By now I'm sure everybody will have heard of Will Wright's new brainchild: "Spore".

Having seen a bunch of other takes on it, I've just bumped into Gamespy's coverage of his presentation and found it to be one of the most satisfying as a read, and probably one of the most encompassing.

Check it out here.

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And, yes, it does have UFOs... :lol:

An interesting concept, if nothing else.

It reminded me of the game, Creatures. And that's when I realized how out of touch I am with new developments in games.

I can definitely see myself getting lost and absorbed in a game like Spore. If that really is one of the future gaming directions, with full-power development tools packaged with games...

Imagine what people could do with tools that allow customization of both gameplay and nouns.

But I don't think it will replace "standard" game development with armies of designers, developers, and programmers. There will still be people and companies that focus on engine building, selling to the highest bidders who wrap a game around it. There will still be plenty of bad games built as a marketing gimmick for books and movies. There will still be people who write unique games who can't compete with the big boys, so distribute their games as shareware or freeware.

Still, creating highly customizeable environments, with programming that focuses on "rules of the universe," leaving all the details to player communities... I think some excellent CRPG, FPS, and RTS games could come out of it.

--Zeno

Some screens from the "Spore" presentation have been leaked.

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Don't expect them to be online for long, though *wink* EA's Men in Black *wink*

It does look rather nice. The whole style of the game is a nice departure from the current trend for ultra-realism.

Is there a release date planned ? Like "shortly after Duke Nukem Forever" :lol:

i thought duke nukem forever was released 1060AD ????

Man Spore looks auwsome!! Me must get it!

It looks like Spore has come along quite a way, Alpha stage pre-Alpha? And I heard some stuff that if he shows Spore at E3 there could even be an end of year/christmas release but I'm thinking sometime in 2006, depending on how much flak the game has to go through at EA.

Reviving an old thread here, but the Creature Editor is here according to Blue's News.

Naturally there is also a MUCH newer thread on Spore here, but no matter.

I suggest people download and play with the creature editor because that may be the only fun part of the game. As I explained in that much newer thread on Spore.