The game Spore been worked on since 2000 (not too long after Will Wright got done with first The sims), but was first announced 2005. It changed quite a bit over the years, the version that Will Wright announced back in 2005 had alot more realistic style than the version of the game that was released recently. The game uses alot of "Procedural generation".

Personally, I found it a quite fun game although at the same time it's not the game for everyone, especially for the kind of people who aren't very creative. If games like Simcity and The sims bored the hell out of you, don't bother with spore as most of the enjoyment comes from creating things.

The game have five phases, although you will obviously spend the most time on the last one.

Cell phase reminds me alot about a arcade game, and this is a phase you finish in a few minutes. It's fun as long as it lasts. You control a small microorganism, which you have to evolve with new tools and weapons now and then to keep up with the competition. To evolve, you need DNA points which you collect by eating in this phase.

Creature phase is where you evolve your creature, and interact with the world. You can choose to hunt other creatures, or socialize with them. While socializing with other creatures might seem silly, I guess they did this to make games more intresting for people who chose to have a herbivore as a creature. This phase get's a little repetitive after awhile, but it doesn't last for too long and the ability to evolve your creature at any time adds variation. After you finish this phase, you can't change your creature anymore.

Tribe phase, reminded me about a mix of a typical RTS and The sims. The main goal here is either getting peaceful with the five other tribes neighboring yours, or wiping them out. Not really much to say about this phase, as I finished it rather quickly. You can also add clothes to the creature, making them look less naked.

Civilization phase, now I found this one quite fun. Since my creature was a omnivore, and was neither too peaceful or aggressive during tribe phase my creatures led a economical civilization (otherwise you have a militaristic or religious civilization). Religious civilizations prefers to convert others to their cause, militaristic uses brute force. Economical civilizations prefers buying up other cities. If you take over a city with a diffrent trait than yours, it's possible to keep the trait for that city. Which was useful for me, since a economical civilization can only buy up cities from "friends" and one civilization hated my guts. I passed this phase quickly, especially since I had a "global buyout" superpower.

Space phase, is the biggest phase. You can colonize and terraform others planets. The terraforming reminds me about alot about Simearth, but somewhat less frustating. Terraforming is basically about making sure that the planet is warm or cold enough, and have a good balance of atmosphere. Then you have to add life to stabilize the climate of the planet, so like Simearth the game follows the gaia hypothesis to some degree.

You can also trade and conquer other solar system. While a fun part of the game, I have a problem that it tends to nag alot during this phase, where you have to defend one of your colonies from an attack, or prevent a biological catastrophe. This is even more annoying when the attackers aren't much of a challange later on in the game. This is hopefully fixed by a patch, as they could just make attacks less frequent but heavier when they come.

I also only found two bugs so far in the game. The game had crashed twice on me after I ran it for about, four-five hours or so in space phase. While not often enough to be annoying, I did lose alot of progress in one game due to this.

The other, more serious bug is that too complex creations might refuse to upload to the Spore server. Seems like the developers are well aware of this though, and a fix better be out soon as a few of my creations refuses to upload because of this. :/

Also it upload creations you did automatically online. It's neat, and optional too.

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