Spore

I recently bought a pc game called Spore. This is the first pc game I've bought in a long time, probably since college. The concept for the game is very interesting, and the scope is actually quite ambitious. The fundamental game play is what I would call "god mode," that is, you are lord over your creations. What is different from other god-mode games is that you actually get to shape, draw, and design everything. Then you play it out.

There are several stages which correspond to the various stages in evolution. You begin with the cellular stage, and the goals are simple. Survive. Don't be eaten by other cells---grow bigger. After gaining enough points to evolve, you move onto land. Along the way, you can "mate" which takes you to a creature creator for editing and shaping of your creature, with more functional components, such as mouths, fingers, and fighting appendages, made available as you continually advance down the evolutionary path. In the next stage you govern a tribal community with the goal of either conquering or befriending neighbor tribes. Then it's to the ever more complex global system, where again you can evolve to either a more social global trading powerhouse or violent conquering empire. The last stage, of which I have yet to get to, is the space age.

This game has a nice design feature, and that is you are only allowed to save along the time line. So a decision made is a decision made, and you cannot reload a previous file to change a bad decision. This creates a more realistic situation, and every decision counts, as we all know very well in real life there's no turning back time. A decision made in the earlier stages, perhaps unknowingly, could greatly alter the course of actions in the future stages. For example, I had early on decided to make my creatures herbivores. This affected the possible shapes of mouths that could be developed, and subsequently, the food types that my creatures could digest. Thus, my creatures could not feed off of the wild animals available near the tribe. Of course, a game is still a game, so you are allowed to die multiple times without much penalty, at least in easy mode! If only easy mode were an option in reality!

The image is a picture of my species, named "Argsket." Though herbivores, my creatures are great fighters, and I have conquered more often than made peace. Interestingly, I did not try to realize what I would consider to be the most beautiful of creatures. My design choices went along the reasoning of "would this be advantageous now" and "is this symmetrical." I suppose in some sense there is a basic notion of beauty in the forcing of symmetry, but making my species more suitable for survival was still key. So this is what I got!

I really enjoy this game so far. Though it's just a game, I think it's hit on a lot of issues that interests me. The game tries to present a way for me to think about evolution, however simplified, by giving me a chance to "play it out" in the various stages. With the creature creator in particular, I get to create, and marvel at the possibilities that evolution presents.