Codex Gamicus
Explore
Main Page
Discuss
All Pages
Interactive Maps
navigation
Main page
Community portal
Recent changes
Random page
Admin noticeboard
Forums
Company Index
Character Index
Hardware Index
In-Game Index
Ratings Index
Video Game Index
Fandom
Gamepedia support
Report a bad ad
Help Wiki
Contact us
FANDOM
Fan Central
BETA
Games
Anime
Movies
TV
Video
Wikis
Explore Wikis
Community Central
Start a Wiki
Don't have an account?
Register
Sign In
Sign In
Register
Fandom's centric source of video game knowledge
42,423
pages
Explore
Main Page
Discuss
All Pages
Interactive Maps
navigation
Main page
Community portal
Recent changes
Random page
Admin noticeboard
Forums
Company Index
Character Index
Hardware Index
In-Game Index
Ratings Index
Video Game Index
Fandom
Gamepedia support
Report a bad ad
Help Wiki
Contact us
Editing
Spore
(section)
Back to page
Edit
VisualEditor
View history
Talk (6)
Edit Page
Spore
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==Gameplay== Spore allows the player to develop a species from a microscopic organism to its evolution into a complex animal, its emergence as a social, intelligent being, to its mastery of the planet and then finally to its ascension into space, where it interacts with alien species across the galaxy. Throughout the game, the player's perspective and species change dramatically. The game is broken up into distinct yet consistent, dependent "phases". The outcome of one phase affects the initial conditions and leveling facing the player in the next. Each phase exhibits its own style of play, and has been described by the developers as ten times more complicated than its preceding phase. While players are able to spend as much time as they would want in each, it is possible to accelerate or skip phases altogether. Some phases feature optional missions; when the player completes a mission, they are granted a bonus, such as a new ability or money. If all of a player's creations are completely destroyed at some point, the species will be [[respawn]]ed at its nearest colony or at the beginning of the phase. Unlike many other Maxis games, ''Spore'' has a primary win condition, which is obtained by reaching a supermassive black hole placed at the center of the galaxy and receiving a "Staff of Life". Another major achievement involves defeating or befriending the Grox, a cyborg species with a large empire guarding the core. However, the player may continue to play after any goal has been achieved. There is a difficulty selector to each stage, allowing players to choose the difficulty for each part of the game. ''Spore'' defaults to the easiest level. The first four phases of the game, if the player uses the editors only minimally, will take up to 15 hours to complete, but can take as little as one or two hours. Note that there is no time limit for any stage; the player may stay in a single stage as long as s/he wishes, and progress to the next stage when ready. At the end of each phase, the player's actions cause his creature to be assigned a characteristic. Each phase has three characteristics, usually based on how aggressively or peacefully the phase was played. Characteristics determine how the creature will start the next phase and give it abilities that can be used later in the game. ===Stages=== Spore is a game that is separated into stages, each stage presenting a different type of experience with different goals to obtain. In order to advance to the next stage of the game, players must complete the objective for each stage. Once completed, the player has the option to advance to the next stage, or to continue playing. ====Cell Stage==== The cell stage (sometimes referred to as the tide pool, cellular, or microbial stage) is the very first stage in the game, and begins with a cinematic explanation for how your cell got onto the planet through the scientific concept of panspermia, with a meteor crashing into the ocean of a planet and breaking apart, revealing a single-celled organism. The player guides this simple microbe around in a 3D environment on a single 2D plane, reminiscent of flOw, where it must deal with fluid dynamics and predators, while eating weaker microbes or plants. The player may choose whether the creature is a herbivore or a carnivore prior to starting the stage. Once the microbe has eaten several pieces of food, the player can enter an editor in which they can modify the looks, shape, and abilities of the microbe by spending "DNA points". A player may choose to remove a part, which will refund the full price. As the game progresses it becomes possible to make creatures omnivorous as compared to just herbivorous or carnivorous, allowing them to eat both plant matter and smaller living cells. The balance of what type of food is eaten (plant matter vs. weaker cells) determines whether the creature will be a herbivore, omnivore, or carnivore for the following stages. Parts are acquired by seeking out special "part tokens" from meteor fragments and other organisms, which provide new parts to use in the editor, such as spikes, mouths or propulsion mechanisms. If the creature dies, the player restarts from wherever the creature last spawned. The phase consists of five stages, further dichotomised or divided; every half-stage, the creature expands. As the microbe grows, objects that are in the background draw to the foreground, making microbes that formerly lay harmless in the background a possible threat. Other creatures play a major role, and usually represent a threat. Even harmless herbivores can provide a challenge by stealing food if the player is also a herbivore. Carnivorous creatures will continually try to eat the player, fight, or compete for food. If the player can eat flesh, then they can kill and consume other cells. Also, much smaller organisms can be swallowed up instantaneously. Larger, carnivorous cells will usually chase the player's cell and can be very