A few days ago EA released their big bet for 2008. The game is “Spore” and it has been dubbed as a “massively single-player online game”. The game has been developed by Maxis, the same company that developed the Sim City and Sims series.
The game is based in evolution of the species and you start your game as a unicellular organism. Like other games developed by Maxis, the goal is to control evolution of your species. The game has an open ending and there are 6 defined phases:
- Start of life
- Cell
- Creature
- Tribal
- Civilization
- Space
Although you can play the game forever, there is a goal. To “win” the game you have to reach a quasar located in the center of the galaxy.
The game has some very interesting features. Your specie data is transmitted to a central database that later populate other players worlds. When you reach the space phase, you can travel to other worlds and see how your specie is doing in that particular world. The other social component of the game is that you can upload videos straight to YouTube.
One of my favorite parts of it is that the music has been developed by Brian Eno. And again in this case, the way the music is created is pretty cool. Eno composed thousands of samples, and then the game creates the soundtrack based on gameplay.
Here is the trailer presented at E3.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHaulHxmO4A
The game’s development is very complex and it is filled with theories and new ways of developing games. Brian Eno and Will Wright gave a very interesting keynot at the Long Now Foundation. The entire show can be watched here.
Hope you like the game!
pol