SPORE

[My weight is 102 kgs]

SPORE

 

 

Published by: Electronic Arts

Developed by: Maxis

Genre: Simulation

Release Date:

US: September 7, 2008

Europe: September 5, 2008

Available on: PC (subsequent console release rumoured)

 

 

Game Information:

From the very tiniest forms of life to the intergalactic level of existence, you are in control of life itself in this simulation game by Will Wright. Beginning in the primordial ooze, players create a character from DNA that will grow, survive, and mate as it evolves from a single-celled organism to a fully-formed member of an establishing species. As more and more creatures inhabit the world, and as evolution forms the future, your species will join herds, clans, even civilizations. The more advanced the creatures of the planet grow, the more complex the strife of survival becomes. And while the player can continue gameplay in Spore at any level -- playing as a cell, as a wild creature, or as a civilized and organized society – players can also step even further out and play the game from the planetary or interstellar level, while also going online to connect worlds with other gamers.

 

 

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One of the most anticipated games of 2008..........................lets you make your imagination run wild.It allows you to create new creatures and shape their history from to primordial soup to the full universal domination. With the creature creator already released.it is sure to be a good game developed by Will Wright of the SIMS fame.

[AlanVivek]

Recently announced System Requirements

 

Windows XP/Vista Processor

2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent

RAM XP: 512 MB / Vista: 768 MB

Graphics card 128 MB with support for Pixel Shader 2.0

Hard disk drive space At least 6 GB

 

 

When using a PC with an on-board (aka built-in or "shared") graphics chipset, the specs bump up to:

 

Intel Integrated Chipset,

945GM or above.

2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent.

768 MB RAM

[HundredProofSam]

@darth: look at other game threads....either provide essential information when you start a game thread or let someone else do it

 

 

 

peace

[ctrl_alt_del]

Anyone having trouble getting the Spore Creature Creator trial to run? It keeps crashing on me.

[DaftSmiley]

this game is coming out to the iphone aswell...

[Hahaman]

me downloading the spore creature creator now

[skdMrk]

Anyone having trouble getting the Spore Creature Creator trial to run? It keeps crashing on me.

 

Works fine in my PC!!!

[My weight is 102 kgs]

hope .........we have a IVG Offer for SPORE

[skdMrk]

Gingold Talks Spore's 'Magic Crayon' Approach

Shortly following the high profile release of EA's Spore Creature Creator, former lead designer Chaim Gingold gave a keynote titled "Magic Crayons: Spore and Beyond" at the Dutch Festival of Games, where the publisher distributed 500 hard copies of the creator to attendees. The much anticipated and much delayed game features several editors that players can use throughout – but the Creature Creator represents the most difficult design challenge, Gingold told and audience of developers, professionals, and academics during his speech. It's the first editor that players will experience, and, said Gingold, it's the only editor that players are required to play with. Amusingly enough, an Electronic Arts employee reported to Gamasutra that the company's chief executive, John Riccitiello, wants all employees of the world's largest publisher to spend fifteen minutes of work playing with the Spore Creature Creator. "I spent the last four years working on the creature editor and other editors in Spore," said Gingold, who has taken a sabbatical since completing his work on the project. The opening of his talk focused on the preliminary question of "why creativity is fun and why making stuff is fun."

 

Magic Crayons And Monkey Art

 

