I’ve gone into the Space stage in Spore but rather than the game opening up for epic exploration and discovery, I find instead that it has constricted the game mechanics until the endless repetition of frustrating busy-work is almost the antithesis of fun.

I imagined the Space stage to be the embodiment of Star Trek’s “to boldly go” axiom but, unfortunately, this impulse is aggressively thwarted by a system of inter-galactic politics and bureaucratic hand-holding.

The first issue is money. Spice is the only commodity in the Spore universe. It must be harvested then sold for money. This, in itself, is not an issue. The issue is that the spice economy must be manually supervised. There is no automation. I have to go from planet to planet, picking up spice, then going from planet to planet, selling it for the highest price I can find. I can set up trading routes between star systems but this, oddly enough, does not automate this system. It’s only use is to fill a meter that, when filled, will let me buy the star system.

Now I am busy with economic pursuits but still I have time to reach out into the void and explore. Exploring inevitably leads to contact with other space faring races. For some reason, a good number of these hate me on first contact. Before I know it, my homeworld or one of my colonies is calling me to defend them from hostile attack. Some are only pirates but most are from these mysteriously hateful, aggressive empires. Sometimes you can pay them off but often I didn’t have enough money. The attacks begin. Once they begin, they don’t seem to let up. Ever.

So, instead of working my way towards towards the galactic core, I find myself fighting the same tired battles over and over again, building and rebuilding my beaten down colonies, and then trying to build my bank roll back up before the next, inevitable attack.

I suppose I could go and destroy the empires attacking me. I could but that isn’t what I want to do. In a game that implies so many choices, why do I feel like I’m railroaded down a single path? Still, if that’s the only way to get some breathing room, I guess I’ll have to do it. I’ll do it. But I won’t call it fun. Because it’s not. I just have no other choice.

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Well, I’ve been playing Spore. It’s an interesting animal: both toy and game, linear and sandbox at turns, single player and massively multiplayer. for my money, the creators are the most interesting aspects of the package. Through them, creatures, vehicles, and buildings can be created, customized, and shared through the Spore universe. As a creator, you build creatures or things and then share them. Once shared, they may appear in other people’s games. It’s a great feeling to get a message from a stranger that they encountered your homemade creature on some distant planet in a distant game. Unfortunately, so far, Spore doesn’t provide enough depth and control to really take advantage of our creativity.

To be sure, there are plenty of physical choices to be had. All it takes is a short glance at the Sporepedia to see the width and breadth of people’s imaginations brought to virtual life. However, this creativity is only skin deep. There is so much we can’t do, such as set behaviors, habitats, attitudes, etc. Is my critter a social animal, travelling in packs, or does he wander alone? Is he nocturnal? Is he aggressive or passive? Do they live if forests or plains, mountains or valleys? Do they migrate or stay put? I’d love to have control of not only what my creature looks like in another game but how it behaves in other games. Right now, I can’t do it.

Even though we’re essentially gods leading our creatures from single cells all the way to space, even though we can manipulate how our creatures evolve, our scope is limited. I’d like to be able to build my creatures then let them go and watch. Instead, often I’m embroiled in the minutia of empire building that, in this game, I don’t fundamentally care to do. Unlike in The Sims, I must personally shepherd my creature at all times. I am trapped by my avatar.

I hope, via expansion, that such vistas of less limited godhood will be opened up, in which I can really stir up nature’s pot and watch it coalesce without worrying about such mundane concerns as feeding a handful of critters, building cities, or balancing alliances between petty empires. This is what I want and I still hope, at some stage, Spore will deliver it. Still, it’s not bad fun as it us. It just could be more, much more.

Here are a couple of my creations (works in progress all):

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© Todd for Todd Terwilliger, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: spore, the sims