Spore - New Will Wright Game

[Evangolis]

Okay, first off, I'm stealing my links from the thread Ubiq started over on Corpnews, cause I'm a lazy bastard.  This is the first I've heard of this game, and I must say that the scope is impressive.  You start as slime mold, evolve to sentience, build a civilization, and then try to take over the universe.  I don't know if you can bake bread along the way.  There is a sort of PvP element, but not really, other people's creations can be imported into your game as NPCs.

1UP.com preview

Gamespot

Here is an excert from a short Gamasutra News piece

Spore is a sprawling multi-genre title which follows life from its smallest single-cell origins all the way to planet-spanning conquerors, and the gameplay spans all the way from Cubivore-style animal consumption, through real-time strategy in the controlling of tribes, all the way up to a Civilization-reminiscent planetary (and eventually interplanetary) expansion phase.

Not much more info out there that I could find.

[MrHat]

Sounds fun.

Sim Everything.

Edit:

Perhaps more significantly, the player's imagination becomes an integral part of his or her game... as well as a part of others' experiences as well. Not unlike the upcoming Infected for PSP, Spore will make use of online connectivity to share each player's creations with a central database while simultaneously retrieving others' work to help populate his own game world. The game's community will be an essential element of the overall experience; although the networked aspect of the title is asynchronous -- that is, no simultaneous multiplayer -- other gamers will influence each player's experience in many ways. Each person's game environment will feature creatures, structures, vehicles and ultimately entire worlds created by their peers and exchanged seamlessly over the Internet.

[SirBruce]

I just got back from GDC but all I can say at the moment was Spore was really really friggin' awesome.  It was like 6 genres in one, running a "Sims"-like gamefrom ameoba to galactic scale.  It wowed everyone.  And, also, Will got special permission to talk about it at GDC, so other than press coverage of the event you won't hear much about it again until E3.

Bruce

[Evangolis]

Yeah, Ubiq has his take up on his site.  Awe seems to be his reaction too.  I've stolen the part that gave me the most new info and quote it here:

While the rest of us designers are freaking out about the staggering cost of content, Will Wright creates a game where a fully textured and animated player-created mobile takes less than 1K of memory.

Will cited the demo scene as a core influence in what he was doing, and there are many useful outputs of this. One is that, if you are connected to the Internet, the game will populate your worlds with the player created content that other players have generated. If your world lacks predators, it will hit the Maxis library for a compelling predator and drop it in your world space. At the end of the game, when flying around in a UFO from planet to planet, the other planets you visit will be copies of other player’s worlds. Which is to say that Will managed to capture one of the most compelling parts of the MMO experience - the creativity of other people - without actually forcing you to log in and deal with them.

I don't know what the phrase 'demo scene' means in this context, and it is pretty clear I should find out.

edit: I know more now, although understand would be too strong a word.  Here is another link I cribbed off of Corpnews, http://theprodukkt.com.  It led me to this this page with this explanation:

"if you wonder what the demoscene is all about, you should imagine a huge underground community of young people organized into groups which compete in the art of creating realtime multimedia presentations called demos. demos combine realtime 3d graphics, 2d effects and bitmap graphics into one fluid presentation that is synchronized to music, somewhat similar to music videos. it is to be emphasized that 'realtime' is really the keyword here as a demo is never just a prerendered animation."

taken from the madwizards homepage

I have to put off full enlightenment so I can go where I need to be.  End Edit

Ubiq's got more to say.  It is one hell of an idea, and if it comes off, it should be amazing.  It is hard to be jaded and cynical when people do really amazing shit.

[Trippy]

edit: I know more now, although understand would be too strong a word.  Here is another link I cribbed off of Corpnews, http://theprodukkt.com. 

The thing about these demos is that the textures are almost always procedural since they are trying to squeeze these things into the smallest possible executable. There's even a competition for best demo that can fit inside a 64K executable (like some of the .theproduktt stuff). Since Will Wright talks about using procedural textures in his game I'm assuming that's where a lot of the influence is coming from.

Edit: The procedural texture thing is for those small demos. Larger demos use bitmapped textures as well.

[schild]

I think Fabricated and I mentioned Produkkt like a year ago. But no one listened to us back then. So I guess it's understandable. Sort of. Not Really. Anyway, yes, Will Wright is a genius, but this is definately a case of "must see this shit in action" and I hope to god it doesn't get as boring as The Sims 2. I've terrible stock in original ideas and more often than not I get blasted.

OTOH if Infection isn't just the greatest thing since sliced bread, I may get stabby with myself. I want me some of that game and I want it served on a plate of perfection, with happiness dribbled around the edges. Viva la psp.

[Trippy]

I think Fabricated and I mentioned Produkkt like a year ago.

My demo scene bookmarks are dated around June 22, 2004 so that sound about right.

[schild]

I think Fabricated and I mentioned Produkkt like a year ago.

My demo scene bookmarks are dated around June 22, 2004 so that sound about right.

That's because we're ahead of the curve. EXTREME GAMERS. ROAR. In a year, everyone will catch up with Cave Story.

[Tale]

That's because we're ahead of the curve.