But there's a second component that Gingold sees: "Computers can breathe life into things." Through the talk, he explained his concept of magic crayons – creative tools that are for both fun and play. He makes the comparison between Adobe's Photoshop, saying it's a creative tool to be sure, but a professional grade one that requires some skill and experience. "On the other hand, Sim City is a magic crayon you could give to anyone." "Research has found that little monkeys, like little humans, like to make things," Gingold continued, explaining results showing that primates playing with charcoal on paper derived disproportionate pleasure from both the motion and results. In fact, says Gingold, "this principle of disproportionate feedback is crucial," from bouncing a ball, to drawing, to playing Go or the drums. "Slot machines work like that. It's like a seizure with all this feedback you're getting." "There's this enjoyment when you make things. When you externalize some part of who you are, you can reflect on it," he said, recalling early tests of the Spore Creature Creator, and how users reacted. "They would make something, and something would go wrong, but they'd still love what they made." Further explaining the principle, a clean-shaven Gingold tells the audience that when he first created a Mii avatar, he had a beard. When he looked at his Mii, he didn't like the way his virtual beard made his virtual avatar look, and soon afterward shaved off his physical beard. "It was like this weird mirror – I was really engaging the sense of who I was through the Mii."

 

Digital Golems

 

There's a theory of soft and hard mastery, he continued, that hard things let you feel joy by achieving mastery over the difficult, while soft mastery lets you feel joy through simple pick-up-and-play ease. "The Sims is definitely more of a squishy thing," said Gingold. "We definitely went more the route of soft mastery with the Spore Creature Creator." Gingold then transitioned to talking about tales of things that come to life, from the story of Pinocchio to the legend of the Golem, a creature formed of mud and brought to life by occult incantations. "With computers," he said, "We can deliver that fantasy, we can make things come to life. Which is totally magical." When you think of traditional games, said Gingold, you think of more goals and objectives. But there's an opposite style, built for "just the pleasure of doing things." "In a traditional game you are the Luke Skywalker, you are the hero," but with the softer games, "you are more like the director." Gingold tells the story of Will Wright's first game, how he "had more fun making the levels" for the game, and that eventually the level creation tool was made into SimCity.

 

Stealing The Cheese

 

When detailing the design process behind the creature editor, Gingold said, "I think of it as Mission Impossible. You've got to get in there and steal the cheese." In other words, there are difficult parameters, and designers must find ways to get around every obstacle. And they had goals from the start. "We wanted the output of this editor to look pretty good," Gingold recalled. Anything you wanted to make, he said, you had to be able to make easily – without frustration. "It had to be exciting and interesting." Spore solved a major problem, said Gingold, with its animation system. But it wasn't easy. "Four years ago, there was a lot of back and forth between the animation and art teams."

Beside obvious problems with animation and art, there was a question of size. Compression was important because Spore's creatures had to be small enough to send over networks, and small enough to download as the game is in play. "The data is smaller than the size of the thumbnail," reported Gingold, saying "The picture is 20k. The creature is 4k -- it's incredible." "The creature editor was the first one people would use in Spore, but also the hardest. So the others were easier," he said of the development process.

 

Possibility Spaces And Beans

 

"There's this idea I really like," Gingold continued, "of possibility spaces." In essence, within a circle of possibilities, there is a smaller circle of probability, and a smaller circle of the optimal. Those two circles don't intersect unless someone has skill and talent. The team found that the creatures that had high probability of being created weren't as good as the creatures that skilled artists could make. Gingold consulted the art director, Ocean Quigley, on the problem and found out that artists traditionally start creating characters out of bean shapes. Gingold then created a new tool using a 3D bean shape as its basis. Players wanted more control than he gave them, so he added points that could be pulled – and they looked like vertebrae, which also helped the animation system. "This is like the deep structure of the creatures. It's very fundamental. You see that spine and you go, 'oh, it's a creature.' You reach out and touch it, and it kind of does what you expect" with the creature's curved structure.

 

How Spore Is Like Magnet Poetry

 

Gingold then talked about "deep structure," something that might appear to be chaotic, but is, in fact, is quite controlled chaos. His example? Magnetic poetry. "It blows my mind," he said, that people can take these random words and create deeply meaningful poems. "It shows that the content is carefully crafted," pointing out that if they were magnetic letters, it wouldn't work at all. Forming a complete, meaningful sentence with a bag full of letters would be difficult. But the content system of magnetic poetry has been filtered. Gingold moved on to discuss subsequent editors in the Spore experience, such as its building creator. "The problem was that there was no apparent structure." So, the team specified parts: roof, body, window, door, chimney. "If we know it's a chimney, we can have smoke coming out of it, right?" "We made sure the new parts were interchangeable," he continued. "We had a castle set and a sci-fi set. The benchmark we held ourselves to was: you should be able to make something cool in three clicks."

