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Underground > Games & Gameplay >

Spore

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All Acting Regiment

06:44 / 02.03.06

Here's the video

It's a large file (35 mins) but worth the download. You start at the cellular level and end up at the galactic, from what I've seen, all the while interacting with other player's species. Your thoughts, comments and drooling.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:27 / 02.03.06

Ooh, I haven't got time to watch the video right now, but this is a game I've been looking forward to. Everything I've read about it seems to suggest it's exactly the game I've been waiting for someone to make.

Jawsus-son Starship

09:52 / 02.03.06

This is exactly what the gaming industry needs - crazy ideas brought foward by people who love what they do. And the ohhs and ahhhs of the audience also helped sell it.

It seems like the guys thought about everything on every level, down to the same menu to create anything in game, through to the wonder of getting the interstella drive, or just running away from big bad monsters.

19:10 / 02.03.06

From the moment I saw the video when it first debuted, I knew I needed this game. Just thinking about it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I'm kind of afraid that once it comes out I'll never be able to stop playing it.

20:50 / 02.03.06

I remember seeing the press releases for this when they first came out and feeling the same wave of excitement. It really does sound like a great idea / concept for a game.

I am, however, wounded by the last time this happened and will remain cynical until proven wrong.

The last time I got excited about a game was Black and White . It seemed like such a good idea, and it dropped in the execution so badly... Only, however, because it needed some serious patching before it was playable and, hey, possible to complete final level.

One set of fingers is crossed, anyway. High hopes, low expectations, maybe?

00:02 / 03.03.06

This game is so complex it's actually spooking me a bit. How much AI are we talking here?

In fact, i can think of some non-entertainment uses for that software, such as scientific (xenobiological simulations) ans even military (war scenarios)

This game may be more revolutionary than one might expect.

Will there be an on-line version?

Phex: Dorset Doom

01:41 / 03.03.06

Umm... isn't it kind of already an online game? In that you're constantly connected to a network that exchanges the various creatures you and other players create. If you're talking about 'can I build a load of tanks and take all my opponent /\/\u+1L80r_P1/\/\p's resources and blow up his planet and insult his sexuality IN CAPITAL LETTERS?', then no, I hope there is never an online version, ever. This game's about the joy of playing God for your little species, and an online aspect would diminish that joy.

13:15 / 03.03.06

i don't know. Maybe would be fun to have one planet so people can create their own specied of animals (and why not plants also?) ans see which ones can survive a good old darwinian race.

the rules would have to be a little different, though

13:33 / 03.03.06

oh, and I almost forgot to make the joke:

Now I believe in inteligent design...

All Acting Regiment

15:20 / 03.03.06

DM: You start out in a drop of water, single cell, surrounded by other organisms that the game grabs from other people. Then you up a level, to a sort of worm/fish thing and get surrounded again by things at this level grabbed by game. And so on. It's asynchronous multiplayer: all the creatures you'll meet are made by other players.

All Acting Regiment

15:22 / 03.03.06

And they're chosen to make a balanced ecosystem.

20:05 / 03.03.06

Well, trying to look on the bright side: that should wean me off Civilization for good...

In fact, i can think of some non-entertainment uses for that software, such as scientific (xenobiological simulations) ans even military (war scenarios)

That's hardly new though. Just taking things to the next level.

20:12 / 03.03.06

The next level is what spooks me. Imagine a bunch of 3-legged game sprites refusing to let you shut off your computer because they want to continue with their happy dance with sticks around the campfire (those peaceful cowards)*

Maybe I should be happy my PC would mever be capable of supporting such a game.

*you have to watch the video to understand the joke

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:28 / 03.03.06

I've just watched the video.

This is LITERALLY the game I've been waiting for.

If this turns out to be shit I will chew my own legs off in protest*.

*I might not actually do that, but I will be very cross indeed.

*

02:01 / 04.03.06

STOP SAYING 'PROCEDURALLY GENERATED'! We GET IT!

Er, sorry. Damn this looks cool.

All Acting Regiment

09:58 / 04.03.06

Isn't it? I love it when the guy's getting chased by the big groobly monster, and hes visibly upset...

13:43 / 04.03.06

Yeah, I wonder how much AI is in those individual characters. Can they tell the difference about a creature that's smaller or bigger than them? That claws and fangs are usually a bad sign. Do you have to tell them to flee or they do that by themselves? How much decision-making can they do without the player pressing buttons? What's their learning curve, if they have one?

Promising, indeed, this game is.

*

15:38 / 04.03.06

The thing that would annoy me, once the utter delight and amazement wore off, is that everything is so YES WE KNOW PROCEDURALLY GENERATED OKAY THANK YOU and then you can't build them a different kind of civilization based on what kind of tools they would have evolved. Would creatures whose hand was located on a grabby tail on their bums really have developed straight spears? Can we have a kind of civilization which doesn't manifest as buildingsandroads?

16:47 / 04.03.06

Good question. Can you build underground? Develop weird cultural "ladscapes"? Partenogenic species? Hive-minds?

