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Will Wright's Next Game: Spore

Posted by Zonk on from the it's-growing! dept.

1up.com has a look at Will Wright's newest game, revealed today at the Game Developer's conference. Entitled Spore, the game promises to be (in a word) unique. From the article: "Wright's latest creation spans the rise of a space-faring civilization from its humble beginnings in the primordial soup. 'It's actually a lot like WarioWare...It features a wide variety of game types as a sort of homage to my favorite games.'" PC Magazine has details as well, as does Gamasutra.

3 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. ESRB rating? by game+kid · · Score: 4, Funny
    Given the popularity of The Sims and the impressive level of polish and humor customary in Wright's work, Spore clearly has amazing potential to become every bit as huge as its predecessor. (And as entertaining -- when your primitive creature mates, the deed is accompanied by romantic guitar and saxophone music.)

    I hope that doesn't mean the more conservative protozoa will try to give it an AO rating.

    --
    You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
  2. Summary: by Suddenly_Dead · · Score: 5, Informative

    The game goes in phases:

    1) Freeform Pac-man (with E.V.O. and Cubivore leanings, with consuming other things to change the abilities of your own creature)
    2) Diablo-like
    3) RTS-like (think Populous)
    4) City Phase (think Sim City)
    5) Civilization Phase (think Civilization *)
    6) Invasion Phase (go forth into the universe, colonizing, invading, and terraforming)

    At that:

    "The Invasion section of the game is enormous, potentially endless. After hunting for other populated worlds, players can venture into the universe in the manner they think best fits their personality: Whether using the diplomacy of Star Trek or the destructive fury of War of the Worlds. Some races will welcome players, while others will greet instellar visitors with hostility.

    Ultimately, the goal is to help players' comfort with and understanding of the gameplay and tools scale up and evolve in tandem with their virtual progeny. "This is very much contrary to the usual game design," Wright says. "Usually you get the sandbox gameplay as training wheels for the goal-oriented content. Here, the goal-oriented game is training you for the open-ended sandbox." By the time players are ready to conquer the galaxy, they'll have mastered every element of the game interface and will be ready to tackle the rest of the universe on their own terms."

  3. "The Future of Game Content" by projection · · Score: 4, Informative

    One thing some articles I've read misscharacterized, from being at the conference myself. They say Wrights title of "The Future of Game Content" was a guise under which he presented Spore. I really don't think that is completely true. Wright made good points about game content and time to develop. His solution was demonstrated by Spore. Spore uses user shared content and procesdural content to overcome the current limits.

    With other EA divisions claiming 150 person teams, Wright showed their was another way, keeping teams smaller, and allowing user driven and procedural content to fill the gap.

    This was a theme at the GDC this year. In his talk a couple of days ago, Tim Sweeny talked about how good tools can also keep team size down, to a max of 50 in his case. 50 is still large, but if it gets a 25 mil $ game down to 10, thats much more profit to the studio and developer.