"Once you have a grammar, you can use it generatively," Gingold told the audience. "The computer can reason about it." I can create objects on my own, and it can also create. "You can use that to help them along," he said of players, citing the example of SimCity's road editor which automatically suggested what the player might like to do.

 

One Click Mind

 

Returning to the topic of the creature creator, Gingold said that the leg manipulation was the last part of the editor to finish—and the hardest. But it also provided some insights into what players want. "I wrote a bunch of functions that were our fuzzy interpretation of what looks good," he explained. "Most players don't know what they want. All they know is if it looks good or not, thinking 'Oh cool, it's what I wanted,' – even though they didn't have anything in mind." Gingold also said that the more people switch back and forth, the more lost they can become. "We tried to minimize the modes in Spore," a principle extended as far as the user interface. "It just looks really simple and obvious." The team wanted the interface to grow with the player, to "playfully reveal the features that it has," and to hold to a one-click structure, as Gingold pointed out that most people are used to the idea with email programs, web browsers, and search engines. Gingold also explained that one of the things that game director Will Wright insisted on was that the creatures would have symmetry, saying, "It turns out that all living things are symmetrical." In the end, Gingold says that he believes computers can ease "this anxiety and alienation that we have from doing one thing." Even though people become experts at their trade, "we can design houses, human beings, pinball sets," he said.

"I want to be able to make an animated movie like Toy Story," he concluded, "Or a pop song. I want to write a novel and not be particularly good at writing a novel," encouraging the audience to "invest in that structure and make those toys!"

 

 

SOURCE

[Montyseth]

I am buying this game. demo is awesome

[Hahaman]

^^is there a demo out already or r u talking bout the creature creator

[Somebody]

Spore Exclusive Hands-On - From Cell to Civilization

Did you ever think plant-eating cells would evolve into religious zealots? We find out in our exclusive time with Spore.

 

Evolution is a long, slow process, and its effects sometimes aren't noticeable for millions of years. In Spore, it takes about 15 minutes. We visited EA Maxis this week as part of our ongoing coverage leading up to the game's September 7 release date, and we played through the cell stage up to the final moments of the tribal stage as our creature evolved from single-celled organism to fire-wielding biped. Someday we'll conquer the planet and then the galaxy in the civilization and space stages, but today, we'll walk you through the first half of Maxis' hybrid strategy game.

 

Your first decision is one of the most important and will affect everything down to the design of your spaceship a billion game years in the future: Do you eat meat? Carnivores are more aggressive than their vegetarian cousins in Spore, and the simple act of eating animal cells instead of plant cells will lead species to be more hostile. That said, evolution in Spore is at your fingertips, and one mating call will take you to the cell creator tool, letting you completely reverse the direction of your evolution should your gameplay tastes change.

 

One day all this will be yours. If you can survive the primordial soup.

Once you decide on your diet, you choose one of several planets to play on. You have the option to begin from any of the five phases, should you want to skip the rather simple cell stage which, in some ways, plays more like a casual downloadable game. Indeed, after a meteor crashes into the ocean, seeding it with life (that's you), your first and only goal is to survive, swimming about using keyboard controls or the mouse, chomping on floating pieces of red meat, or green plants if you chose to play vegan (we didn't). With each piece of food you eat, you gain a point on the progress bar and grow slightly in size.

 

You're not alone in the primordial soup, however. Other cell creatures are fighting for food as well, and some are a lot bigger than you. To succeed, you have to avoid larger creatures that see you as nothing more than an afternoon snack and go after smaller creatures, many of which are user creations straight out of the Sporepedia. When you take out a competing organism, they will often drop new body parts that are added to the creator tool.

