Creatures Caves

For VLACS, I was assigned to write a fake newspaper article about some important change in my life. I chose to write about Creatures, and what lessons I have learned from it, by pretending to write as a reporter for a science newspaper who was trying to convince people to use Creatures as a teaching tool. The article is extremely vague, as I felt that anything more in depth about the game would have dragged away from the topic and confused my teacher(as far as I know, she has never heard of Creatures). Sorry about the horrible formatting.
So, here is the article I wrote, with some editing:

What is Creatures, and why should you play it?

Creatures is an artificial life game created by Steve Grand in the mid-1990s. It focuses on small, furry creatures called norns. Not unlike other artificial life games, your job is to protect and take care of these creatures. How this game is different, however, is that norns are not scripted. Each individual norn has its own genetic file which determines its appearance and behavior. This means that each norn is unique and has its own personality. Editing these genomes and observing the changes in the creature can be used to aid in learning about genetics, half-lives, chemical reactions, biochemistry, and even the inner workings of the brain. Seeing how each change effects a creature can even help us understand human biology, such as in Mike L Anderson's Norn Lab which experiments with creating objects in the game which mimic the effects of drugs, and then testing these substances on norns, so that people can see what the effects of drugs are on humans. Of course, not every lesson learned is about the creatures themselves. Creatures are surrounded by the objects in their world, which, through the understanding of CAOS, the coding language the game is scripted in, can be altered. Learning a simple language and its uses can help later on in learning more complex ones, or more complex uses for languages that are already known. Even through just creating images for the game, lessons are taught about image editing, tints, different types of images, and how to create better images. Through an artificial world, Creatures teaches us more about our own. In fact, even social skills can be taught through this game. The game has a friendly and informational community, like the community on Creatures Caves through which you can learn about how to get your point across, how to debate politely, what is and is not allowed in a polite, informal setting, how speaking online differs from offline, and other online social skills, all with a friendly community who will tolerate mistakes and give a safe place in which to learn. In addition, learning with others can help you to better understand things that confuse or stump you. The game also has many resources, like the Creatures Wiki which can aid in finding more information about any topic you wish to learn about. Even if you are not trying to learn or teach about anything, Creatures is still a great game to play. The backgrounds are beautiful, the creatures are cute, the mechanics are interesting, and there is always more to discover about the game. With all of this in mind, please give Creatures a try.