The same demo scene has been popular in Europe since the 1980s, when it was side-scrollers and bitmaps on C64s. Twenty years of techno-artistic genius later, Farbrausch made .kkrieger and you finally noticed, probably because it involved shooting things.

(edit) Linking a couple of demos I like:
liquid... wen?
Halla

[schild]

Farbrausch made .kkrieger and you finally noticed, probably because it involved shooting things.

You mean we noticed when it started mattering. Correct suh! Shall I give the history on complex procedural music before amazing complex synthesizers arrived on the scene? Art is one thing. Niche is one thing. Application and replacement in a popular genre in any media is true innovation. For example, Darwinia is terrible application. .produkkt is good application. I don't mind giving credit to originators, but I'd rather give credit to people who made it incredible. Bartle still didn't deserve the Penguin.

Sorry. Had to say that again.

[Samwise]

5-page Gamespy writeup by Fargo.

I hadn't realized the extent to which player-created content drove the entire game.  This sounds very interesting.  I look forward to seeing it at E3, assuming it's going to be shown to the public there.

[SirBruce]

Yes, Will can't talk about it again until E3.  But that write-up was a good one.  Basically, we were all awed that such a game was actually possible with current technology.

Bruce

[Margalis]

That writeup makes it sound pretty damn cool. Of course, I'm just going to assume that everything he showed was hard-coded and had he added 5 beaks instead of 6 the whole thing would have fallen apart. (Cause that's just the way I am)

[Samwise]

I share your concerns, Margalis.  On the other hand, Will Wright's past endeavors haven't been disappointing.  I'm inclined to believe that if he says the game can do this stuff, it'll do it, at least to a sufficient extent to make it fun to play.

[SirBruce]

My main concern is there won't be enough "game" there.  Colonizing the universe will be cool, but will there be real diplomatic options with other races, or do I risk them shooting at me any time I fly by?  Will my worlds run themselves without trouble, or will I warp back to find one race has come along and exterminated mine while I wasn't looking?  The game will need lots of pop-ups, notifications, management mechanisms, etc. for it to truly be more than a sandbox.  The interface Will had showing in the game was very powerful and unintrusive, but it's not clear how much of it was integrated and how much of it was, "Hey, look at this neat thing I can do."

Bruce

[Samwise]

It does sound like it'll be pretty sandbox-ish.  On the other hand, I actually paid the $35 to register Framsticks, so I obviously have no problem with that sort of thing.   :-D  Not every fun "toy" needs to be a "game" as such.

[Krakrok]

Here is the guy they hired to impliment the procedural planets:

http://home.comcast.net/~s-p-oneil/index.htm

They hired him part time in 2001 according to his resume. You can download a demo of his procedural planet application and I must say it is pretty cool. The moon planet in it looks pretty much the same as the one from the Wright demo.

You might be interested in his procedural clouds demo for WWIIOL, Bruce.

[Margalis]

Reminds me a lot of a project I worked on as an undergrad. I think mine was better though. (No, seriously)

[HaemishM]

for it to truly be more than a sandbox. 

Don't hold your breath. Not to poopoo on the parade here, since I haven't read the links on the game, but I wasn't aware that Wright did much else but provide very (somewhat) interesting sandboxes. I mean, the Sims was interesting, especially from an AI perspective, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a game, per se. More like an interactive pattern evolver.

Which is not to say Spore won't be worth looking at, I just don't know. But if Will Wright is behind it, I expect sandbox first, game very second.

[AcidCat]

But if Will Wright is behind it, I expect sandbox first, game very second.

I think it's been said that his games are more of a toy, where the user's initiative and imagination are really what make it work. Which I think is great, I love the sandbox style of game and wish there were more out there - Spore seems to be the ultimate sandbox toy, I'm really looking forward to it.

[Yoru]

I think it's been said that his games are more of a toy, where the user's initiative and imagination are really what make it work. Which I think is great, I love the sandbox style of game and wish there were more out there - Spore seems to be the ultimate sandbox toy, I'm really looking forward to it.

 That's because Wright himself has described his products, since the mid-90s at the very least, as "software toys" instead of games; I recall this phrase being on Maxis marketing materials boxed with SimCity 2000. From what I've seen of Spore, this is essentially "one upping" all his previous efforts at making software toys - a toy of extraordinary scope and flexibility.

 That said, some of the processes and algorithms resulting from this should be very portable to regular games; for example, the described 'animation generators' may be portable into 'helper package' that could generate template animations - either for direct use or for professional animators to tweak, thus cutting down on the amount of time needed to produce large numbers of high-quality animations. The impact on the time and cost of game development should be obvious.

[MrHat]

Some Screens

[Krakrok]

Which is not to say Spore won't be worth looking at, I just don't know. But if Will Wright is behind it, I expect sandbox first, game very second.

He stated 40% of the "game" would be just looking at other people's crap. I'll wager that turns out to be 75% of the game. I recently started looking at Second Life again and if you ignore the "virtual chatroom" part of it 75% of the "game" is looking at other people's crap. It really depends on what percent of people are builders and what percent are consumers though.

