Space

[Metaliturtle]

Who's played the new Space prototype yet?

I'm trying to figure out the controls, post your tips n' tricks here!

In my first game I got SETI, then attacked some aliens... they then trashed my home world.

I also tried to terraform one of the planets nearby... little success.

[DRoseDARs]

I tried this one earlier today. When I attempted terraforming, I had a SimEarth flashback. Unfortunately, I know Spore won't handle it anything like SimEarth did and that makes me sad. Still trying to figure out how to get plants and animals to take. Because of the crudeness of this program, it's hard to tell a good colony location from a bad one but I just aim for coastlines with lots of colored dots around (flora and fauna). Attacking is cute, but if they can fight back they will. The game even cussed at me! Sure, it was just "Hell" but still, that was neat and unexpected.

As for the controls, I really hope the actual game handles better than this mess.

[Metaliturtle]

The different planets seem to be able to support greater or lesser amounts of life based on how close they are to the "sun" of each solar system.

Good colony sites seem to be ones that have lots of plant and animal diversity around them (low land next to ocean with a mountain nearby seems to be the optimum).

You can always put colonies on alien worlds and then zap the alien colonies too.

[EternalSpark]

Still trying to figure out how to get plants and animals to take

Open one of your cargo holds, click on a spot of land, and then click on one of the icons that comes up on the left-hand side. It'll put it in the cargo hold.

Then, when you go to another planet, with the cargo hold still 'on', just paint with mouse clicks. You seem to pick up an infinite amount of something.

But where do things 'fit'? When they are in your cargo hold, you'll see text like "big herbivore, low elevation". Put it in the darker spots, and it'll spread where it can.

The controls in this suck and it's easy to get to Win More stage... but if Spore is even half as fun as this prototype was... damn.

I've done quite a bit of experimenting with this, would anyone like a quick and dirty how-to-play guide?

[Metaliturtle]

yes! mememe

[Nugog]

Originally posted by EternalSpark
I've done quite a bit of experimenting with this, would anyone like a quick and dirty how-to-play guide?

[DRoseDARs]

Like he had to ask...

[EternalSpark]

Giant Honking Disclaimer - I did this very quickly, as I played. It's a bit stream-of-conciousness and I figure I don't have to explain EVERYTHING. Feel free to comment if you have a question.

Okay, so you've started the game. I immediately buy Volcano, Comet, and Asteroid with the money I start with.

Then, I zoom out and go to another planet in my solar system. I click on the spaceship, click on the comet button, and click once on the map. Hey, the comet added water to the planet! Then I cancel it by clicking on the (/) icon on the bottom right.

I click on the spaceship again, and put a few volcanos down. This'll slowly increase the Atmosphere on the planet. Sometimes, I put one or two Atmo Generators down, I dunno what the difference is.

Now, before I leave this New Planet, I clear the Volcano / Atmo / Etc, and I click on some of the now-green areas. The thing on the left-hand side will say things like medium, high, low, etc. Then I zoom back out, and go to my Home Planet.

When I click on my planet, I then click on my spaceship and click on the Cargo Hold button. Then I click on a green space on my planet that is of the same height as I clicked on Second Planet. The thing on the left-hand side will show up a variety of things. I click on one of them, specifically a plant. You'll see at the bottom that the plant I picked up is now in my cargo hold. You can do this with multiple cargo holds and multiple plants.

Zoom out and go to your second planet. Hopefully (provided you put enough Volcanos or Atmos Generators), the Atmosphere bar will be going up. Now, you've prolly left the cargo hold up, right? All, then, you need to do is 'paint' the appropriate land with your plants. No need to do it on every square yourself, it'll grow in time. Beware, this costs cash, and I'll admit I'm not exactly sure on the mechanics of money. I guess those green dots whenever you go to your planet is your money increasing.

Now, open up each of your Cargo Holds and dump them out. Now, go back to your First Planet and do the same thing with animals as you did with plants - open an empty cargo hold, select a square with a symbol on it, and look for something that looks like a herbivore name - camel, etc. Click on it, and it's in your cargo hold. now, return to your Second Planet.

If everything has gone right, notice how your plants are spreading out on your Second Planet? Notice how your animal bar's length is getting bigger? That's the game's way of saying your planet can support more animals, because you put down a lot of plants. So plop a lot of couple patches of animals, they'll spread too.

Wait a bit - going back to your home planet for cash if required - and wait for your animal and plant bars to keep growing. Don't worry, animals seemingly don't erase plants. You can do all this in the sea, too. Not sure what it does, maybe increase profit?

When you feel like enough of the Second Planet is covered in symbols, put a few colonies down. They'll grow too.

Well, that's basically it. Keep going that on your planets, going back and forth, until you have enough cash to do Interstellar Drive. And then do it in different systems.

As far as I can tell, there's nothing else to really do; the other aliens don't seem to do anything unless you attack them.