Sorry I don't have much to add, but I miss Black & White so much.... I still have the original CD-ROM sitting on my shelf w/ my Sims CDs. Haha :D
Reading that Wikipedia article brings back a flush of memories. The Sims was one of the games that inspired me to invest my academics and career interests into AI, and digital animation/simulation. Black & White was another one, because of the creatures' AI. (And the in-game physics.) Man.... good memories.
The planned level of artificial intelligence for the creature was thought to be risky: Molyneux commented that they wanted to "advance the technology to its extreme", and artificial intelligence specialist Richard Evans built the technology, which according to Molyneux appeared to "live and learn like, say, a clever puppy". Molyneux desired the creature to pass the Turing test, which had not yet been achieved.
What is your knowledge of cross-development? I'm not seeing that anywhere...
