Spore preview, first DS and new PC screenshots, free Creature Creator, new feature details and more!

Will Wright is the mastermind behind Spore and The SimsSpore is definitely shaping up to be one of the most ambitious games of all time, and it’s been a long time in coming but Spore’s release date has been revealed as September 7th. Which sounds oh so far away! But it’s much better than having Spore release in 2009!

So what exactly is taking Will Wright and his development team at Maxi so freaking long? And why do they need so much more time?

Turns out that Will Wright has been focusing most of his time adding lots of very awesome community-based features and perfecting the interface so that the game is much more accessible even to beginners.

Wright says in an interview that “probably the biggest design challenge was keeping it very accessible to players so that every bit of the game was intuitive, easy and approachable.” To that end, players will even be able to select any portion of the game they want to play from the very start . . . a feature that will definitely be controversial since part of Spore’s majesty is playing the game from the beginning, and going from cell life to outer-space exploration.

Pre-Order Spore on PCBut the most exciting additions, the parts that differentiate a good game from a great game (the kind of polish that the greatest of developers pump into their games), come from Spore’s “pollinated content”, to quote Will Wright. He explains, “I can make a buddy list, and it will try to put my buddy’s content in my universe at a higher priority. I can subscribe to Sporecasts, which are aggregations of content that players have decided to basically organize themselves. Also, when I get a card for a piece of content–whether it be mine or somebody else’s–at any time I can open that card and leave a comment on the card, and the person who made that content will get the comment.”

In addition to all that, Will Wright has also stated that the Creature Creator will be released separately, FREE OF CHARGE, for download to your PC before the game even comes out. Allowing people to create creatures for the game to their hearts content, without ever having to buy or even play Spore!

This will be a huge draw to creative types and an incentive to check the game out. It will also guarantee that a huge collection of creatures, of all shapes and sizes, will be available from the get-go and allows for a massive online community to be put in place and active, with their own creations available for people playing Spore to check out, before the game even hits retail! And when Spore does hit shelves, people who’ve downloaded the Creature Creator will be notified automatically within the program itself . . . simply genius.

Speaking to Wired, Wright said that he doesn’t mind if some people do nothing but create creatures. Matter of fact, that’s the point: “I might decide I want to just buy the trading card of my creature, or other things we might attach, and never buy the PC game,” he said. “So in some sense that free creature editor might become the hub of the franchise. The PC game is just one of the big spokes off that hub.”

Very cool!

Lots of new screenshots have also surfaced. Here are new pics of Spore DS!

Spore DS Screenshot - Creature Creation

Spore DS Screenshot 2
Spore Screenshot 3 - Leg Selection
Spore DS Screenshot 4
Spore DS Screenshot 5


Will Wright has also been making the rounds of the Internets talking up Spore and revealing a ton of info on the game. Check out this Will Wright interview with Newsweek, a Q&A about Spore DS, A walk through Spore with Wired, and even a video of Will Wright demonstrating Spore to NASA! Looks like ol’ Willy and his game are once again the talk of the town!

Personally I can’t freakin’ wait for Spore! So much has been packed into it that I believe it’ll keep creative people (like my brother) attached to their game machines forever. I’ll almost be too scared to touch it when it comes out for fear that I’ll never again come up for air and suffocate in my own sea of Spore-euphoria. But, you know, that’d be perfectly fine with me! :mrgreen:

And to finish off all this overwhelming Spore goodness, here are some pics of the PC version of Spore. I wonder what the Wii version has in store for us . . .

Spore PC Screenshot 1 - Building

Spore PC Screenshot 2 - Cell
Spore PC Screenshot 3 - Civilization
Spore PC Screenshot 4 - Species
Spore PC Screenshot 5 - Space
Spore PC Screenshot 6 - Tribe