This ain't your father's God game, like Civilization or Wright's own classics, SimCity or The Sims. Spore aims, no less, to take players from the microscopic and embryonic to the astronomic and intergalactic. From the primordial soup to interstellar conflict. But don't get any ideas about sweeping sermons on the nature of humankind or very serious lectures about evolution. Spore might encompass the entire scope of time itself, but it does it with a great big smile on its face.
Many of you will have already had a shot at either the demo or full version of the Spore Creature Creator, and are therefore aware of at least one basic sections of the game. In fact, at E3, Wright was so enthused by the general response to the Spore Creature Creator that he had this to say: "About a week ago I realised that we passed really the kind of interesting milestone, that the number of unique creatures that we have in our database online for Spore has now actually exceeded the total number of known species on Earth ... It took them basically 18 days to exceed the number of creatures on Earth, and by some accounts it took God about seven days. So, if we take these two numbers and divide them, we find out that our Spore fans currently right now represent 38% of God."
So, we understand the creature creator. But how does the rest of Spore come together? This has been the burning question since the game's announcement. Spore doesn't just have a large time-frame - it'll also encompass many play styles, with Wright labeling the game a "massively single-player online game." Perhaps the best way to conceptualize Spore is as a series of five elaborate phases. It'll be possible, apparently, to accelerate these phases, or even to skip them entirely, or to come back and revisit them once you've reached the space age.
From this...
The first stage consists of a tide pool of amoebas, and represents the struggle to survive and grow in a microbe state. The gameplay here has been described as not-dissimilar to Pac-man, though we can also see a strange, sibling-like resemblance to PlayStation and flash game flOw. Eventually, your primordial slug will draw the urge to become land-bound (legs or no legs), leading us to...
The second phase of gameplay - the creature phase. This stage is where you'll start to see the fruits of your Creature Creator labour, as your creature moves around the landscape, attempting to survive. Here, the aim will be to find a mate of your species and defend an egg long enough to reproduce. Yes, we said defend - your universe will be filled with creatures of other Spore user's making, and they'll often be aggressively inclined to protect their own interests. Additionally, other creatures of the same or different species may be open to offers of friendship from the player, which will eventually evolve your brain high enough to lead to...
The third phase of gameplay - the tribal stage. This is where you leave your individual creature and begin to take on a more, shall we say, global view. This phase plays similarly to a real-time strategy game, with Wright likening it to Peter Molyneux's Populous. This stage will dictate a large percentage of your creature's evolutionary behaviour. Use your tribe aggressively, and their idle behaviour will become angry and warlike, for example. Furthermore, this stage will allow further interaction with other tribes, with your group even using other species as livestock, should you be strong enough to do so. After some time and advancement, your tribe will become advanced enough to move out of mud huts and into...
Civilization. No, not Sid Meir's game (although, it's worth noting that Soren Johnson, lead designer on Civilization IV, left Fireaxis to join Wright on Spore). Rather, this is Spore's fourth stage, and will allow players not only to engage in Civilization type gameplay, conquering other species and advancing your own, but also will yield access to two other Creator sub-programs: the vehicle creator, and the building creator. However, the ultimate goal here is to unite your planet. Whether this is achieved by crushing resistance underfoot or by peaceful means is up to you.
...to this.
Eventually, your species will become sufficiently advanced that a fourth editor will become unlocked: the UFO editor. This is where Spore truly begins to boggle the mind. Once a spaceship has been built, players will be able to spread their influence throughout the galaxy: a 'stage' which our own human race has not yet achieved. The power at the fingertips of the player is now gargantuan. Finding a new planet begs a choice - do you terraform it, or redirect a meteor into its path, therefore creating a slow process of creation, similar to the last four stages of gameplay? Perhaps even frightening is the ability to trigger an Earth-like greenhouse process, and to watch a planet slowly die as its ice caps melt and water engulfs the land. Do you make peace with alien races or start intergalactic war?
The possibilities of Spore are so endless that the biggest problem we have with the game is simply getting our heads around it all. It's entirely possible that the game may simply fall apart on the weakness of its own ambition, but at this stage, we don't think so. Wright has created some gems before, and it seems unlikely that Spore will be an experience many gamers will want to pass over. It might be too much information to take in for the moment, but we have a feeling that to experience Spore will be to sell the game to the average, mainstream consumer. So, to describe Spore in one word?
Epic.
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