Obvious Diversion

There’s no shortage of excitement about Spore. I had seen magazine articles previous to E3 and certainly wanted to check it out. So, I hopped in the line and waited my turn for their presentation. I was not disappointed. Quite frankly, I was blown away.

Presented By None Other Than…

We entered a very small and intimate room with a large screen at the front and a computer and chair just to it’s left. All the seats were already filled when I entered the room, but I heard the presenter at the computer say “There’s seats available up front if you’d like to sit on the floor.” So, I went right up and got cozy with the screen. I turned to my left to see the guy in the presenter’s chair and there was, wait for it, Will Wright.

I realize we don’t know game creators the way we do film directors, but Will Wright is, without question, one of the most astounding game makers we’ve ever seen with games such as SimCity and The Sims as a part of his work. I had never imagined that Will Wright would take the time to spend three days talking about his work with conference goers, but there he was. It really speaks to his commitment and sense of interest in the work that he does.

The Basic Idea

In Spore, you start with a single celled organism and nurture it’s development from cell to creature to tribe to city to civilization to exploring the universe. Sound crazy? It is and you’ll absolutely love it.

Your Very Own Creature Shop

Spore, at it’s heart, is simply a set of tools to let you create the world you want. When your cell becomes a creature, you decide what the creature should look like as if molding a piece of clay. How many arms do you want it to have? Will it be fast or slow, pink or yellow, have six eyes or one? You help this creature live it’s life, find a mate and when it has children, decide how the creature should evolve.

Here’s a two-eyed, long-beaked, claw-legged creature he made in just a couple minutes. When he was happy with his creation, it sprang to life. This is one hell of a lego set.

When a society forms along with bigger brains, what should your cities look like? What about the way they get around? How about whether they’re peaceful or belligerent? It’s all there for you to design as they societies they build are based on the choices you’ve made.

It’s an amazing array or choices, a playground for the mind, and it’s incredibly empowering.

Spore’s Power is It’s Belief In Users

Here’s the fun part. Obviously, your species isn’t the only one on the planet and certainly not the only one in the universe. Where do the other ones come from? They are the creations of other players. All of our creatures will interact and share space. If you like one persons creatures in particular, you can flag them and you’ll get new creations of theirs as they make them.

Our collective creativity becomes a creation in and of itself. Exploring the universe in this game is a walk through the brains of the people around you. This is an astounding idea and it’s one that’s very real. Although the games release is roughly a year away, the demonstration I saw showed an incredibly mature and impressive product.

Will Wright has stated that it will be released for all platforms, but first for the PC. Personally, I think the DS version may be one of the coolest due to it’s touch screen.

Make sure you check out the trailer and screenshots at the official site. About one year from now, the world’s productivity will suffer greatly, but we’ll be having a lot of fun.