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Spore Stats

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Re: Spore Stats

#41

Post by drones »

delusional wrote: post #11
guidedlight wrote: post #6

Oh, Spore. That game was hyped so much, given it was designed by none other than Will Wright it previewed like it would be the most amazing game ever made. Despite it being reviewed every well upon release, gamers expected even more. It's a good example of how it is important to temper your customer's expectations regardless if you believe you have a solid product, as you may inadvertently set expectations higher tha…

Spore wasn't really a victim of high expectation, but rather a cool ambitious idea that just didn't work as a game. Unlike many others, I think the game they delivered matched very well to what they demoed. The issue was that it just didn't congeal into a game. The sacrifices they did have to make (making it linear and limiting the freeform sandbox aspects) were necessary to make it a game at all. The ambitious "this…

Interestingly enough, I think the core gameplay loop of the first cell stage has actually influenced gaming much more than anything else in spore. All of the popular .io games I know (Agar.io, snake.io, diep.io) all have some feature of that stage as part of the game. Growing in size, fighting other players, getting new abilities: it's all there.

Re: Spore Stats

#43

Post by etempleton »

guidedlight wrote: post #6

Oh, Spore. That game was hyped so much, given it was designed by none other than Will Wright it previewed like it would be the most amazing game ever made. Despite it being reviewed every well upon release, gamers expected even more. It's a good example of how it is important to temper your customer's expectations regardless if you believe you have a solid product, as you may inadvertently set expectations higher tha…

It was hard not to let your imagination run wild after SimCity and then The Sims. Both games felts infinitely complex at the time. The Sims 1 in particular had so many hidden interactions and secrets.

Re: Spore Stats

#44

Post by pmarreck »

Cupprum wrote: post #32

Spore was the first game i ever played, so maybe thats why i liked it that much. I was still a kid back then. I think the target group of spore was younger than they originally planned for. However i must say, that i really did not like the DLCs, those were just weird. It seemed like Spore thought the community is going to create the content for the DLCs, which never happened.

I did not even know Spore had DLC’s lol

Re: Spore Stats

#45

Post by pipeline_peak »

As dumb as it sounds, I think I didn’t like it because it was too “Will Wrightish”. Felt more like Sim City than The Sims.

Sim City was too brainy, my 10 yr old self didn’t want to do homework about power/water resources. The Sims was a complete sandbox.

Spore wasn’t brainy, but I expected it to be more free form. The 4 stage concept kills any reply value because there’s not much left to be curious about. The creature creation was fun, but I don’t remember my models having any unique behavior. At least nowhere near like The Sims where I could make them pee and cry >:)

Re: Spore Stats

#46

Post by JoshuaRedmond »

Spore was especially interesting if you used the in game friend list. I had a great time experiencing worlds full of various creatures - a lot of which were from my artistically talented friend playing around with the creation tools. His experience was unfortunately ruined because the game decided that each evolution of my creature was distinct and deserved to be shown to him separately - it was like his whole galaxy was overrun with my (admittedly unimaginative) "wobba-pods" with just different variations of hats and facial hair...

Re: Spore Stats

#47

Post by hutzlibu »

scheeseman486 wrote: post #36
hutzlibu wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There just wasn't any good gameplay loop in there. " Opinions differ, to me it was a fun arcade game, with some evolution theme. No more, no less. But I also did not read anything about it before and had no expectations.

Until it turns into an action RPG, then an RTS, then a Civ-like. Which all sounds cool on paper, but usually games that stack on systems and genres like that end up cleanly integrating them with each other. Spore treats them more like they're a minigame collection, it never feels like a cohesive game. The building tools are great though.

Ok yeah, I stopped at the civ like stage, where it was too weird, that I can adjust the evolution of fighting machines and make them fast or strong just as needed in real time. That felt so half baked.

And the "action rpg" was also not very thought through, but still enjoyable.

Re: Spore Stats

#48

Post by tharkun__ »

lordnacho wrote: post #29
SilverBirch wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny I actually had it in my head that this game was from Molyneux because it so overpromised and under-deliverd. It was a good game, but it essentially had 5(?) sections - amoeba, hunter, community, city builder, and spaceship. Each of those sections can be done as a single stand alone full budget game. Imagine if Spore had released with FTL as it's spaceship stage? And Cities Skylines as it's city builder? Th…

That's what I thought as well. I thought it was a bunch of little games glued together into a... little game. I didn't quite understand what you were carrying with you from one stage to the next, and why it mattered. I ended up not playing it much after buying it, such was the disappointment.

Spore is the only game I ever actually sold. It was just so bad and boring.

The first stage was the most fun and felt too short. The space exploration part was so tedious and boring I just restarted the game a few times to play the fun parts. Then I sold the game.

Re: Spore Stats

#49

Post by CoryAlexMartin »

delusional wrote: post #11
guidedlight wrote: post #6

Oh, Spore. That game was hyped so much, given it was designed by none other than Will Wright it previewed like it would be the most amazing game ever made. Despite it being reviewed every well upon release, gamers expected even more. It's a good example of how it is important to temper your customer's expectations regardless if you believe you have a solid product, as you may inadvertently set expectations higher tha…

Spore wasn't really a victim of high expectation, but rather a cool ambitious idea that just didn't work as a game. Unlike many others, I think the game they delivered matched very well to what they demoed. The issue was that it just didn't congeal into a game. The sacrifices they did have to make (making it linear and limiting the freeform sandbox aspects) were necessary to make it a game at all. The ambitious "this…

There actually were things of note from the early demos that didn't make it into the final game. For example, the way you created your creature had gameplay implications. Things like limb length, limb count, limb placement, center of mass, etc were going to influence the viability and pros and cons of your creature. However, there were philosophical disagreements between team members and ultimately the decision was made that they'd throw the systemic approach out the window in the name of cosmetic freedom.

Personally, that isn't the decision I would have made, because I think the game is more shallow because of it. Maybe it would have made the game less enjoyable for people who just want to make whatever they want with no consequences, but that could have been solved with a difficulty option.

Re: Spore Stats

#50

Post by qamorgan »

guidedlight wrote: post #6

Oh, Spore. That game was hyped so much, given it was designed by none other than Will Wright it previewed like it would be the most amazing game ever made. Despite it being reviewed every well upon release, gamers expected even more. It's a good example of how it is important to temper your customer's expectations regardless if you believe you have a solid product, as you may inadvertently set expectations higher tha…

A professor of mine once succinctly summarized that principle as:

Success = Outcomes / Expectations

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