The evolution sim that was never meant to be.
Original Source:
Spore: An oral history by Jay Castello / Designroom (free registration required)
The game still was somewhat of a technical marvel, especially for its time. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like the creature editor where it would allow you to create fairly arbitrary creatures, try to automatically detect what was the head, torso, legs; and try to animate them all correctly. Then, entire creature definitions were encoded into small PNG files using stenography, which could be shared with minimal data usage.
As a kid my first experience of it was a friend playing it so I got that feeling of wonder from that instead of trailers and the like, and because of that i was very satisfied with the game
Exact same thing that happened with No Man’s Sky. That first trailer was so obviously curated out-the-wazoo, and I remember people insisting it was the last game they’d ever need to play based on it alone. And we all know what happened when that one came out.
I don’t know how much of that was developer hubris and how much publisher (Sony) pression to deliver. Internet historian made great video about NMS, and at least from dev perspective it was a clusterfuck of massive overprimising and bad circumstances.
Those of us not in the industry refer to that as “lying.”
The game got released in 2008, why is this a modern day article as if the game was just released, while the information is what everyone who ever played the game already knows? The game is almost old enough (just 2 more months) to get it’s drivers licence and buy alcohol in my country. When I was reading this I was like: “wait… Was there a new Spore game released?” But no, it’s just about an 18 year old game 🤷
I thought the world was going to shit, but apparently there’s nothing else to write about than an 18 year old game, from a sea of thousands of game being released per year.
Ok, Thanks for sharing, at least it’s not bullshit from Trump or Musk or whatever I guess.
If you made one now it would work a lot better, modeling evolution and proteins is vastly better Science now.
Yeah… Evolve to an inteligent species, then evolve into egocentric low IQ assholes that constantly almost blow up society because of a dick measuring contest… Until they do press the button. First dominate and kill other species, then dominate and kill your own.
Much more realistic game, don’t know if it’s more fun.
But jokes aside, I wouldn’t mind a new version of that game, or something similar. It’s rather unique in its genre.
Yeah it sucks that the Internet won’t let you create your own better posts about more modern games.
Holy shit dude, nobody’s forcing you to read it and comment all that drivel.
A website made a recap article about it, including interviews with developers. That’s an extremely common practice in journalism. This submission is a recap of that interview. Instead of losing your shit and typing all that out you could have read 4 lines of the article to learn that yourself.
Oh sorry, I didn’t know reality checks on timelines weren’t allowed.
By the way, this just got in: a plane just flew into the WTC. We don’t know much yet, but there’s a high possibility it might be a terrorist attack on the US. Stand by for a press conference from your president George W. Bush.
You’re the one somehow bemused at the existence of an article about a part of history (of gaming), which again is a very common thing. Consider therapy.
To follow your bizarre example, we’d never have articles or interviews about 9/11 ever again. Let’s just not bother talking to people who were around back then.
I’m deeply sorry I didn’t follow your rules for posting comments on the internet. I will indeed find therapy to deal with the shame, and to learn about your rules so I won’t make this mistake ever again. Even my mom called me to tell me I was her biggest disappointment (although in general, not necessarily related to my comment mistake) so you must be right.
Yeah we were there when it happened
I got the collector edition. Never again.
I bought my first ever PC that was built for and came with spore.
I was happy with the computer, the game was… less than what I thought it was going to be.
Translation: “We were just shitting you, so don’t buy our game.”
Now I’m really worried that this chould severily damage the sales of this game
I loved Spore, but I’m easily pleased with video game. I liked creature stage the most, but also liked space and puttering around!
I even really liked the cell stage because the gameplay loop was fun and simple, plus you got to eat the bastards who were eating you before you got bigger.
I still have and play the game sometimes. I would have loved for it to be what I envisioned but it’s still the most enjoyable evolution based game I’ve played. I should look and see what else might be available. I really like the concept.
There is a game called thrive that is attempting to do a really hardcore version of spore. There’s still really at the early stages of evolution and the complexity of the bacterial stage is pretty intense.
