14 DAY TRIAL // Spore Executive Producer Lucy Bradshaw weighs in on gameplay and the importance of user generated content in Maxis and EA's upcoming God game, Spore, in an interview with GamersGlobal. The Mac version of the highly anticipated simulation title is expected this September, with an iPhone version also being in the works over at EA's studios.
First off, everyone should know that Spore is a "teleological evolution" game, a "God game". The player is tasked with molding and guiding a species across many generations, growing it from a single-celled organism into a more complex being. Eventually, the species becomes sapient, at which point the player sets the rules of that species' society. The goal is to help the living being (intelligent at this point) progress towards space-exploration. This begs the question: "How many planets are there in [Spore's] simulated galaxy?"
"There's a couple million stars in any one galaxy, and any star can have four or five planets," Lucy confirmed to the interviewers. "So you can imagine just how much territory you can discover. The planets are all generated by the program. The ecosystems are generated from collocated content. You can terraform planets and give them your own expressions. We really want Spore to be a game where you can find new things even if you've played it for a long time," Mrs. Bradshaw added.
But then, this begs yet another question: how's a person with a couple of spare hours a week going to play this game? Lucy assures that players "do not need to try to reach [the game's goal] at all to have fun with the game!" In fact, as she puts it, "it depends on you as the player what territory you want to explore: Do you want to beat the game by following the quest?" Spore is much like The Sims, Lucy adds, because it allows you to "spend your time exploring the galaxy, terraforming worlds, contact[ing] other races - or drive right to the goal of the game." Either way, the fun is guaranteed, the Executive Producer vouches.
Right after Apple's iPhone Sowftware Roadmap event on March 6, EA confirmed that Spore would be "the first 3rd party game on the iPhone." However, it won't be available until September, which means that this is the soonest you'll be able to download purchasable third party games through the App Store.