I'm not sure how many times I will want to evolve from a single celled organism.


Hopefully though it will encourage others to move to a more procedural modal. I'd really like to see more (any?) indie game engines impliment procedural graphics and animation.

[SirBruce]

Well, to put things in perspection, I'd say The Sims was almost entirely sandbox when it came out.  Very few actual "goals".  And to me, the game was less appealing to me because of it.  You see in The Sims 2 they made a conscious effort to add more "goals", expand the career track, etc. so you actually had tasks to accomplish.  Sim Earth was not just about evolving species willy-nilly; you actually had a goal (leave the planet before it dies) in mind, and different stages had different sub-goals.  Sim Life, in comparison, was far less structured.  Sim Ant, though, had lots of "game" play.  So it varies by game.

I have no doubt that while the game will be something of a toy as all of his games are, and part sandbox, I also know it will be part game as well.  The key is if there's enough "game" to make it enjoyable for me for long enough.  So far I have no real concerns about the design I've seen beyond that fact.

Bruce

[Big Gulp]

All I know is that I greatly enjoyed playing SimCity2K in cooperative mode with a couple buddies of mine.  We'd each rotate 10 year terms and do whatever we wanted to do.  We each had our own quirks, but mine was to simulate the reign of the late, great Mayor Coleman Young of Detroit.  My mansion was built on a giant mountain that I spent vast sums of money on earth moving to achieve (to the great detriment of my city, I might add), surrounded by a moat (also very expensive) with only one access point to get to it.  It had it's own water and power supplies, and it's own private airport.  I was a feudal warlord, surveying the ashes of the city my friends actually tried to somewhat run in a competent manner.

I named it the Manoogian Mansion, and let me tell you, it was glorious.

[Ironwood]

Hmmm.  Remind me one of these days to look apon your works and despair.

Preferably when I'm feeling a little mighty.

[schild]

All I know is that I greatly enjoyed playing SimCity2K in cooperative mode with a couple buddies of mine.  We'd each rotate 10 year terms and do whatever we wanted to do.  We each had our own quirks, but mine was to simulate the reign of the late, great Mayor Coleman Young of Detroit.  My mansion was built on a giant mountain that I spent vast sums of money on earth moving to achieve (to the great detriment of my city, I might add), surrounded by a moat (also very expensive) with only one access point to get to it.  It had it's own water and power supplies, and it's own private airport.  I was a feudal warlord, surveying the ashes of the city my friends actually tried to somewhat run in a competent manner.

I named it the Manoogian Mansion, and let me tell you, it was glorious.

I'm picking nits here, but didn't water only cost $5 or $10 per tile and terraforming cost like $15 per 9-tiles/per level? Unless you were surrounded by a moat named the Atlantic and mountain as tall as Everest, I can't see that costing more than $5-$10k which is less than a month worth of income for an effective mayor after about 10-12 years into the game.

[Big Gulp]

I'm picking nits here, but didn't water only cost $5 or $10 per tile and terraforming cost like $15 per 9-tiles/per level? Unless you were surrounded by a moat named the Atlantic and mountain as tall as Everest, I can't see that costing more than $5-$10k which is less than a month worth of income for an effective mayor after about 10-12 years into the game.

I don't recall how much the moat cost, I know it was cheaper than building the mountain, but it also wasn't just a river, it was like 5 or 6 tiles wide all the way around.  And earth moving is fairly cheap until you get into the "build a gigantic mountain" kind of earth moving.  It's probably been 10 years now, but if I remember correctly I think I easily went over $100K just on the mountain.

[schild]

Now that's a big fucking mountain. Must've been at least 20x20 tiles at the base. That would seem to run it up in the $77,000 area.

God I love Simcity 2000.

[Krakrok]

Necromancing this thread. Here is the one hour streaming video talk by Will about Spore. Requires free registration.

http://www.pqhp.com/cmp/gdctv/

[Fabricated]

edit: Just watched most of that video, including the demo of spore. I don't think I could care less about this game if I tried.

Will: This whole game is procedural! Procedural procedural procedural! Procedural? Procedural!

[Alkiera]

Will Right, Please pee on us!

The sad part is, I'm sure there are people who'd buy that.  I mean, look how many people continued to play SWG?

Alkiera

[Krakrok]

Will Right, Please pee on us!

The sad part is, I'm sure there are people who'd buy that.

The sad part is all the people who play The Sims and the first thing they show off to others is their sim peeing on the floor.

Wait, why doesn't someone recount again about how they walled their sims in the bathroom until they died and about how funny it was?

/sarcasm off

[Samwise]

Will: This whole game is procedural! Procedural procedural procedural! Procedural? Procedural!

See, every time I hear the word "procedural," I have a mental orgasm.  It might be a coder geek thing.

[Fabricated]

Will: This whole game is procedural! Procedural procedural procedural! Procedural? Procedural!

See, every time I hear the word "procedural," I have a mental orgasm. It might be a coder geek thing.

Eventually someone will write a shitty game that writes itself and eventually evolves the ability to write other shitty games that write themselves.

Then EA will finally be out of business.