dangerous. They can be killed, but only if the player's cell has weapon parts. If they do die, they cannot be eaten because a smaller cell's mouth can't penetrate their skin. The cell's eating habits in the Cell Stage directly influence its diet in the Creature Stage, and only mouths appropriate to the diet (Herbivore, Carnivore, or Omnivore) established in the Cell stage will become available in the Creature Stage (however, diet restrictions can be overcome by swapping the cell's mouthpiece before entering the Creature phase, regardless of what diet is assigned to the creature). The ocean floor becomes more prominent as the player progresses, and once the player decides to progress to the next stage, the creature editor appears, prompting the user to add legs before the shift to land. The first creature editor is very limited, with only cell parts (with new functions) and legs to be had. When out of the water a cut-scene will appear in which the players creature will call nest-mates to join it on land and then move to the nest where the creature stage will start. ====Creature Stage==== The biosphere contains a variety of animal species, which carnivorous and omnivorous player creatures can hunt for food, and a range of plants, some of which bear fruit that herbivores and omnivores can eat. Environmental phenomena, as well as the creature's vital health and hunger meters, are always a concern and sometimes a challenge. Sea monsters prevent all but the briefest forays to the ocean, although creatures with well-developed jump and glide abilities can use them to cross narrow stretches of ocean with impunity. As the player's creature explores the landscape it will encounter other animal species, which may be neutral or aggressive, and their homes. Most creatures work together in their nests and live with each other, just like the player's species. In their nests, a wide variety of things may be found besides the standard creature. There are Alpha creatures, which have higher health and stats, and babies, which have lower health and stats. There are also eggs, which may be destroyed for experience points. Occasionally, instead of creatures there will be pulsating pods that will hatch into creatures after a while. How the player interacts with the nest will affect how they think of him. For instance, if the player decides to befriend the creatures, they will act friendly toward him, but if player attacks and kills some of them, the nest will either get angry and frequently try to attack the player or develop a fear of the player and run away if the player gets close enough to interact or spends enough time near them. The player can then decide whether to use social skills to befriend, or combat skills to hunt, these other species; these decisions will affect the abilities of the player's species in the subsequent stages of the game. Successful socialization and hunting attempts will gain varying amounts of DNA Points, the 'currency' of this stage. DNA points may be spent on new body parts, which influence how the creature will perform when attacking or socializing. New body parts may be obtained by examining bone piles or fragmentary skeletons scattered throughout the landscape, although the new parts only come from skeletons with a sparkle effect. Also, when a player defeats or befriends an "alpha" creature, they are given a part, albeit a part that doesn't always have better stats than previously acquired parts. To add new parts, the player's creature can mate with another member of whose nest. Then, the creature creator pops up, and the player can add new parts to his creature, and take off old ones, earning a full refund on the DNA points used to purchase these parts. He can also mould the shape of his creature and colour it differently, such that the new creature can look wholly different from the previous version. More expensive parts will upgrade the player's abilities for their method of interaction. After the player is finished editing, a newly evolved generation of creatures will appear with the new parts and form. Interacting with other species also gives the player's creature the ability to form a pack, or posse, eventually containing up to three creatures. Any befriended creature may be added to an empty pack slot by making a second successful socialization attempt. Pack members will travel, socialize and fight alongside the player's creature, increasing the odds of befriending other creatures and of surviving combat. Pack members may heal at the home nest, or at the nests of allied or extinct species. Rogue creatures are solitary members of other species. They are almost always neutral unless attacked, and have significantly higher health than other creatures. They can be befriended, and are valuable pack members because of their excellent statistics. However, befriending them can be a difficult task. Epic creatures are enormous creatures which appear randomly throughout the phase. They are always hostile, and cannot be befriended. They have 1000 health and can kill most creatures with a single strike. As a result, epic creatures are almost impossible to kill during this stage and are often best avoided; during later stages they present a less serious threat. Killing one in this stage grants the epic killer achievement. As the player's creature befriends or hunts more of the other creatures, its intelligence increases. Eventually it will be ready for the subsequent Tribal, Civilization, and Space stages; in these, only cultural evolution is possible and the Creature Editor is no longer available. ====Tribal Stage==== After the brain of the player's species evolves sufficiently, the species may enter the tribal stage. Physical development ceases, as does the player's exclusive control over an individual creature, as the game focuses on the birth of division of labour for the species. The player is given a hut, a group of fully evolved