Nova Spivack writes about Sim City creator Will Wright’s next game, Spore. GameSpot has more:
[Spore is] a sim that allows the players to control life on all conceivable scales–an emergent and beautiful simulation game that ranges from the cellular level all the way to the galactic level.
The game allows the player to begin with developing a creature as a cellular entity and eventually creating a creature with more sophisticated brain functions, which will change the nature of the game to a more RTS-type game (he cited a particular favorite of his, Populous), where players will control herds of creatures. Once you upgrade the “hut” around which the creatures centralize, the game changes into what he called “a simple version of SimCity” where the player manages technology and interacts with other cities that have sprung up around the world.
He demonstrated how the player can eventually purchase a UFO to travel between planets–and eventually star systems–to populate, conquer, or simply observe. Particularly impressive was the game’s emergent gameplay and seemingly infinite possibilities for playing creatively–two qualities that define Will Wright’s celebrity status in game design.
