I have started playing Creatures 1, and the game certainly has some promise.
The problem is my Norns... To put it bluntly, they're deaf as stones and twice as dumb. Their sole purpose in life appears to be wandering around and trying to escape my garden via boat and submarine. And I cannot control the little bastards. At all.
Now, they've all had ample computer time. They all seem to know the rudimentary commands "stop," "run," "come," left," and "right." I glean this from the fact that they mutter these words to themselves as they mindlessly wander around...
And yet, they have never followed a single command from me. Not one. Not "come." Not "run." Not "left." Not "[NAME] come." Nothing; I just cannot seem to get through to these hateful little monsters. In frustration, I have started giving out beatings like candy. This, too, has accomplished nothing at all; they gave me sad looks and then go right on back to being uncontrollable beasts of Hell. I have a sinking feeling that they're just trying to spite me... I wish I could administer more painful beatings...
Anyway, how do I control these brainless wonders? My standards are fairly low; forget getting them to push buttons and flick switches. If I could just get them to move from Point A to Point B, I'd be a happy camper.

Have you considered downloading some extra norns?
[url=]http://creatures.treesprite.com/Upgrades.html[/url]
near the bottom of that page has a link for Cyberlife norns, they have improved eating and response suggestions. Maybe if you got some of those they would also help teach the stupid ones how to behave a little better.

It's what Stab594 said: Punish them when they don't listen to your commands and reward them when they do. Do this a few times and they know who's boss. I remember it worked well back in the days where i played C1. Now i got C3 from GoG and there it is a bit easier because you can take your Norns by the hand and bring them back to where you want them if they try to walk away. But even there they need a few slaps before they get that i'm serious about what i tell them! :D

Thanks, guys.
I ended up trying the carrot-and-stick approach, which somewhat worked. Then they started breeding well for a while, and I got up to a dozen or so Norns.
Then they stopped breeding. Then they stopped eating. Then they stopped being healthy. Then they stopped being alive...

So, overall, a somewhat frustrating experience. I could have spent a lot of time on this game, had the little hell-spawn been more obedient and/or horny. Good thing I bough the entire series - maybe Creatures 2 and 3 improved on the formula.

Creatures 3/Docking Station certainly improve on it. There's even plenty of agents to help make them breed, like "Cupid's Lyre". As for Creatures 2, I don't know.

For Creatures 3 with Docking Station I found the "Door Jammer" (lets you seal off the different terrariums in C3, kind of like in DS, where this is possible from the beginning) and the "Grettin Switch" (lets you switch the Grendel and Ettin egg-layers on or off) most useful.
And only play C3 in a docked world via the Docking Station, it's much more fun this way. I tried C3 standalone first because of the online registration stuff of DS (although you can get around this if you want), but it's a lot harder this way (no unlimited bioenergy, no hoverdoc, must unlock things first, etc) and it really wasn't fun at all for me. With DS it all get's much easier and i really enjoy it now.
For the agents, just follow the links in the sticky and search for them on the different sites or on the CreaturesWiki. You will find all the tools you want to control and breed those little hellspawns. ;)

Oddly enough, most of my norns are very obedient and obey my every command.

I know this reply is...well...years too late, but maybe it will help some other breeders in the future.

Norns take a very special kind of care. As you've noticed, they're exceptionally dumb and this is only compounded when breeders aren't sure how to teach them best.

Telling a norn to 'come' will in all probability get them to approach the objcet they're currently looking at. Same goes for run (run from object in view) or push (activate object in view). To get them to follow you, or approach a specific object, use the objects name. For example "Come dad" will get them to approach the hand (assuming you called yourself 'dad'). "Come food" will get them to approach the closest food object.

Remember that in Creatures 1 the Norns have no command for 'eat'. You must tell them to "push food". This was fixed for C2 and C3, however the Norns in C2 are quite prone to not eating, so it makes little difference.

In general a Norn tries to take care of it's highest drive first. So if a Norn is really hungry, but is just slightly more bored you would do well to find them a ball to play with, THEN start telling them to "push food".

Hopefully these couple of tips help. I've recently started playing Creatures 1 again and found my Norns are actually very intelligent, whereas I have strong memories of them being dumb as a lump of wood. I believe the difference is in the way I raise them now.

And also be warned, in Creatures 2, all creatures (norns, ettins, and grendels) suffered from OHSS-- One Hour Stupidity Syndrome. There was a defect in their genetic code that basically overloaded their brains with the "reward" chemical, making them into stoned hippy vegetables. Albian Years I believe includes the updated genome meant to address this problem, but unfortunately, it didn't.

If you are going to try Creatures 2, it's advised that you download the Canny Norn or Nove Subterra genomes.