Many Mac and PC gamers must have heard of SPORE by now. It’s a simulation game that debuted on September 7, 2008. That’s today. It was developed by MAXIS, the same game company that developed SimCity (1989), The Sims (2000) and other simulation games. For those who like simulation games, SPORE can be a great game to look forward to playing. If you don’t like them… Let’s see. Personally, I don’t like SimCity 4, The Sims and The Sims 2 because there are no clear objectives. I prefer games where I can play one campaign after another to increase my game skills. But I can say that I like this game quite a lot so far.

So what kind of game is SPORE, anyway? Again, it’s a simulation game. More precisely, it’s a simulation game of the evolution of the mankind. Like Civilization III and Civilization IV from Firaxis Games? Not quite… Imagine that those human characters in The Sims 2 originally evolved from tiny bacteria-like creatures millions of years ago. That is, you will start with a mere monad (or maybe a creature with more than one cell) in SPORE. This is the only character you will control in the first stage. Something will happen to this species after it eats and/or kills other creatures and acquires knowledge. Eventually, your species will evolve into a reptile with arms and legs.

Cell Stage

There are a few important choices that you have to make when you first start out. The most important choice to make is whether your creature will be a carnivore or a herbivore. (See Screenshot 01.) Another choice is the game difficulty level. (See Screenshot 02.) After making those choices, a cinematic scene will show that you arrive on a planet in a meteorite and enter water. (See Screenshot 03.) In the next 20 minutes or so, that will be your battle ground. It’s a simple species with body parts including eyes, mouth and a tail only. If you play a herbivore, you can find green cells here and there. (See Screenshot 04.) If you are playing a carnivore, your creature has to take red cells (meat) or eat other living creatures. Now, the immediate objective is to eat food and grow larger.

Screenshot 01 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 02 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 03 – Source: MacHouse

The ultimate goal of this stage is not exactly to make your creature grow larger. If your creature just stayed in water to eat food and attack other species, you would waste the money you invested in this game. Rather, the ultimate goal is to make your species evolve into a reptile so that you can move on to the next stage. There’s a progress bar shown at the bottom of the game screen. (See Screenshot 05.) In fact, this progress bar will move to the right as your creature eats food. Food doesn’t come by easily in the real world, right? It won’t in this game, either. Whether you play a carnivore or a herbivore, your creature must fight for survival and evolution.  Continue reading →