By Adam Long

I can remember the first time I heard about Spore. I was online reading about the 2006 Game Developers Conference, and I saw a headline about Will Wright showcasing his new game at the conference. Being an avid fan of Wright’s work, I checked it out. I watched a fairly long video of Wright showing off an early version of Spore to a bunch of game developers. The developers were wowed, and so was I.

With Spore, Wright will change the way video games are made-forever. Wright, who co-founded Maxis in 1986 with Jeff Braun, set out from the beginning to make a different kind of video gaming experience. You might have heard of Wright’s other successful projects, such as SimCity and the The Sims. In case you didn’t know, these titles are sort of a big deal. Games are still being made in these franchises. But how does one top The Sims or SimCity (one of my all time favorite series of games, by the way)? Wright must have thought it was simple. Make a game that allows the gamer to play through the evolutionary process of an entirely user-created creature’s life

I geeked out over the video, watching Wright explain the game and what I would be able to do when I got to play it…two years later. Here’s a brief run down of what the game entails, in case you’ve been in prison or just got back from a strange island where your flight from Australia to Los Angeles crashed.

Spore is a revolutionary game that puts total game design into the hands of the gamer. Instead of a bunch of developers creating a plot line with a ton of scripted scenes and sequences, with Spore, you are given an empty canvas and a paintbrush. Through procedural development, gamers will be able to take a creature from the origin of its life and develop it into a civilization. Then the gamer will take that civilization and go on a trek through the universe. Sounds cool, huh?

The game starts in the Tide Pool Phase. Here your single-celled organism begins its life at the microscopic level in a tiny pool somewhere. The organism will fight for survival and the reproduction of its species. Eventually the organism will reproduce and evolve into a new species. This leads us to the next phase of the game: the Creature Phase.

Before I go into detail about this phase, I must first describe the best part of the game. Each time your creature evolves into another species, you get to create that species. Other games just give you many different options to choose from to make a creature, but Wright had a different idea. Spore has a built-in editor that lets you custom-build everything in the game. Each time your creature evolves, you get sent to the editor and get to play for a while. The editor will then take whatever kind of creature you make (your imagination is the limit here) and, through procedural computing, it figures out how your silly looking creature will move and function in a real-world setting. Can you say “evolution of game-making?” I knew you could.

With that out of the way, onto the Creature Phase! Here you take your quickly evolving creature onto land, where it will learn a new way of life. It will face the challenges of mating and fighting to survive. The gamer must continually adjust the creature’s forms in the editor as the creature slowly gains new abilities. The creature will eventually evolve into the next phase of the game.

The Tribal Phase is where the real fun starts. Now, instead of just one creature at your bidding, you’ll have a whole tribe to command. Through the editor, you’ll get to develop huts for your creatures to live in, tools for them to hunt with, and even musical instruments to keep them relaxed at night. As your tribe gets stronger and your creatures get smarter, you’ll move to the next phase of the game.

The Civilization Phase is a huge leap in the game. Here you get to develop an entire city for your creatures. Every building and vehicle will be made by you. Then your new civilization will start interacting with other civilizations around the globe. Wars will be waged, and you will have to conquer your home planet because there is one last phase in the game.

To me, the Space Phase is the ultimate of ultimates in gaming. Here you will build a UFO on your home planet and go exploring. You can now exploring the entire universe in your custom-built spaceship. What to do? You could begin colonizing other worlds. You could gain alliances with other races on other planets. You could find a dead world, terraform it, and then expand your civilization on that new world. You could conquer planets and other civilizations, or you could just explore.

I believe Wright has created the ultimate tool for customization and game development. When Spore is released on September 7, 2008, the video game industry will be changed forever. Slowly, people will begin to demand that their gaming experiences are as customizable as Spore. Gamers will want their A.I. to have that same procedural learning that Spore brings to the table. I know I will.

The Spore revolution is almost upon us. Are you ready for it? You had better be!

Till next time, happy hunting!

Format: PC, NDS, Mac, Mob
Release Date: September, 7, 2008
Publisher: EA
Studio: MAXIS
ESRB: Rating Pending

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