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Welcome, fellow humans/goons/otherworldly creatures, to Let's Play Spore!

What's Spore?
Spore is, to word it as simple as possible, a god game. Created by Will Wright, creator of SimCity and the Sims, and released by Maxis and EA in 2008, Spore lets you take charge of a new species of life, work it to the top of the food (and evolutionary) chain, and then make it the dominant species of the planet. Then you take control of a government and make your tribe the leading civilization on the planet, and then take your game up to SPACE where you can...pretty much do whatever you want. It has 5 main stages of gameplay (Cell, Creature, Tribe, Civilization, Space) which all play very differently. Not only that, but it also lets you share your creations online via the Sporepedia. The game downloads creations and populates your game with them, but it also comes with enough Maxis-created content to begin with.

Why Spore?
Spore is one of my favorite PC games of all time...but it's not without its flaws. Some parts can get boring and very repetitive, especially when playing on higher difficulties (one of the reasons why I'm not playing on Hard). It's also far from the game it was hyped up to be (and let me tell you, it was hyped to hell). It also seems to have been completely ignored now that its successor Darkspore has come out. Spore itself got one part pack (Cute and Creepy, which I have installed) and one expansion pack (Galactic Adventures, which I have but won't be using yet for various reasons), and that was it, barring the promotional Dr. Pepper parts. It hasn't gotten a patch or update in ages. We still never got that goddamn Plant Editor. But despite its flaws, it plays pretty decently, it can be fun if you know how to play it right and I still quite enjoy it.

How Spore?
I'll be playing this game on Medium difficulty (Hard gets way too repetitive and boring, especially on the Creature stage) with one species all the way to Space, where I have a few goals I want to get accomplished before I can consider this LP to be finished. The decisions in the game will be made by you, fellow goons, and you will help shape our little species, civilization, and game experience. God help us all.

I'll also be accepting challenges (as well as coming up with a few of my own) to complete during the game, and I will attempt to get as many done as possible. Feel free to challenge me to do such things as finding all the parts in Cell stage, or befriending and defeating an equal number of creatures in Creature stage. You can also challenge me to do things like find all the body parts in Creature stage, but such challenges will probably be responded to with a "HELL NO" and/or a kick to the balls. Do so at your own risk.

Got any creations you like to me use? Sure! As long as they're work/sanity safe, post them here in the thread (either the actual file or a link to their Sporepedia entry) and I'll try to work them into the LP somehow. I can't guarantee creatures being used, but buildings and vehicles will most likely all be used, unless there's a crapton of them.

Regarding Spoilers: I don't really care if you spoil the later parts of the game. Use spoiler tags for things that aren't inherently obvious about each stage, especially if you're talking about the Grox. Other than that, go nuts.

LOL DONGS?!?
No. No no no no no no. If anyone asks me to make a penis or other lewd creation, I will ignore you. I will not even acknowledge your request. No. However, I can tell you that if you're wanting something at least somewhat vaguely resembling a penis, you may be pleased with one of my creations. Don't ask about it, I'll let you know when the time comes.

Timeline of Evolution

PHASE ONE - Cell Stage
-Part 0 - Let There Be Life

This post reserved for explanation of various gameplay elements and mechanics as they are encountered. So there'll be more junk here later.


Now that we've got that out of the way...

Part 0 - Let There Be Life


Here is the planet we'll be working on, the lovely scenic Goonix. It's currently home to a bunch of lovely bunch of protoplasm. But that's all about to change...(Also, our creature is starting out as a herbivore, just to make the game a bit easier to start out)


Behold! Within this chunk of space debris lies life!


It quickly approaches the planet Goonix...



...and plummets into the sea!


And thus, a species is born...

PHASE ONE: CELL
Work your way to the top of the food chain and leave the tidal pool.


We emerge from the rock, and begin our life.

SCIENCE NOTE: You'll notice that these creatures are not, in fact, cells. Cells are not larger than plants, cannot grow by consuming things (I know some science person is going to correct me on this), and cannot have sex or lay eggs. These are microscopic creatures, and not single-celled organisms by any means.

GAMEPLAY MECHANICS: In the Cell stage, your goal is to evolve and grow. If you're a herbivore, eat plants. If you're a carnivore, eat meat. Killing other cell creatures gets you meat, though you can also find it lying around. The bar at the bottom of the screen is the DNA bar, which marks our progress and is filled by eating plants/meat. We grow as it fills up, and the stage ends once it is full. That counter by the bar is our DNA counter. You get DNA by performing certain tasks and acts as currency for evolving. At the top-left corner of the screen, you'll see your current objective. At the bottom-left, you'll see some buttons. The one that looks like the Spore icon lets you change settings, or save and quit. The pause button, well, pauses. The other two will be explained later, as well as the button that looks like an evolutionary chain in the bottom-right.

The controls are simple in this stage. Move around with the mouse, eat stuff by moving over to it, and attack creatures by ramming into them (or clicking on them). It plays very much like an evolved form of Pacman or flOw.


Let's start by eating some of this vegetation. Oh, yeah. That's some good stuff.


It may not look like it in this screenshot, but after eating 5 plants we've grown some. The growth will become much more visible later, I promise.

GAMEPLAY MECHANIC: Depending on whether you eat more meat, eat more veggies, or eat roughly the same amount, your creature will end up being a Carnivore, Herbivore, or Omnivore. The mouth it has at the end of the stage does not determine that. It also determines what mouths your creature can have in the Creature stage and various other abilities it will have in the other 4 stages, but I'll deal with that later.



Watching that poor defenseless creature get eaten taught us a valuable lesson - stay the hell away from gigantic things that can gobble us up. It's a cell eat cell world out here. Oh, and yeah, sometimes creatures will drop parts. I guess that's more important.


GAMEPLAY MECHANIC: In the Cell stage, sometimes breaking open meteor bits or killing other cells will give us extra parts to put on our Cell creature. The meteor bits are obvious when you find them, but the creatures that give parts are less obvious (but they are actually the same across all save files), but they do usually glow. There are 6 parts to collect, and if you want to be an omnivore, you'll need to find the mouth for that. I will be attempting to find all 6 cell parts.


So I swim over and collect our prize (for doing absolutely nothing!), which is the Spike part. A necessity for combat.


So we're swimming and eating our veggies when we are notified that we can call for a mate. Calling for a mate will send out a cry that will attract another member of our species. (There are no visible genders, by the way. That would require certain anatomy to be biologically correct.) This will also cause us to lay an egg and enter the Cell editor, which can let us evolve our creature.



So we approach our mate, do a happy little....dance, I guess, and lay an egg to enter the Cell editor...

SCIENCE NOTE: Sperm cannot be transfered through dance that does not involve contact with your partner. Sperm can be transfered through dance, even if it does not involve contact with your partner. Please prevent unexpected incidents by always dancing responsibly. This message has been brought to you by the Perils Of Dancing Society.


And here's the cell editor. You can modify the body, add parts, color it, and even give it a name. And that's where you guys come in. I need you to make some decisions for me:


I'll also make any decisions myself if need be. But for the most part, this species is in your hands (May God (which would be me, I guess) have mercy on this poor creature). Any changes can be altered later, of course, except for the diet. Once Cell stage ends, that cannot change. So....what's it gonna be?