creatures, as well as two of six possible Consequence Abilities, unlocked depending on the species' behaviour in the previous phases. This is only possible if the player played the previous stages; if the player started directly from the ''Galaxy Screen'', they are locked. This stage begins with a humorous cut-scene parodying ''2001: A Space Odyssey'', depicting the player's creature attempting to make fire using a stick tool, throwing it into the air, swaying as the stick comes down on its head, and finally succeeding. The game during this stage is similar to an RTS. The player may give the tribe tools such as weapons, musical instruments, and healing or food-gathering implements. Food now replaces "DNA points" as the player's currency, and can be spent on structures and additional tribe members, or used to appease other tribes. Creatures also gain the option to wear clothes, the editing of which replaces the Creature Editor in the 'Tribal Editor'. If creatures of a different species were added to the player's pack in the Creature phase, they are now used as pets. Additional creatures may be domesticated in the Tribal phase, which provide eggs for food. Contact with other tribes of the same species, or even different species, can take place in this stage. Creatures also "speak", most noticeably in a cut-scene where the player advances to the civilization stage, with icons embedded in word balloons. Tribe members are created by giving birth to babies (which costs ten food) and waiting for them to grow up, although the tribe can only support a certain number of members. After reaching maturity, they can do jobs like gather food, hunt animals, attack opposing tribes, and befriend other tribes. Combat can be made more effective with weapons like stone axes or throwing spears (for attacking units) and flaming torches (for destroying buildings). For socializing, a player can obtain musical instruments: wooden horns, maracas and didgeridoos for the tribe. Those are more essential than weapons, for other tribes will get annoyed if the creatures don't play music correctly (or at all). Also, miscellaneous tools can be used for fishing and gathering food, and for healing tribe members. All tools, however, require a specialized tool shack, which costs food to build. Tribe members can also gather food, an essential concept. Creature stage mouths affect what kind of food they can gather and eat. For instance, herbivores cannot eat meat or fish, and carnivores can't eat fruit. Obviously, omnivores have a slight advantage because they can eat anything. Animals can be hunted for meat, and fish can be speared for food. Fruit is gathered from trees and bushes, and players can also domesticate animals for eggs. Herbivores can use fishing hotspots, but will get seaweed instead of fish. Any foreign animals belonging to the player's pack in creature stage are automatically added to the tribe as farm animals, but non-domesticated ones will sometimes sneak up and attempt to eat some of the player's food. Other tribes also can provide food for the player. An allied tribe will occasionally bring the player a gift (a basket of food tied with a large purple bow) to show their gratitude. Also, players can steal food from other tribes (though it angers them), and dead tribes may be pillaged for their food, if they had any. The creatures' behaviours are affected by the way the player utilizes them. If a player uses them aggressively, their autonomic behaviour will reflect that; conversely, if the player uses them peacefully, allying other tribes, their behaviour will be more kind. Even their idle behaviour will reflect this; warlike tribal members will practice combat while docile members will practice playing musical instruments and throw parties. There are five other tribes that appear along with the player's tribe. 3 are aggressive, 2 are passive, and all 5 can either be destroyed or befriended. For every tribe befriended or destroyed, a piece of a totem pole is built, which may increase the population limit of the player's tribe or grant access to new tools and clothes. Depending on the means the tribe used to overtake the neighbouring tribe—by forming an alliance or annihilating the tribe—the totem piece will either be a music-playing figure or an angry, axe-wielding figure. When the totem pole has five pieces, symbolizing the five foreign tribes, the player may move forward to the Civilization stage. ====Civilization Stage==== This stage begins with a cut-scene showing a brainstorming between several members of the player's tribe about what they should do. One tribesman suggests the building of a city, another suggests the creation of vehicles, one reminds the gathering of the tribe's ideal, and another shouts "PIE!" Meanwhile, the rest of the tribesmen wonder where in the world that came from and the chief dismisses it, shouting town, ideal, vehicles. Fireworks then come from around the city hall. The events of Tribal Stage have left the player's tribe the dominant species of the planet, but the species itself has since fragmented into several nations, similar to the way humanity now lives. The player retains control of a single nation with one city. The goal in the civilization phase is to gain control of the entire planet, and it is left to the player to decide whether to conquer it militarily, economically, or religiously. When entering the phase, the tribal camp is now a city. Two new editors (the building and vehicle editors) are used to create city buildings and vehicles. The player can place three types of buildings (House, Factory, and Entertainment) around the default City Hall building and may build up to 9 types of vehicles (religious, economic, and military varieties of sea, land and air). The main unit of currency is "Sporebucks", which is used to purchase vehicles and buildings. To earn income, players can capture spice geysers, conduct trade, or build factories (see below). In constructing vehicles and buildings, as with most real-time strategy games, there is a capacity limit; building houses will increase the cap, and constructing various buildings adjacent to one another will provide a productivity bonus or deficit: for example, building an entertainment centre next to a house will provide happiness, but a factory will decrease happiness and increase production. Putting an entertainment centre next to a factory defeats the purpose of the entertainment centre, as it creates a red line of unhappiness. Like ''Civilization III'' and ''[[Sid Meier's Civilization IV|Civilization IV]]'', the player's territory is marked with a coloured border that increases as the player gains more power through militarism or influence. Players can choose to gain global domination depending on the types of cities they own. Military states grow solely by attacking other cities. Instead of military conquest, players with a religious trait construct special missionary units that convert other cities via religious propaganda. Likewise, economic players communicate solely by trade and have no weapons. They also gain more money by trading. It is possible to build superweapons, allowing civilizations to unleash devastating effects on their enemies. Players can also form alliances with a rival civilization, and when the entire world has been conquered by both factions, the rival faction will join the player's. Capturing cities is the key to Civilization stage. With more cities, players can support bigger armies or merchant fleets. An economic player can send trade ships and vehicles to the opponent's cities to trade with them, if they have a trade route. Each one will bring in a small profit, as well as swifter "buyout". After trading with a city for a while, the player can buy it. A military player can simply use vehicles armed with weapons to destroy buildings to lower morale, so the city eventually surrenders. In addition, a city will surrender faster if they are unhappy (i.e. if the city has few entertainment buildings and a lot of factories). The third strategy, religious domination, involves converting cities to the player's religion. Religious vehicles spread propaganda to cities via a gigantic hologram of a god in the species' image, but can be harmed and destroyed in the process, as enemies don't like their cities defecting. All three paths can eventually use a superweapon, which requires a large number of cities and Sporebucks, but will allow the player to conquer the world in one shot. Epic creatures are also seen in the stage. They are much larger, with 3000 health, and will attack cities (a possible reference to ''Godzilla'', ''King Kong'', and other giant monster films). The player no longer needs to kill them, as they can be temporarily charmed and manipulated by religious vehicles. When the player has neutralized all the civilizations on the planet and decides to move on to the Space Stage, the spaceship editor appears. ====Space Stage==== The space stage provides new goals and paths as the player begins to spread through the galaxy. The player may now terraform and colonize neighbouring uninhabited planets with special tools. Although these tools start off as limited and very expensive one-use items, the player can later obtain limitless energy-based versions. Terraforming tools include a heat ray which can create more favourable conditions on, for example, an ice planet. If left unchecked, this can cause oceans to rise, then eventually to evaporate and transform the world into a desert planet, followed by a molten rock in space (though since Heat Ray is a manual tool, this will only happen if the tool is left on). There are four levels of planet quality, called T0, T1, T2, and T3; each subsequent level allows the player to place more cities and buildings on the planet. Plant and animal life are needed to support and stabilize an atmosphere by balancing the ecosystem. Terraforming can also be used as a weapon, sucking out the atmosphere or altering the temperature of a planet in order to kill the inhabitants without a pitched battle. The ultimate terraforming tool is a technology called the Staff of Life, dubbed the 'Genesis device' prior to the game's release, which instantly can transform any planet into an ideal (T3) planet, complete with stable temperature and fully-filled ecosystems, although it is limited to 42 uses. Many terraforming tools are available to prospective world-shapers. Some of the tools are usable only once, while others are unlimited, but require energy to use. This includes, for example, the "volcano" tool, the use of which would cause the temperature on the planet to rise and the atmosphere to thicken. Players may build colonies on the surface of an inhospitable planet to create bubbled cities, similar in function to self-sustaining arcologies. When establishing colonies on alien worlds, players have to take care of them as they would of any other city and keep morale up. The player may also abduct creatures and transport them to other planets to test a planet's habitability and to create ecosystems to stabilize a planet's atmosphere. The player may utilize various tools such as fireworks to interact with primitive lifeforms, or place a monolith (in the style of ''2001: A Space Odyssey'') on a planet, triggering evolution of intelligence. On some worlds, the player may also find strange "artifacts" with functions varying from planet terraforming tools to treasures which can be sold to other empires for a good price. Artifacts can be present on lifeless worlds and inhabited worlds, although taking them from planets occupied by sapient beings angers the inhabitants. The player controls a single starship that seems to be the only useful one, as the player has to manage the empire and contact aliens alone. The player can travel by clicking on other planets and moons and stars, though