 

Then, by clicking on the mating call button, you swim up to a friendly cell of the same species--which are now everywhere as you begin to assert your dominance of the primordial soup--and make a baby cell. You can outfit this next generation with any of the body parts you've collected. Our new cell transformed from a friendly little guy with a pair of spikes to a poison-spitting, electrocuting ball of doom in just one generation. With significant DNA points and such evolutionary advantages, our cell was now ready to advance to the creature stage.

 

This stage takes you to an abridged version of the Spore creature creator, already available for $10 for dedicated mad scientists hoping to create the master race. Only this time you have just one evolutionary category to choose from: legs. Attach them to your cell and then crawl forth to land as a smaller fish in a bigger pond, a theme common in each Spore stage. Our creature was outfitted with a poison stinger, two electrical nodes, a few spikes, a pair of eyes, and carnivorous, flesh-ripping beak. After we advanced to the creature stage, a handy timeline popped up displaying each of our new generations and their evolutionary advancements over hundreds of millions of years.

 

Each stage will introduce an increasing number of strategy elements; the creature stage begins with a land map and home nest. The nest is where you can regain health if injured and recruit clan members of your own species to join you on a hunting party, the humble beginnings of civilization. As a carnivore, the only way to advance is to eat other creatures.

 

If your critters prefer feasting on fruit instead of their fellows, they'll lead completely different lives.

Thankfully some of the creatures are much less evolved than you, equipped with only legs and mouths and as easy to eat as an apple on the ground. Most species that you encounter, however, are more advanced than your own, and in these cases it's not advisable to go in chomping. Instead, change your "stance" from aggressive to friendly, and you'll open a new batch of diplomacy actions such as sing and dance. Some species are inherently aggressive and will attempt to eat you, forcing you back to the nest to wait for a hundred million years of evolution and growth before you're strong enough to take them on. Others enjoy a good song and dance and will be impressed by your creatures' performances. This little minigame is the base of all diplomacy for future generations.

 

Speaking of future generations, body parts litter the environment in the creature stage and are added to the creature creator pool for use after each mating call. When an egg hatches with your new modifications, the entire species will have been edited. Also, the baby's parents will teach you new moves such as strike attacks before letting you out of the nest to hunt. Continue to impress neighboring species or eat others into extinction to fill up your progress bar. This opens up more slots for clan members, but as you progress to the tribal stage, the need to be more organized becomes clear.

 

The discovery of fire is a key turning point for your society.

 

Soon, the alpha member of your species discovers fire. He grabs a stick and pumps it into the air in triumph, attracting other members of the species. They are impressed by his bravado and decide to follow his leadership as chieftain. Welcome to the tribal stage.

 

At this point the evolution of your creature is complete. Now you begin to learn the use of rudimentary tools and to craft ornate clothing. Members of the tribe gather around a makeshift village that consists of a hut and a fire. This is also where you gain the ability to command tribe members, selecting them much the same way you would select a unit in a real-time strategy game. As primitive hunters and gatherers, your first goal is to find food. Simply point and click on one of your tribe members and order him toward a food source such as wild animals or fruit trees. He will automatically collect the food and bring it home to your stockpile.

 

Food in the tribal stage acts as currency, used as gifts to wild animals in order to domesticate them, offered to rival tribes as a peace offering, or used to make new babies as you grow your tribe. It can also be used to purchase new huts for the village, unlocking new tools. Fishing spears, throwing spears, battle-axes, flaming torches, and musical instruments all become available, but there isn't room for everything. Hunting and gathering tools are useful for everyone, and fishermen armed with spears are much more productive than those using their bare hands--or whatever appendage you designed back in the creature creator. But more aggressive tribes may want to fashion weapons for midnight raids, while friendly folk might instead craft musical instruments.

