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Gamers have been waiting with bated breath for the past seven years, but our wait will soon be over. In the second half of 2007, we’ll finally get our hands on Spore, the latest game from Will Wright, famed creator of Sim City and The Sims. Judging from the media hype surrounding Spore, it’s bound to be a huge hit.
Since beginning development in 2000, Wright has occasionally given demos and lectures about Spore, which is the first mass-market game based on generative systems. What’s a generative system, you ask? In short, rather than creating a set of canned content — creatures, environments, etc. — the content is all user-generated, and it follows simple mathematical rules to create interesting and unique gameplay possibilities. In the game, you design a simple multi-cellular and guide it through its adventures an ever-evolving world, populated by creatures and environments from other players.
Composer Brian Eno described generative systems by saying: “You make seeds, rather than forests.” In Spore, your seed (well, your “spore”) is a dynamic entity that grows and changes in response to the environment — and to your tinkering, as its creator. In the last stage of the game, your spore creates a spacecraft and flies through the universe, meeting other civilizations…and sometimes destroying them.
It’s fascinating stuff both for gamers and for math geeks (and yes, we’re aware of the overlap there!). Recommended viewing:
- Wright’s Spore slideshow and demo from GDCe
- Brian Eno and Will Wright discuss generative systems: full lecture, brief overview video
- Spore gameplay demo from E3 2006 (not conducted by Wright, but still interesting)
- Powers of Ten, the classic Eames film that inspired Wright to create a game with multiple levels of gameplay
UPDATE: corrected the spelling of “bated,” having learned something from commenter Larriann. Thanks!
Comments (7)
Comment
Oooh! I’m not so excited about math, but I want to play this game a lot! (I wonder if I will be able to on my computer, such as it is?).
John Seabrook wrote an interesting (this would be a link if links were allowed: newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061106fa_fact] profile on Wright a few months ago in the New Yorker that made it sound very tantalizing, and seeing the visuals even more so.
posted by Mary on 2-21-2007 at 11:27 am
Your enthusiasm is obvious and the game sounds great, but the mental image of you sitting there with a worm on your tongue? “…with baited breath…”.
I believe you REALLY meant “bated breath”. From Merriam Webster – to reduce the force or intensity of : RESTRAIN
posted by Larriann on 2-21-2007 at 2:14 pm
Larriann – wow, I never knew that. Thank you! Fixed!
posted by Higgins on 2-21-2007 at 2:44 pm
It’s from the verb “abate” and it means one is holding one’s breath or panting shallowly, such as the hypoventilation which typically occurs before fainting.
kudos to Larriann for catching that.
(*bows to fellow bookworm*)
posted by Nat on 2-22-2007 at 8:59 am
There is a video of Robin Williams playing spore on youtube.
posted by Jon on 2-22-2007 at 11:09 pm
FYI – NAT EVEN KNOWS WHAT “NON DE PLUME” MEANS…. DI I SPELL THAT RIGHT? HA HA
posted by JOHN BROWN on 2-23-2007 at 11:09 am
I am buying this game immediately when it comes out. I might even reserve a copy while I have the money now on amazon.com cause I can’t think of a day that I’ll ever be upset that I have a copy of this game.
Damnit you have no idea how excited I am for it. the problem is that I was real excited it would be march and now I see september, oh well.. I know that game has to be tough to get working 100%
posted by yoshi on 3-1-2008 at 12:30 am