each jump costs a little bit of energy. By making more interstellar trips, the player can get upgraded jump drives that allows him to extend his jump range. However, near the centre of the galaxy there lie denser star clusters, so the jump range is shortened as the player nears the core. Also, later in the game there is a wormhole key which enables the player to travel through black holes, offering instantaneous transportation to a sister black hole. There are around 500,000 planets in the game's galaxy orbiting around 100,000 stars (including Earth and its star, Sol). The game's galaxy is the Milky Way. Players can make contact with other space-faring civilizations, called "empires", most of which contain species created by other players. When the player's UFO visits a world owned by sapient creatures, he or she may impress the beings with fireworks or a 'happy ray', attack them with weapons, or cast crop circles. Performing various missions for alien empires increases relationship levels and garners money, called "Sporebucks". The player may beam down a holographic image of his or her creature to explore a planet up close, though it may not enter cities nor interact directly with creatures, sapient or not. A user-created civilizations AI reacts depending on its behaviour and personality, both of which are based on the play-style of its user. The player can unite or conquer the galaxy by creating a federation or sparking an interstellar war. As a show of might, the player may even completely destroy a planet (using a bomb known as the "planet buster" which has similar capabilities to those of the Death Star from ''Star Wars''), which may bring retribution from that species and its allies. The player is sometimes called upon to deal with problems on their home planet, colony, or an ally's planet; these problems include those caused by space pirates, environmental collapse, or attack from enemies. One of the main goals in the Space Stage is for the player to push their way toward a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center. Completing this mission rewards the player with the previously mentioned Staff of Life while introducing the game's final antagonists, the Grox, a unique species of cybernetic aliens with a powerful empire of 2400 systems surrounding the core. (They are mostly based on The Borg of the ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'' series.) ===Editors/creators=== {{See also|Spore: Creature Creator}} User-generated content is a major feature of ''Spore''; there are eighteen different types of editors (some unique to a phase), including a music editor which allows players to create (but not share) songs to be used as a national anthem in the Civilization stages and above. Will Wright has stated that in addition to being simple, all the editors are as similar as possible so that skills learned are easily transferable from one editor to the next. The editors start simply in the cellular phase and move to higher levels of complexity, acting as tutorials for progressive levels of gameplay. For example, the cell editor has nine choices and a two-dimensional environment while the creature editor has dozens of options and a 3D environment. The structure ranges from a spine and body model in the creature editor to more free-form editors for the buildings. For example, the creature editor allows the player to take what looks like a lump of clay with a spine and mould it into a creature. Once one has moulded the torso, the player can add parts such as legs, arms, feet, hands, noses, eyes, mouths, decorative elements, and a wide array of sensory organs. Many of these parts affect the creature's abilities (speed, strength, diet, etc.), while some parts are purely decorative. Once the creature is formed, it can be painted using a large number of textures, overlays, colours, and patterns, which are procedurally applied depending on the topology of the creature. The only "required" feature is the mouth (otherwise, the creature will die from starvation). All other parts are optional; for example, creatures without legs will slither on the ground like a slug or an inchworm. Eyes are optional, though an eyeless creature can only "see" a short range around them. Other editors are used for buildings and for vehicles. Eventually, players can even edit entire planets, using various in-game processes. Electronic Arts has promised new editors to be released after the game's release, such as a flora editor. However, a beta flora editor and expanded cell editor are available in the game code and can be accessed by changing the target parameters for the shortcut executable. It is worth noting that the beta flora editor does not affect gameplay, as no creation can be used or uploaded. There are also simple means of creating visual media, such as a screenshot facility that captures the screen without the surrounding user-interface and a 640x480 video creator with a built-in ''YouTube'' upload service. Maxis has also partnered with a third party to provide a Spore-branded Comic Book Creator service, which went live at launch. All creations are placed inside the "Sporepedia". These creations can be viewed and downloaded by other players and vice versa. So far, over 100,000,000 creations have been shared. There are two new editors seen in the new expansion [[Spore: Galactic Adventures]]: these include the captain editor (also called the equipment editor) and the adventure creator. On July 21, 2009, Maxis released a patch for the game that allows players to create asymmetric creations without hacks. This feature applies to all the editors in the game. (This excludes any building editors, as they supported asymmetry before the patch.)
Summary:
Please note that all contributions to the Codex Gamicus are considered to be released under the CC BY-SA 3.0
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)
Follow on IG
TikTok
Join Fan Lab