Although the game is appears to be designed to look some what cartoonish that is just the one culture created for the demonstration. Plus I'm sure other designers can take this game as an example and do their own thing for a new game.
main site
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Wikipedia site
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But mostly, see these video clips!:
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Quotes:
Spore will be a simulation that "ranges from the cellular level to the galactic level". In his GDC speech, Will Wright likened the style of game-play of each stage to an existing game:
1. Microbial stage, similar to Pac-Man
2. Creature stage, Diablo
3. Tribal stage, Populous
4. City stage, SimCity
5. Civilization stage, Risk and Civilization
6. Spacefaring stage, (a.k.a. UFO stage or Invasion), with some elements reminiscent of Destroy All Humans!
7.
Galactic stage, which is a giant sandbox game
Will Wright has said that the game was also influenced by many TV shows, movies, and toys, such as Lego and Star Wars.
Wright calls the game a "massively single player online game". Simultaneous multiplayer gaming is not a feature of Spore. The creatures, vehicles, and buildings the player can create will be uploaded automatically to a central database (or a peer-to-peer system), catalogued and rated for quality (based on how many users have downloaded the object or creature in question), and then re-distributed to populate other players' games. The data transmitted will be extremely small — only 1 kilobyte, according to Wright, who presented an analogy: think of it as sharing the DNA template of a creature while the game, like a womb, builds the "phenotypes" of the animal, which represent a few megabytes of texturing, animation, etc.
When the player progresses to a new stage, Spore will import creatures as needed. For example, if a flying carnivore is needed to balance the ecosystem, a creature that fits that description will be downloaded. The editor also allows the player to design things ranging from species to custom buildings and vehicles. That includes tanks, aircraft, submarines, boats, and UFOs. If the player has no internet connection, Wright mentioned, it is possible to fit tens of thousands of objects and creatures on the game's disc itself, due to their small size. This means that people with no Internet connection would still have a balanced ecosystem, even if it happens to be more limited in diversity.
End Quotes.
-Wade
