Spore: In-Depth Preview with Will Wright

We take a detailed look at Spore in a guided tour with Will Wright, to discover why this is a game so mesmerising, everyone seems addicted before it's even out.

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In a world where big name game creators are constantly trying to offer more freedom and think up grander and more original scenarios then ever, it hardly comes as a surprise to find that Will Wright - creator of best selling game franchise ever The Sims - is the one to show up with a brain-warping idea for a game that's more than just ambition gone crazy, but an impressive, working concept that surely has other creators kicking themselves for not thinking of it first.

Spore combines such a fun visual style and simple, superbly accessible front-end that it wouldn't look out of place in an infant school, but the premise of the game - evolution from humble microbe all the way up to global civilisations across a universe of millions of planets - will offer as much educational value to our alphabet-learning spawn as it will mind exercise for older gamers bored with the same old crap.

"We're trying to make these editors very simple and very expressive as well," explains Will Wright. "For every stage of the game there's an associated editor. Everything you're going to see in this game is creatable by the player, and automatically shared with other players transparently as you play, and that's an important concept in Spore."

One of the first editors you'll use is at the creature phase, the second of six distinct evolutionary phases of the game. Starting with a basic torso, players can grab the spine and extend it, creating the basis for the creature. On top you can start adding parts, choose from a selection of limbs, feet and more, and drag them onto whichever part of the creature base you want. You decide whether it's going to be a carnivore, herbivore or omnivore, and also add all kinds of facial features, skin textures, and finishing touches, anywhere, winding up with a wildly unique creation.

Players will essentially be competing with other players' species

"Really what the editor does is enable the average player, with just a few clicks, to be able to replicate what it would take a Pixar artist a lots of work to do," says Wright. "Typically it might take a CG artist some time to paint and texture, but we've basically taught the computer to do it by itself. Each one of the options you have represents a different procedural texture script, that understands things like where light's coming from, how it should be shaded, how stripes should flow, and it takes a few milliseconds to do what it would take a texture artist several days to do."

The next step is animating the creature. The computer will analyse what you've built so far and show how the creature would move around the world, behave and act, and even how it would fight or have emotional reactions. Fitting nicely with the cartoon style of the Spore universe, emotions and communications are shown in an exaggerated and amusing way that's easy to interpret and act upon. "Players have tremendous diversity of things that they can build," Wright concludes.

With your finished creature, you're ready to get into the thick of Spore and play the evolution part of the game. "There's never really been a good game about evolution, because all the evolution games have had these pre-set paths you go down," says Will, "it's never been truly open-ended with what you can design. So an editor like this was a pre-requisite for having a decent evolution game.

	An endless array of unique creatures can be created before you guide them down their evolutionary path, in a universe with millions of planets to be reached

Players will essentially be competing with other species that other players have made, and they'll always be different and unique. Controlling your creature in firstperson or thirdperson with the mouse and keyboard, players will simply walk around in the early stages of the game and go look for some food to eat to earn food points, one of the most essential points-based activities to build up your evolutionary muscle.

As you might expect survival is key; you won't need to worry about herbivores eating you for example, although they will protect your nest if you come too close. Likewise your own breeding efforts are integral; if you see a member of your creature's species with heart signs floating around, it means she's ready to mate. One click later, and just like in real life it's as easy as that, we see an 'E for Everyone' comedy mating animation before unhatched offspring appears. "We don't know how they're going to rate this at ESRB," ponders Will.

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Spore HSN Direct feed gameplay 1   (PC - EA)	03:36	51MB	DF, SD, 16:9 640x360p30 2.5Mbps
Spore E3 Direct feed gameplay 2   (PC - EA)	03:06	48MB	DF, SD, 16:9 640x360p30 2.5Mbps