Maybe in Spore 2

01:16 / 05.03.06

Would creatures whose hand was located on a grabby tail on their bums really have developed straight spears?

Presumably that would be where the tool editors comes in. Prolly everything is going to be craftable by the player to some degree. Reckon the spear was just a stock weapon for the guy to move the game along and show tool use. If you want a kink in your spear you can, like.

Can we have a kind of civilization which doesn't manifest as buildingsandroads?

He mentioned underwater cities. Alright, bubble cities but maybe there's room for aquatic/aerial sentients too?

02:41 / 05.03.06

He mentioned underwater cities. Alright, bubble cities but maybe there's room for aquatic/aerial sentients too?

I thought about that, but those underwater cities were very technologicaly advanced, so my money is in "no". In fact, I don't recall any flying critters in the video.

All Acting Regiment

03:08 / 05.03.06

You can edit buildings completely. From the ground up. So you could always make some kind of cloud city.

As for flying critters, you have a whole palette of locomotive body parts so there might well be wings there.

Phex: Dorset Doom

04:19 / 05.03.06

The great thing with Spore being a semi-MMO is that player requested stuff can be sent out in the same way that species are traded between players, so even if the core game doesn't ship with underwater cities there could be an update that allows them. I don't just want cities, I want a whole underwater civilization, so that my army can march out of the ocean in water-filled helmets to stick it to those snooty surface-dwellers with our coral tipped spears.

13:15 / 05.03.06

Oj yeah, I forgot about the updates.

I want an underground hive-minded telephatic psycokinetic queen/soldier/drone species...

... with a taste for canibalism.

13:18 / 05.03.06

and that looks like the Worm Man, I should add

17:42 / 05.03.06

So, finally... for years I have waited... but soon I shall release the spawn of Cthulhu upon an innocent, unsuspecting universe! Ia! Ia!

(Sorry, couldn't resist. They better come up with a Mac version of this, or I'll be doing something much worse...)

(...) you can't build them a different kind of civilization based on what kind of tools they would have evolved. Would creatures whose hand was located on a grabby tail on their bums really have developed straight spears?

I was thinking the same when I saw that — it just didn't look right. I'm really curious as to how much control you actually have over certain variables, e.g. gravity, atmosphere... One of the planets he visited was arid, but to what extent does it influence the creature's behavior outside of how they move? They seemed to be pretty hostile to strangers (which is to be expected on a world with scarce resources) so maybe that factor is indeed taken into account...

Well, basically I'm just wondering how far the interactivity in this game will actually go, since the video was obvously just meant to impress the masses, not an in-depth demo... Far enough that it can really surprise the player on occasion, I hope. And I'm not talking "peaceful cowards sending their fighters away from the invaders" here.

18:47 / 19.03.06

For those who might like a spore-esque experience to tide you over for now, you may want to try this.

Found via the B3ta newsletter, I give you their summary;

...dope smokers will enjoy this game
of 'your the pretty little blob and you the
only way forward is to eat all the other
blobs.' A metaphor for life really. Assuming
you're caned.

Enjoy.

15:24 / 04.04.06

He mentioned underwater cities. Alright, bubble cities but maybe there's room for aquatic/aerial sentients too?

Looks like the the aquatic side has been covered.

"We discovered that you can evolve your entire species underwater. If you have hyper-intelligent dolphins, they can build whole cities under the sea. Interestingly, when these creatures colonize other planets, they can build domes around their cities filled with water."

Quoted form Gamespy

Tension is building. There is talk of a release before the end of the year. I'm on my third viewing now.

10:47 / 08.05.06

New E3 2006 footage of Spore, a collection of unedited footage for TV networks at E3.

Looking very shiney and the creature design screen is pure love.

16:44 / 16.05.06

I also found this 20 minute demo from the E3. I don't think he shows anything really surprising, but you can see that a bit of new things have been added since last year.

06:15 / 02.06.06

According to Wright: once you hit the UFO stage you can go back to planetary level and build robots/I-Life. Awesomeobot!

02:04 / 21.07.06

Yep, I am hooked on the hype, and can't wait for the game to come out like countless others. Here is some more spore goodness. I hope this doesn't go vapourware like Starcraft : Ghost...

20:51 / 18.11.06

The EA Australia site has a countdown for Spore and it says 57 days (making a release date of January 15th) but there is no mention of it on the UK site. What, if anything, can we deduce from that?

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

14:31 / 20.05.08

This was featured in the video game exhibit I went to yesterday -- what happened when Spore came out? Did people like it? I'm sort of intrigued about playing it...

14:44 / 20.05.08

It's still not out I'm afraid. September 5th is the release date and this time around it is a bit more set in stone.

Plenty of information out there now to start salivating over. It is still looking exceptionally good, although perhaps less exceptionally so than a lot of the hype-mongering posts in this thread would lead you to believe. And I've still not decided how I feel about the cartoonish-ness of it all.

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