Spore (video game)

See also: Spore (homonymy)

Spore is the last project videoludic of the creator of the Sims , Will Wright. Always under development, it was presented at the time of the E3 2005 and 2006. Thanks to his Internet site, in particular through an introduction in Flash, with the interviews and the presentations at the time of the living rooms, one knows some a little more about the concept.

This play is a " sim everything" (first name of the play), a total simulator on the basis of the birth of the life on a planet which evolves/moves to become a galactic civilization.

Philosophy of the project

According to Will Wright, the video games are more and more expensive whereas the value of their contents decreases. The new handsets are beautiful but not as interesting as certain old men plays. Sims 2 would have as learned to him as the players like to add contents " maison" , that they created to them-even.

The idea then was to create a play whose contents develop thanks to what the player brings there, a kind of experiment single to each one. It recruited programmers among the coders of the Scène demonstration and invented Spore, of which it revealed demonstrations at the time of the two last E3.

Besides Will Wright chooses a completely contrary optics with current industry for the development of this play. Where the other plays propose a sand vat to initiate itself with the orders before proposing a linear adventure, Spore proposes a linear adventure which leads to a completely open end and with the quasi infinite possibilities.

Play

What follows is a mixture of the information obtained through E3 and the official site. A detailed presentation is necessary because the vast concept of the play is to simulate the life since the primary cell until civilization travelling through space. Many plays were used as inspiration in Will Wright for the various phases, similar to independent mini-plays.

Phase of primary mud

This first part is apparently in 2D and proceeds in a kind of mud puddle pool. The major inspiration is CAP-Man, one of the preferred plays of Will Wright

All starts like the true life: a kind of cell tries to survive. The play is then a kind of CAP-man. It is necessary to avoid cells of colors and to swallow others of them. The goal is to eat before being made eat.

At the end of a certain time, the cell gives an egg.

First meeting with the editor of the play: the player chooses in a library of the pieces to improve his basic creature. This small beast can have the wished form, it is supposed to learn how to only move, in a dynamic and uncoded way. The choice of the additions is thus a priori free and only limited by a quota of points.

The goal then becomes to make evolve/move its creature on several generations, becoming stronger and being able to eat more things. It goes up the food chain.

Phase of the creature

At the end of certain numbers of evolutions, the environment as well as the creature become in 3D. The creature starts to meet others of them generated by the play or created by other players and recovered via a divided library.

After having eaten enough, the creature of the player lays an egg. Then returns the editor who allows to manage his creature by adding members to him, parts, legs.

The creature, or rather the new animal, being able to go, it leaves from now on out of water to continue to nourish itself on ground. The environment remains in 3D and the creature only goes, it does not matter the number of legs.

The player can from now on choose his food mode, to find his place in the food chain. At this stage, the development is done in group. The creature must find its congeneric, parade and procreate. With each generation it is possible to make new biological modifications via the editor before continuing to play as a baby of this new generation.

The evolution continues then on ground. The player can continue to make progress his creature, developing his brain now.

Tribal phase

Once the creature equipped with a sufficient brain, the player is now found with a primitive tribe to manage. The evolution is not any more on the physique but on the objects or technologies. The player brings fire, the weapons, chooses the lifestyle of the tribe. The editor returns for this time Ci to change the hut. Once this hut arrived at a certain level of complexity, a new phase begins

This phase is mainly inspired by Populous.

Phase of the city

The editor of creature is now used to create buildings, with always same freedom of choice and of creation. The mode of play would be close to a sim city. It would be necessary to develop its city to arrive at a certain level allowing the phase shift.

This phase takes again the spirit of SimCity, another play of Will Wright.

Phase of civilization

The environment increases to realize that other civilizations exist on planet. The editor can from now on be used to create vehicles, in particular for the war. A new conquest of the world can start, whether it is by the armed struggle or the fight of influence.

A mode of play to the Civilization is strongly possible for this phase. Once all the conquered planet, the access to the UFO is freed.

Phase of the space conquest

The civilization of the player can leave in space. Another planets appear not far, ready to be colonized. The UFO makes it possible to tractor draw creatures to send them on another planets, to capture creatures and of terraformer.

The new goal is to travel, colonize and develop its vessel to obtain an interstellar engine.

Once this engine obtained, the player can reveal the chart of cosmos. The pointer of the mouse becomes a probe to listen to space and to locate possible civilizations to be met, to even colonize. These civilizations drawn from the database are shared of the players.

It is a total of a half-million stars which one could explore and it is as from this moment that the concept of goal disappears. All the tools previously used during the other phases would be accessible again, making it possible to take part in the evolution other lower races.

With what to expect?

According to the introduction and the photographs of screen on the official site, the concept would not have changed. A thing is sure: if such is the case, Internet will be more than necessary to completely benefit from the experiment.

The play is planned for the second half-year 2008 on PC and can be one day on all the consoles even if that is only one rumor for the moment.

Apparently, each player will be able to place at the disposal on a Database the creatures which it created. This base will be then consultable by everyone, and each player will be able to take the creatures of the other players, in order to have enemies to colonize at the time of the sixth phase (space conquest).

In addition, it is known now that Will Wright and its team very supervise close the désidératas players and their opinions on Spore through the forums. They thus use the ideas of the future players to increase the variety of the contents.

External bonds

  • Official site
  • French Official site
  • Last video of Spore in E3 2006
  • Article of GameSpy at the time of E3 (March 14th, 2005)
  • Range Developpers Conference, video of the demonstration at the time of E3. (recording necessary)
  • Gaming Steve, maintains with Will Wright in connection with Spore .

Simple: Spore (video range)

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