So what is Spore?
Spore is a game from the amazing creator of The Sims and SimCity Will Wright. His imagination has changed the minds of millions and he has gotton people who have never played a game to try it out. Spore is his new evolutionary title where you in a way "play god in this massively single player game." You start as a single celled organism that pretty well floats around eating what it can. You pick up "parts" and "DNA" to eventually edit your organism. Then when your big enough you hit land then found a tribe, which moves to buildings and civilization then you conquer the world, then head off to other planets.
What is Massively Single Player?
Think of it as an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) but MSO (Massively Singleplayer Online) but your not really online as such. With the games many editors where you make creatures, vehicles, buildings and even music this content is automatically shared with ALL of the other players. So the more people that play the game the bigger and better it gets.
What are the 5 stages of the game.
In the game you play through 5 stages of evolution:
Cellular
In the cellular stage you play as a single celled micro-organism and swim around eating what you can. If your a carnivore (these eating habits are selectable in the editor) you will destroy and eat other creatures. If you are a herbivore you will eat the green plant particles. If you are an omnivore you can eat either one. Eating will lead to finding creature parts in the floating water or creatures, these parts are used in the editor. Before you go into the editor you will need to collect DNA the only known ways at the moment are eating. When you think you have enough you can edit the creature with your found parts.
Creature
In the creature stage your creature has popped on some legs and headed for land. In this stage you travel around with your creature, again collecting parts from other creatures. This is where you can decide if you want your creature to be social (recommended for herbivores) or vicious (recommended for carnivores). Social creatures give other creatures gifts and perform songs and dances to increase their relationship and vicious creatures destroy and eat them. An important part of the creature stage is collecting DNA to reach your sentience. Another important part is to collect parts and when you hit the tribal stage your species is sentient and you can not add any more parts. You can track your progress to the sentience by the bar at the bottom. When you're ready to evolve, you need to find your mate on the planet. You will need to develop those social abilities and find a mate in order to create a full species.
Tribal
You have finally reached your sentience and you have a tribe. The creature you controlled in the creature stage is now promoted to chief of your tribe. In the tribal stage your creatures are now nearly fully intelligent beings and have founded buildings and tools. In the center of your village is their totem pole. In the tribal stage your goal is to destroy or befriend 5 villages. Each succesful takeover will result in a new piece on your totem pole. In this stage your creatures are fully evolved but you can add tribal outfits or armor to increase their abilities. Food is vital in the tribal stage it is the species currency in a way. It is used to buy tools and buildings; and feeds your creatures. Eating and collecting food can be done in a couple of ways, for carnivores you can destroy or domesticate animals and fishing. For herbivores you can domesticate animals or collect fruit from fruit groves. Domesticating animals brings in a constant income of food so it is a reliable source if you are at war. Sometimes a creature wants a baby so mating is important too you can't forget about that.
Civilization
In the civ stage your creatures are getting even more intelligent and have discovered better buildings, defences, vehicles and religion. On entering the civ stage you will be required to create or choose a city hall for your city. This city hall provides all the information on the city. Happiness, income (sporebucks/minute), relationships, population and vehicle limits. This is where the game really reflects your gameplay style. If you were a carnivore you will probably be a military player if you were herbivore you might go with religion or economic. (More info on the play style of these can be found on the Downloads Page). No matter what one you choose all of your cities can be different. If you get your vehicles and forces up and running quickly you may find some tribal villages left as easy targets. This is where the game really starts getting RTS and a little more difficult.
Space
The final stage of spore is one of the largest, most expensive projects on one aspect of a game in history. This stage lets you leave your fully controlled planet in a custom made-by-you spacecraft or UFO. You travel around to other planets to conquer them as is the civ stage but more advance. You can even mould your own planets with the power of your UFO's. This is where the fact of "the more players the bigger the game" really comes true. You will find other planets which populate strange creatures and so forth. Will Wright explains; "For people worried about 'a short game' just play it and it gets bigger. This to me truely is the game of a lifetime because that's what you'll need to finish it." -Will Wright