 

There are five rival tribes in this stage, and you progress by either recruiting them to your cause or killing them off. Aggressive tribes will want to offer rival chiefs a gift of food, after which the tribes will become "ambivalent" to your presence, buying you time to build up resources and transform your tribe into an axe-wielding army. Then, when the time is right, gather a massive party, kill the rival chief, destroy their main hut, steal their technology, and eliminate the tribe. To commemorate your victory, add a totem piece to your camp.

 

Of course, Spore is simply one of the cutest games to appear this year, so many players will want to avoid violence and make friends with other tribes. To do so, you equip your tribe members with musical instruments such as maracas and didgeridoos. Then, make your way to the rival tribe village and talk with the chief. Be sure to switch your posture from aggressive to friendly so the tribe doesn't mistake your caveman orchestra for a hunting party.

 

You, too, will have the chance to create the galaxy's greatest civilization later this year.

When you talk to the chief, a musical minigame will unfold, and the other tribe will ask you to play one of three musical instruments. Simply answer them by pressing 1, 2, or 3 on the number keys, and the tribe will love your performance, offering to become your allies. New allies, like conquered foes, mean one more piece of totem for your pole.

 

Even after you've conquered the land with music, axes, or both, your tribe will need further organization. It's time to get civilized! We'll be back with an in-depth preview of the civilization and space stages soon.

[My weight is 102 kgs]

U can also crete spaceships in it ???

[nash]

Yes you can. In fact even though I'm not too found of these kind of games Spore looks pretty interesting and I'd like to see how it lives up to the Massively Multiplayer Offline tag.

[sandy160687]

Been flexing your creative muscle with the Spore Creature Creator? You can expect more galactic simulation goodness when Spore warps to a console near you in the not-too-distant future.

 

In an interview with Gamespy, Will Wright let loose a juicy little piece of info:

 

Well, actually we are going to go on all platforms, but we will come out on PC first. We will even come out on cell phones and stuff. One of the things in the game is that as you go around and encounter things... creatures and plants, or whatever, you make trading cards of each thing. That is the metaphor for the database -- trading cards. So you can collect your cards. You can print them out. You can now play your own card game. That might be like the cell phone part. That stuff is so light. It's more about collectability as opposed to interaction. Every creature in the PC game is three or four megabytes. But the cards, that is the database that the player is building.

 

Well, there you have it. The video game genius himself has just ended the lives of 3 million more geeks. Me included. Let the countdown begin. Spore will be available for the Mac and PC at European retailers on September 5th, and in the North American and Asia Pacific regions on September 7th. Console release dates have not yet been announced.

[HundredProofSam]

please post source links

 

 

 

peace

[sandy160687]

please post source links

peace

 

 

http://talkingaboutgames.com/content/blogsection/1/82/

 

Here you go, peace

[nforce_infinity]

Maxis and Electronic Arts' latest life simulator Spore has gone Gold, and is on track for a September 7th launch. The title will hit the PC, Mac, Nintendo DS and Wii.

 

Spore lets players to create their own creatures, environments, and even planets in an effort to successfully manage a universe through five phases of evolution. Earlier this year, Electronic Arts released a free tool called Spore Creature Creator that allows users to play around with the creature creation feature.

 

When starting a new game, users can only play with single-cell animals, which, however, can be evolved to intelligent beings that conquer other planets. The player has a number of creative tools at his disposal to craft creatures, buildings and spaceships. Players establish tribes of creatures and build entire civilizations. But the real fun clearly with exploring the universe and discovering creatures created by other people.

 

You can buy this online at ea.com make sure you choose India and the indian prices will be shown ( We lucky folks get its at almost 50 % of the US price)....

[nforce_infinity]

So how many of you folks are planning to start playing this... I already bought the spore creature creator (Rs 199 on EA.com as compared to 10 $ in the US) and its been fun ....

[AtheK]

any news related to a game should go in respective game thread nforce and not a new thread needs to be created.

 

Merging with spore...