Will Wright's New Game: Spore

[Bkeela]

Will Wright's Friday morning GDC speech, the disingenuously-titled "The Future of Content in Games," was in truth a trojan horse -- the real purpose of his talk was to reveal his latest project, a game called Spore.

Spore could end up being quite literally the biggest and most ambitious game ever attempted. Although it begins at the microscopic level, with players taking control of a monocellular organism in a tidal pool, the scale changes as the creature evolves and grows. The end result: A massive adventure spanning an entire galaxy with player-driven gameplay and design shared seamlessly online among the entire Spore community.

Spore seems to be a concise summary of Wright's virtuosic approach to game design. In tackling the most significant issues and trends facing developers moving into the next generation of games, he appears to have designed a project that gracefully encompasses a wide array of genres while giving players an unprecedented level of control over their game experience.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1775487,00.asp

Sounds intriguing. I wish he would resurrect his SimMars project though.

[Adrian Hon]

It does sound cool. I wonder how smooth the transitions between different levels of scale will turn out though. To be honest I've become very wary of these huge promises being made by 'name' developers like Will Wright and Peter Molyneux when the games invariably turn out to be merely above-average rather than stunning. How about not talking your game up beforehand and surprising us, eh boys?

[lord of the mark]

merely above average - i cant speak to Molyneux, but i dont think thats the case for Wright. SimCity WAS groundbreaking, one of the greatest games/toys of all time, I think, showing us what this hobby is capable of. I havent played The Sims, and I know most people here dont care much for it, but it cant be denied that its created virtually a new genre (even if that genre is 98% dominated by Maxis) certainly has accounted for a HUGE share of all the PC games sold in the last few years. What has Wright designed thats been disappointing? Maxis has put out some disappointments, but IIUC those were not Will Wright designs.

[lord of the mark]

this game sounds cool. look forward to hearing more about it.

[DrSpike]

Looks suspiciously like a Sims style game.

[Urban Ranger]

This is going to be ten times worse than MoO 3, because this Spore thing sounds way too ambitious.

The Sims sounded cool initially too, and it turned out to be turd.

[Adrian Hon]

Eh, I didn't mind The Sims, but it's not that great. I did think that SimCity 4 was a bit of a disaster really - it still runs slow on a 3ghz comp with a gig of RAM and new graphics card. Plus it's not very fun.

I'm not saying that Wright and Molyneux haven't created great games, because obviously they have. I just think that their output has dropped in quality quite a bit lately, while at the same time they spend a lot of time giving interviews and talks about how great their *next* game will be. Although to be fair this applies to Molyneux more than anyone else (/derail).

Anyway, if Spore is as good as it sounds, it'll be a truly incredible game

[RGBVideo]

There's already a game called like this.
It's called Real Life, ever heard of it?

[Asmodean]

Whoa...a lot of skepticism in this thread. It really sounds cool, IMHO. If he can pull this off, he'll have created a really groundbreaking game, and possibly a new genre.

I'm excited.

Asmodean

[GreenCrescent]

EVO

Doesn't the first bit of Sid Meier's game smack a little of evo the old SNES game? I think he should dump that whole evolution junk.

Anyways though the whole idea of starting out as a small town and becoming a massive interplanetary empire intrigues me. God know how many Civilization games I've played where I finished up and wondered how cool it would be to continue exploring past sending a ship to alpha centauri, i.e. Moo2.

[:) Smiley]

Multiplayer wise though it could lead to problems in gameplay or lack of realism. The first person to develop some critical technology could gain an exponential lead and steamroll over the rest.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by VJ
There's already a game called like this.
It's called Real Life, ever heard of it?

Are yout alking about Spore?

[CapTVK]

I think that was Sarcasm


As for Spore, for the moment its still vaporware. Isn't it great that vapour always seems to fulfill to everyones ideal game?

I'll take a look at it once its ready. In the meantime there's plenty of other fish in the sea. For some short games try out experimentalgameplay.com

I found it mentioned in the "Burning Down The House - Game Developers Rant" (with Warren Spector, Brenda Laurel, Jason Della Rocca, Chris Hecker.) Interesting and frank discussion about the state of the industry right now btw.

http://crystaltips.typepad.com/wonderland/2005/03/burn_the_house_.html

[CapTVK]

P.S
Try out Goo tower while you're there. I've never had so much fun building a tower out of goo. Short, refreshing and sweet.

[Kuciwalker]

Spore could end up being quite literally the biggest and most ambitious game ever attempted. Although it begins at the microscopic level, with players taking control of a monocellular organism in a tidal pool, the scale changes as the creature evolves and grows. The end result: A massive adventure spanning an entire galaxy with player-driven gameplay and design shared seamlessly online among the entire Spore community.

This sounds like satire. If it's real, I think Wright is getting senile - it sounds retarded. "A massive adventure"?