Spore - E3'06 First Look Preview
Jon Wilcox
23/05/2006
Five years in development, TVG charts the evolution of Will Wright's latest project...
First there was SimCity, and the people were pleased for they could build little cities and trade with their neighbours. Then there was SimCity 2000 and 3000, and they introduced more complex structures for the people to enjoy... which they did. And then the Lord (Will Wright) created The Sims, and people could enjoy forming their own little families and their perfect homes thanks to innumerable expansion packs. And then He sat back and did not rest upon his laurels, for He thought about the next sim that he could produce, one that dealt with evolution. And so Spore was born...or at least conceptualised, before being debuted at GDC'05. TVG got a further look at the game behind closed doors at E3 2006.
Five years in development, when it was at times also referred to as 'Sim Everything', Spore sees players follow the evolution of single-cell organisms' right through to the eventual exploration of a galaxy. Massive in its premise and ambition, and one that encompasses about three billion years worth of time in the real world, Wright's title sees gamers develop the basic creatures into land-dwelling animals, through the different stages of civilisation building, before taking the ultimate leap into space and interplanetary colonisation.
Split into six distinct areas, the development of a player's species is played out not only in the various gameworlds, but also through the six editors that allow gamers to change varying aspects of their creature and its civilisation. The premise might sound a little heavy, but thanks to the visual style that's been adopted by Wright and his team, Spore will almost undoubtedly open up the audience. Colourful and stylised, the direction is sure to persuade gamers that it's not the boggy software equivalent of Darwin's "Origin of the Species", coming across, in many ways, as being more accessible than The Sims.
The first area, the Tidepool Phase, sees gamers and their single-cell organism swim around a 2D water-based environment as they eat weaker organisms - much like the videogame classic Pac-Man. After a while the evolving organism will lay an egg, which when hatched, allows players' to take that first vital step in evolving their creature into something a little more complex. Adding larger jaws could perhaps allow the creature to eat a different types of organism, whilst the development of a fin would make the organism that much quicker in the primordial gloop.
Eventually moving into the second segment, the Creature Phase, players will find themselves shifting into more complex areas, such as whether the beast will be a carnivore or not; a social animal or a predatory one; etc... Such attributes come down to the respective editors used in the game. Developing a more complex animal opens up a wealth of options to the player, though thankfully Wright and his team have worked to ensure a high-level of user-friendliness throughout. Moulding the initial shape like a lump of clay with the mouse, which procedurally generates the appropriate backbone, players can then begin to add legs, jaws, eyes, and other physical attributes that help to define the characteristics of their creature. Species are broken down into seven characteristics: Power, Speed, Stealth, Herbivore, Carnivore, Sense, and Social; sharp teeth suggesting a carnivorous diet, certain legs would mean that the creature could move quicker or stealthier, and so on. From there players can then decide on the colouration and pattern that the creature can have, thanks to a three-layer paint design that allows players to build up its distinctive look. Beginning underwater before evolving into a potential land-based animal, the primary objective of this stage is to develop a significantly sized brain, enough for the species to progress into the beginnings of a civilisation. The social attributes of a creature also forms a key gameplay element when it comes to evolving, and more specifically, reproducing. More social creatures have to find a mate, whilst a more solitary species just has to rely on eating food in order to lay an egg.
After a time wandering around the land eating other creatures and forming social groups, the offspring of the creatures allows players to further the evolution the species. This brings about its own set of problems, with predators more than eager to get an easy meal, leaving players with no choice but to defend that unhatched next-generation. nce hatched however, players can then take the youngsters and cause a bit of mischief towards other species in the locality, though it's worth making sure that the targets won't bite back. In order to develop the species further, the creatures will have to eat the eggs of other animals - or other animals themselves - so that players gain 'Evolutionary Points' to spend.
Moving onto the third section, the Tribal Phase, players progress to control an entire tribe of their creatures with the development of various tools that help this primitive civilisation to grow. The editor for this phase revolves around the Hut, a focal point for the burgeoning species as they work hard to become a more developed civilisation. At this stage the need to expand the population of the species can be achieved by finding individuals in the gameworld, as well as acquiring them from other tribes. Having secured a basic social structure, the species next move is to develop into logical or emotional creatures; although how this impacts the evolution of the species has yet to really be explained.
From there the species evolves into city dwellers, courtesy of the City Phase, where players will now be in control of creating and editing a whole settlement. The editor for this phase of gameplay allows players to create buildings and vehicles for the species in a move that harks back to Wright's earlier SimCity series. Becoming a more demanding species, players will have to appease their creatures by fulfilling their needs with the correct types of buildings, before moving onto the next phase of development.
It's then within the fifth period, Civilisation Phase, that Spore begins to branch out across the home world, as the species begin to explore the rest of the planet on their march to become the dominant creatures. This can be accomplished through diplomacy or warfare, with the ability to begin trade routes and relationships with other cities across the planet, although first contact with a new species does seem to be quite hazardous with the possibility of an attack always there. Detailed information of this phase is still found to be lacking, although what is known is that players will be able to create a whole host of vehicles in which to explore the world thanks to the Vehicle Editor. EA representatives of the world's largest publisher then rapidly skipped through to the final phase of Spore: the Space Phase.
Completing the unification of their home world, players will then move into space, where Spore quickly turns into a sandbox game of massive proportions not only because of the numerous planets that players will be able to explore in their UFOs. Described as a "Massively Single-Player Online" game, a key element of Spore is that it downloads other player's creatures enabling confrontation and co-operation between tens of thousands of species. During earlier stages of the game, the home world is populated with other species downloaded for their suitability according to the characteristics of a player's creature. Online functionality isn't a pre-requisite however since the game will self-populate, but it sounds like there's going to be a grander scope available to those connected to the net. Spore will feature an encyclopaedia of species (rather expectedly known as the 'Spore-pedia') encountered by players throughout the course of the game including those created by other gamers.
Once the jump to the Space Phase has been made gamers are set to discover a greater amount of interaction with other player-developed species. As with throughout the game, Spore will continue to download the species of other players, but this time across a whole galaxy of planets, offering a never ending sandbox of exploration. It's at this point that the game continues in the same vein as so many of Will Wright's titles in that there is no end to Spore, players just continue to explore the galaxy to seek out new life, and new civilisations. But that's not to say that there's no fun to be had, thanks to the demonstration given by EA.
Travelling to a far off planet where a species is in an earlier phase of development, players can be seen as gods by such primitive life forms. Hovering above a settlement, the local population stare in awe at the craft, and even begin to worship it...which is when the player begins their attack with a powerful laser that can disintegrate a creature on touch. It may be cruel, but it looks fun to do, especially when an individual can be captured by a tractor beam and taken to an alien world enabling gamers to see how well it will cope in these unusual surroundings. Sometimes seen as a free meal by its inhabitants in the demo, the abducted creature may also be unfortunate to be dropped from a height, with the end splat somewhat quite predictable. It's also worth noting that Space Phase species also have the power to terraform planets as the civilisation continues its steady growth.
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