- guardian.co.uk, Monday September 8 2008 00.01 BST
- The Guardian, Monday September 8 2008
This year's most eagerly awaited computer game has arrived. Sales of Spore in the US are predicted to top two million copies by the end of this month, which is surprising, considering that the game is based on evolutionary theory, and surveys consistently show that a full 50% of Americans don't believe that human beings evolved.
Created by legendary games designer Will Wright, who previously produced such classics as SimCity and The Sims, Spore - originally titled Sim Everything - is an enchanting and fascinating game. It's easy to get started: simply pick a name for your tide-pool-dwelling amoeba, decide whether it's carnivorous or herbivorous, and start zooming around the water, finding food and gathering enough points for a DNA mutation. Like other simulation games, Spore rewards thought and effort, but it's also simple enough for anyone to enjoy passing half an hour growing a tiny creature into a larger one. Eventually your species will develop enough to form rudimentary legs and crawl to ground. Then it's time to mutate some more, develop intelligence, form tribes, civilizations and eventually travel off into space.
With its educational subject matter, Spore is the kind of game any parent should be pleased to find their child absorbed in, and although it wears its learning lightly, the brutal truth of evolution is hard to miss. How do you succeed as a carnivorous creature? By hunting other smaller creatures, of course; even if they're squeaking pitifully as you devour them. And if you focus your creature's development on features that will help you hunt, you might find that you, in turn, are unable to escape becoming prey. In Spore, nature is red in tooth and pixel.
It's even got an out-clause for those who doubt the truth of Darwin's theories. Species do change in response to their environments. But the player is also in charge of that development. One might almost say that the species in Spore are "intelligently designed". Perhaps its philosophy has enough leeway to keep everyone happy. Or alternatively, to keep everyone offended. At the very least, it will cause debate. After all, you have to pass those long winter evenings somehow.
