I'm always wary of over-hyped games. I first heard about Spore almost two years ago when a fan in one of my classes drooled over an early video. I smiled politely at him and nearly forgot about the game until it surfaced on blogs in full force a couple months ago, in anticipation of its release.
Spore is one of those games like Halo where it's been marketed to the point where even non-gamers have heard of it. I get annoyed when I tell people that I study video game design and they immediately associate it with adolescent boys wasting their lives away, mindlessly shooting each other over an internet connection. Spore is probably a better association, but I'll admit that I've never been a member of Will Wright's legion of fans. I've heard that a lot of girls play The Sims. However, when a girl tells me that she only plays The Sims, I nod and smile and often change the subject. The Sims players seem more similar to those who only play casual games, so it's often harder for me to discuss the finer points of game design and narrative with them.
I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when the first hour or two of Spore played like a casual game. The beginning was practically a copy of flOw, Jenova Chen's brilliant thesis project that was recreated and released for the PS3. He was hired as a designer on Spore, but it still seemed ridiculous to me that I was playing the same game when I liked the music and aesthetic of flOw better.
After I got out of the initial stage, I was able to move onto the land. The game then became confusing. As a player used to complicated RPG interfaces, Spore was befuddling in its simplicity. Everything had been reduced to a visual representation, but this created a ridiculous amount of tutorial to explain what button to use for each function. Then there was a system to "make friends" with other creatures. I didn't understand why some creatures would be my friends and others wouldn't. Why did some creatures have such steep requirements to be friends? It took me a long time to figure out that each friendly action, such as dancing or singing, had a level. If I had a high dance level and a low singing level, it would be hard to make friends with creatures would wouldn't dance with me. This was completely determined by chance, which was frustrating.
Spore was largely praised for its character customization as well. This aspect also became frustrating. I like forming an attachment to my character and I try to make them as cute as possible. In Spore, however, your character's attributes (such as dancing level or health) can be directly tied to the parts you put on them. I became upset as I had to trade out parts I liked, such as a cute set of ears, for a different set just because it had better attributes. I began to see why a lot of games, such as RPGs with upgradeable armor, will either hide the armor or give you the option to equip cosmetic armor. I wanted more control over my character's appearance without having to sacrifice my character attributes.
Spore has been relatively frustrating for me so far. It hasn't been terribly difficult, but I feel as if it wasn't made for me. I respect what the Spore team is trying to accomplish and I understand their desire to make the game accessible. However, that doesn't mean that it will appeal to a more hardcore gamer like me. I would like to continue playing Spore to see if it improves in later stages. I've heard the real game comes after evolution is complete. I just hope that this game is compelling enough to catch my interest before I get to space.
Comments (2)
Like most games I can't afford to buy, I watched Al play this. I have to say, from Al's experience, I agree 100% with your complaints. Spore completely fails at making a game out of what the player actually enjoys doing. Here are a few examples.
Al loved going into the creature creator and letting his imagination run wild. But it didn't take long for him to realize that if he wanted to get to the next stage, there were certain stats he had to have. Since everything's run on a points-based purchase system, rather than creativity, the game encourages min-maxing. Not as fun. At all.
During the creature stage, the only other fun that emerged was exploration, i.e. discovering the fantastic creations of other players. And that was due in large part to our own desperate efforts to make the game objectives compelling. Befriending and killing other creatures would otherwise just be busywork, grinding to earn new possibilities in the creature creator. Obviously, when your gameplay is grinding, that's a major flaw.
Anyway, since Al named his planet Jigglypuff, we decided that everything that wasn't cute needed to die. With this self-imposed framework in place, each and every other species became a revelation. Especially the impossibly cute Wubbles, strange pig/teddy bear hybrids, and the Tweetors, bird-like yellow fuzzballs that, surprisingly, killed more viciously than any other species encountered.
But the game didn't support the dynamic attachments we made with these creatures. It's too enamored with the Sporepedia. The minute Al went tribal, all his Wubble love had to go out the window. Because the game imported new tribes rather than evolve the species Al formed attachments to. And it's not just the emotional investment that was thrown out the window. All his choices were as well. Everything the game told him to do in the creature stage ultimately DIDN'T matter. Who he befriended, who he killed, the natural weapons he equipped, nothing mattered anymore.
So my analysis:
The gameplay has nothing to do with what is fun about Spore.
There is no sense of evolution, of making choices that have consequences further down the line. (You can effectively create a new creature from scratch each time you evolve, the stages have no continuity.)
The game actually bitch-slaps you when you try to be creative.
And I should add, in a game where you control each and every thing your creature does, it's hard for the suckers to seem alive. They have no personality beyond the dancing, singing, and killing you force them to do.
So yeah. I agree with you.
Posted by David Slagle | October 29, 2008 8:54 AM
Posted on October 29, 2008 08:54
Katrina, I'm at exactly the same stage as you. I put it down for weeks and picked it up again today, hoping to get out of the repetitious song and dance (for the herbivore) or hack and slash (for the carnivore).
I personally liked the cell stage (and the flash version of flOw). It fascinated me that it made a difference to how I played where I attached the spikes on the body. This enjoyment, though, made the transition to land (of no fun) especially discouraging.
I was one of those persons waiting for Spore (I also waited for Black & White). I designed a procedural game, and drool over the technology, especially the creature editor.
But it's been a humbling lesson. I'm not enjoying the creature stage. Seeing a million visual (and aural) varieties doesn't cover-up the unvaried click-and-watch gameplay that bored me in titles like EverQuest. It's humbling that a momentary lapse of entertainment can happen to a studio of brilliant developers. Therefore, my designs must be even more prone to the folly of entertaining the programmer instead of the player.
Posted by Ethan Kennerly | October 31, 2008 8:58 PM
Posted on October 31, 2008 20:58