Spore

The guy reponsible (amongst others) for the Sims has given a presentation
of how new game - Spore.  There's a long and fascinating video of a
presentation -
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8372603330420559198&q=spore -
which, unfortunately, seems to finish before the very end of the talk.

More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_(game)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore might be better give the auto-URL
algorithm I use in the blog software)
http://gonshaw.net/musings/2005/musing_03_16_05.htm
http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3138792&did=1

There's an emphasis on "procedural generation" - the items in the game are
synthesized from sub-components, but the most important difference with
the Sims, it seems to me, is the idea of evolution, which gives more of a
direction/aim and allows different sub-games/aspects at different scales.
It's also cute/pretty.

However, returning to procedural generation -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation - there's an obvious
question: what's the underlying technology?  I can't find an answer, but
presumably it's C++.  But I'm not th eonly one wondering if there's
another option - http://www.codecomments.com/archive274-2005-3-428948.html

Andrew

New Spore Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHaulHxmO4A

Bombed

This came out today.  From the Amazon reviews, it seems to have pretty
much bombed - http://www.amazon.com/Spore-Mac/dp/B000FKBCX4

Apart from excessive DRM it seems that there's no real connection between
physical appearance and behaviour.  Seems to be little more than
accumulating points and dressing things up?

Well, it was hugely ambitious....

Hmmm - seems from http://boycottspore.com/ that the DRM may be changing -
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/52618

But that doesn't change the other problems -
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/09/07/will-wright-reacts-to-crtical-spore-reviews/
"all of the stages have less complex gameplay than many gamers had hoped".

Andrew