I played the original Creatures (also available through GOG) when it first came out. It was fun but very complex. When I saw that GOG had the complete Creatures collection I grabbed them on impulse, but somehow avoided trying Creatures VIllage at first, as it appeared too ~kidlike~ and simplistic.
The truth is : it is, but it's also very very good. It doesn't sport all the panels and controls the other versions have, and reduces them to positive/negative feedback. It also has many minigames hidden in the massive world, and the grafics are bigger and even more detailled than in the more complex versions. That makes the game much more relaxing and actually fun than its ~mature~ counterparts.
I ended up introducing my 4 year old daugthers to it, and they absolutely *love* it : the norns are incredibly cute (as always) and quite intelligent (as is to be expected from the franchise), there are tons of interesting things to do but the controls can be grasped almost immediately, and, as can be seen on the screenshots, it's colourful. Additionally, it is, in many ways, educational (be it about the life/death cycle alone)
If you have kids, no pets or are just looking for something relaxing and fun to keep running in a window : that's the game for you.
Note : I didn't try it in wine, but it runs fine in a virtualBox, in case you're using linux or OSX.