of their family. It seemed interesting, but it has not been exploited. (yet?)

In 13 years, nobody has taken up the torch of Creatures 3. Does this kind of gameplay scare developers?

In Creatures, we have a microcosm that the player can influence, but unpredictability is at its foundation. Unlike the Sims, there is not a "master character" whose reactions can be anticipated. And in this era of 'everything and everything right now', this can actually seem risky.