Will Wright is making *the* god game

Will Wright, creator of the Sims and SimCity is working on a game called Spore. Spore will not only be a god game, but will be the god game. In fact it may become the best game ever.

It sounds like a combination of Sims, SimCity, Civilisation, Populous, Humans, Command & Conquer and 3D Studio Max.

The game starts with you controlling a little micro-organism (a spore perhaps) that has to survive and eat things and not be eaten by other things. You have a nicely textured but relative simple top down view of your little creature swimming around. Survive long enough and get enough food and you can lay an egg. This is the central theme of the game - your creatures evolve. But you choose *exactly* how they evolve. Need another tail or a couple of spikes? No problem. Put what you like where you like. The game works out how your creature should move and attack. Evolve a few more times and the game switches to 3D (well it was actually in 3D before but you were limited to a fixed camera angle and movement in a single plane).

Once in 3D, the goo you were previously swimming in is revealed to be a pond of sorts. You continue evolving and getting more complex. Add legs and you can walk out of the pond. Or maybe you’d just like fins and be the best sea creature around. Or perhaps you want legs and fins and get the best of both worlds. Your choice.

And so the game continues with your creature evolving. Eventually so does their brain. You can manufacture weapons (designed with the same flexibility as the creatures) which your creatures work out how to use (even if that means holding them with their tails because you forgot to give them hands). By this stage you control a whole tribe.

Of course other tribes will spring up and they have to be dealt with. So make some tanks or something, all with an agonising amount of control.

After that it just keeps going. Control the planet, fly to other planets, control the solar system etc. The sheer scope of this game is unbelievable.

Search Google Video for quite a few clips of the most ambitious game ever conceived.

Complete review from GameSpy of their showing at the 2005 Game Developer’s Conference which is more in depth.