Evo: Search for Eden is my vote for best evolution game.
Maybe someday we will get a spiritual successor to spore
Yes, but:
RIP VG Cats!
Oh I remember this game. I’m still irritated at the fraudulent claims. The game was not at all what I expected. Marketing can eat me for this one.
It might be worth to link to the original source: https://www.designroom.site/spore-an-oral-history/
Design Room is a new online magazine authored by one of the writers laid-off by Vox Media when it acquired Polygon.
You can read the Oral Histories after a free subscription.Okay since people seem disturbed - Do you all remember DARKSPORE?
Bullshit.
EA did what they’ve been doing for 30 years: buy a competing game studio, release a few token cash grab titles under their beloved name, then shut down the studio and lay off all the developers. EA mediocritized Will Wright’s original vision for Spore, and trashed the last SimCity game with their always-online, closed architecture and slapdash support.
The really insidious part is that EA does make fun games, but they have remade the industry in their image: closed source, online only, DRM-infested, yearly release, day-one “expansion”, cash grab software that inspires none of the community and creativity that used to foster legendary franchises. And, they’ve killed countless game studios to create a quasi-monopoly to do it with.
I am still bitter over what they did to Maxis. I will never buy another EA game for as long as I live.
SimCity is the last time I was excited for a modern remake of a game, and likely the last. It was such an incredible letdown, you couldn’t even open the game at launch because of the always online stuff. Most every remake of a classic has been terrible ever since, I’m happy to be proven wrong though.
The mediocrity as I understand was from the rift that developed in the team about the vision of the game being a sandbox vs a campaign.
However, I witnessed a new divide among the team which was less well-known; as more core game developers (such as myself) were recruited to help finish the game, a cultural gap emerged between the newer ‘gameplay’ team and the older ‘Sim’ team. The former group (which went on to spearhead Darkspore) was primarily concerned with how Spore played as a game. Were the mechanics engaging? Did the player’s choices matter? Was the game replayable? In contrast, the ‘Sim’ team carried the traditional Maxis DNA and was more comfortable with Spore as a toy box. Could the players express themselves? Was sharing one’s creations with other players meaningful? Did the game spark the imagination?
These cultural divides ruined Spore’s chances to be a focused, cohesive experience.
“Closed source” is reaching. As much as I think Doom shows why it should be desirable, let alone not taboo, it’s always been the industry standard and applies to 99.99% of games.
Certainly. I probably should have said “extensible” or “mod-able”.
that was the fate of cnc, they released the cnc4 for a cashgrab then pratically ruined the franchise(online version of the "spinoffs’ dont count)
The thing that really bugged me about Spore was how lame the “evolution” was.
If early developments in your creatures set certain things in motion that then played out differently that would be great and add replay value.
But nothing was meaningful at all, you could completely change stuff back and forth. Very little in your evolutionary history actually mattered, at all.
There were a couple details that mattered.
Whether you were aggressive vs friendly vs neutral at each stage had some consequences for all later stages. Creatures you befriend in the Creature stage could become pets in the Tribal stage, which could include the powerful lone wolf ones.
That’s because
childrenadults would get stuck on a path that was untenable, and management didn’t like that idea. It would lead to a bad experience and a negative review.
We know this.
We’ve known this for decades.
Why is this now news?
Slow news day?
It’s just a summary of a recent interview, relax.
If there’s any way to make things worse, it’s telling people to “relax” or “calm down”.
I was relaxed, now I’m just annoyed at a random internet stranger telling me to “relax”.
You relax. Next time, don’t comment.
Your original comment was pointless. Don’t expect praise and flowers for it.
Chill out, you’re not on reddit anymore
You’d think someone whose username complains about reddit would exhibit less reddit-like behaviour
Buddy, take a breath.
Friend, chill out.
Strait of Hormuz is open
Not yet.
I think there is a much higher probability of oil prices being manipulated in the short-term.
