Spore (game)
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
| Spore | |
| Developer(s) | Maxis |
| Publisher(s) | EA Games |
| Designer(s) | Will Wright |
| Release date(s) | Estimated Fall 2006 |
| Genre | Simulation |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Rating Pending (RP) |
| Platform(s) | PC, Xbox |
Spore is a simulation computer game designed by Will Wright that is currently in development by Maxis to be published by Electronic Arts. Wright has a history of designing innovative, successful games like the The Sims and Simcity, and Spore appears likely to continue that trend.
Spore is, at first glance, an evolution game: the player molds and guides a single-celled species across many generations, until it becomes intelligent, at which point the player begins molding and guiding a society into a spacefaring civilization. Spore's main innovation, the basis of its startling scope and customizability, is that Wright has returned to procedural generation.
At E3 2005, the game won the following Game Critics Awards Best of Show, Best Original Game, Best PC Game, and Best Simulation Game[1] (http://www.gamecriticsawards.com/win.html).
| Contents |
Procedural Programing: More algorithms, less data
The earliest computer games were harshly limited by memory constraints, forcing things like levels to be generated algorithmically, proceduarly, on the fly: there simply wasn't enough space to store premade levels and artwork. Today, most games include (measuring by memory space) thousands of times as much data as algorthmic mechanics. For example, all of the buildings in the large gameworld of Grand Theft Auto were individually designed and placed by artists.
Because the Spore gameworld is procedurally generated, it can be as large, varied, and detailed as it needs to be without an expensive team designing each element individually. Because of this malleability, users' creatures will react realistically to a wide range of customizations.
In Wright's first public demostration of Spore, he created a tripod creature in the creature evolution editor. The game then figured out how a lizard with three legs and a prehensile tail should walk. Wright then showed several more pre-made creatures which moved realistically, despite their exotic design.
Other Game Mechanics
Spore will be a simulation that "ranges from the cellular level to the galactic level." It features several stages that are reminiscent of some of Wright's favorite games:
- Tidepool stage, similar to Pac-Man
- Evolution, Diablo
- Tribal, Populous and Populous: The Beginning
- City, SimCity
- Civilization, Risk and Civilization
- Invasion (a.k.a. UFO stage), similar to 4X and space colonization games
The last stage of the game, in which the player is in control of a space ship (the UFO) with an interstellar drive, appears to be a giant sandbox mode. The player will be presented with wide-ranging missions similar in game mechanics to Grand Theft Auto. This appears to reverse the gaming convention of freeform tutorial modes followed by goal-oriented endgames. Spore is much more goal-oriented (survive, eat, reproduce, etc.) in its early stages and gets more open-ended and free-form as the game unfolds. At the UFO stage the player will have access to tools, such as the creature editor, from previous stages.
The game is considered a massively single player online game. Simultaneous multiplayer gaming is not a feature of Spore. The creatures, vehicles, and buildings the player can create will be uploaded automatically to a central database, catalogued and rated for quality, and then re-distributed to populate other player's games. This is one model outlined by Will Wright in his presentation; he also mentioned peer-to-peer as an acceptable data-sharing model. The data transmitted will be extremely small, only 1 kilobyte according to Wright. (Think of it as sharing the DNA template of a creature while the game builds the animal itself, which represents a few megabytes of texturing, animation, etc.)
Development History
Following several years of development, Spore was first introduced to the public on March 11, 2005 in Wright's lecture about "procedural content generation" at the Game Developers Conference.
It was officially unveiled several weeks later at E3 2005, the industry's annual trade show.
Trivia
- This game is not to be confused with the 1987 game by the same name created by Bulldog Software.
References
- Terdiman, Daniel. "Wright Hopes to Spore Another Hit" (http://www.wired.com/news/e3/0,2879,67581,00.html). Wired magazine. May 20, 2005.
- Kosak, Dave. "Will Wright Presents Spore... and a New Way to Think About Games" (http://www.gamespy.com/articles/595/595975p1.html). GameSpy. March 14, 2005.
- Davis, Galen. "Will Wright Wows GDC with new Sim" (http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/03/11/news_6120274.html). GameSpot. March 11, 2005.
- Parish, Jeremy. "Spore PC Preview" (http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3138792&did=1). 1UP. March 11, 2005.
- Hopkins, Don. "The Future of Content (GDC demo review)" (http://www.donhopkins.com/home/WillWrightSporeDemo.html). Don Hopkins. March 11, 2005.
- Wright, Will. "Evolve! Will Wright's Grand Unified Theory" (http://www.donhopkins.com/home/Evolve.jpg). Wired magazine. February, 2004.
External links
- Official website (http://spore.ea.com/) - Not much content except for a Macromedia Flash cartoon introduction.
- 2005 GDC Session Gallery (http://www.pqhp.com/cmp/gdctv/) - Video of Will's presentation at GDC.
- Gaming Steve (http://www.gamingsteve.com/archives/2005/03/pictures_of_wil.php) - Screenshots and an audio recording (Podcast) of Will's presentation at GDC.
- Gaming Steve interview with Will Wright (http://www.gamingsteve.com/archives/2005/06/will_wright_int_1.php). Interview done at E3 2005.
- "Wright Hopes to Spore Another Hit" (http://www.wired.com/news/e3/0,2879,67581,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2) - Interview in Wired.
- Spore Universe (http://www.sporeuniverse.net/) - A small Spore fan website.
| The Sim Universe and Maxis |
|---|
| Classic City Games: | SimCity | SimCity 2000 | SimCity 3000 | SimCity 4 |
| The Sims: | The Sims | The Sims 2 | The Sims Online | |
| Other Sim Games: | SimFarm | SimEarth | SimAnt | SimTower |
| SimGolf | SimHealth | SimIsle | SimLife | |
| Youth Sim Games: | SimTown | SimPark | SimSafari | SimTunes |
| Sim Related: | Streets of SimCity | SimCopter | El-Fish | Spore |
| Cancelled Sim Games: | SimMars | Simsville | ||
| Other games by Maxis: | Microsoft Pinball |
