In the game Spore you start out as a single-cell creature swimming and surviving in the primordial soup. You then evolve through a number of other stages before ultimately achieving space travel. From there, if I understand correctly, you go on to conquer the universe. Who am I to argue with evolution?
These are my impressions of the first part of Spore, the Cell Phase. I will follow up with impressions on the other phases as I move through them.
***
Spore starts you out like a teenager in junior high school. You have a mouth, an overwhelming desire to eat and procreate and you’re tossed in with a bunch of others who will either flirt with you or beat you up.
The cell phase begins with you naming the organism that you will nurture and grow until its descendents can eventually conquer the universe in the far-flung future. I name my squiggly little guy Bob because I’m a fan of palindromes and Bob is a simple name for a simple guy. He’s single-celled, after all. My first big decision is whether to go herbivore or carnivore. Later you can switch-hit and become an omnivore, which seems to have all the perks of herbivore and carnivore and no drawbacks. Going omnivore is like being at an all-you-can-eat buffet and liking everything you see, even that curious-looking macaroni salad that may not actually be macaroni. Choosing carnivore seems well-suited for dealing with competing cells – just eat them! Herbivore feels like the underdog of this primordial soup. You eat the little bits of plant life you can find, assuming some pushy omnivore doesn’t get to them first – or decide that you look tastier instead. The carnivores, of course, only want to eat you.
I choose herbivore because I like rooting for the little guy. I give Bob a filter mouth suitable for eating the plant bits and a couple of flagella so he can swim around. He is ready to start evolving!
Bob quickly discovers just how harsh this cell vs. cell world is. The vegetable buds drifting through the water are scarce and there’s usually some mean-looking thing that has evolved into having Bob-crushing jaws hanging out nearby. The other herbivores also seem to have a metaphorical leg-up (actual legs come in the next phase) with little fins that let them swim faster to the food and chow down before Bob can. Bob perseveres, though, and eats enough plant matter to advance his DNA, not to mention his progress bar. He gets access to a mating call and by using it finds himself snuggling up with a doe-eyed cell.
This leads to the Cell Creator screen where the accumulated DNA can be traded in for various new body parts. I have minimal funds, so to speak, and decide that the best defense is a strong offense. Bob buys a nasty pair of spikes for the top of his “head”. If some other cell tries to give him the business, all he needs to do is hit ramming speed and they’ll be sorry!
To complement his new spikes, Bob also adds a pair of fin-like appendages that will allow him to turn faster, providing better control in the treacherous currents that he must ply.
When Bob returns to his existence of eating and hopefully not dying, he finds that life continues to be cruel. He may have spikes and fins now, but the other cells have poison, electricity and mouths the size of a city block to eat everything in sight. My brave little cell finds himself at one point sandwiched between two cell behemoths. I use the word sandwich deliberately, because that is what he became in short order.
Fortunately, in Spore death is a minor setback, as Bob simply respawns. With some nimble swimming he manages to find and eat enough buds to evolve his DNA to a level where he can grow legs. For a single- celled organism, legs are a pretty big deal. Bob is excited. He can now leave the water and start a new life on land, a life where he quietly hopes everything isn’t waiting to fry, poison or eat him.