Spore

Just in viewing the Demos, and actually, right now finishing the walk through demo with Wright talking over it, I have to say that this game seems impressive (I know, and understatement to be sure). The level of detail that is involved in making this game work and simply controlling the world all around it is amazing. What really struck me was the "Editor" within the game. When it is time for the player to move onto the next stage of his spores life, the character lays an egg (in the early stages) and the player can click on it and begin to mold it into what he wants it to become.

I was more than impressed with the level of control that the player has over the building of these characters. He can change everything, from the skin, to the number of legs, even down to the exoskeleton of the character. Also, the game engine itself is designed to be able to determine the way that the character will walk and interact witht he environtment around him. The other thing that amazed me was the way that a player can develop what Wright calls "verbs". Verbs, obviously are actions, but you can create your own types of verbs by combining two pre-existant verbs. He shows this by selecting "bite" and "move" at the same time.

The way that the interface and the engine of the game are abel to create "meanings" within each of the characters that the player can create reminded me of the way that platform influences our ability to read texts and the ways that we interact with them. The analysis code that animates the characters that the player creates is made possible throught the usage of the platform.

The point system that he talks about is interesting as well. The main point (in order to level up) is to develop the brain, at which point the game style can change. This is another aspect that surprised me. When one levels up, they can change modes and in Wright's example, the way that this is made obvious to the player is that the game play changes. He shows the move from what he calls a "First Person Eater" to a Real Time Strategy game. Something that we talked about quickly in class was that he said that the many levels of the game are representative of pre-existent games and genres that are out there already.

More to come after tomorrow's talk. I'm really excited about this game though!