Spore in the Library
I bought Spore last week. And it’s safe to say that it’s the coolest game I’ve ever played. I’m not a big gamer, but I do like simulation games–Sim City, Civilization, The Sims, MySims–because you can’t die and there’s no clear mission to the game; you just create things and try to control the world you’re in. (MySims is a little different: you do have goals that you have to meet to advance, but you still can’t die.)
You might know about Spore, because it’s been pretty hyped, but for the uninformed, here’s the basic breakdown. There are five levels, or phases: cell, creature, tribal, civilization, and space. Each phase has its own style of gameplay, although creature, tribal, and civilization are pretty similar and have the same goals: either convert/ally with the other creatures in your world, or dominate/kill them.
The cell phase is fairly basic (you swim around eating, growing, and mating), but it’s crucial to the rest of the game because in this phase, your creature evolves, and you play with that creature throughout the rest of the game (it does grow arms and legs in the creature phase). You can continue tinkering with your creation in the creature phase–in fact, that’s one of the ways you advance to the next phase–but once you hit the tribal stage, you’re done doing any physical evolving.
The choices you make throughout Spore affect the path you take throughout the game. If you’re a vegetarian who makes friends with other animals, you become a religious city in the civilization phase. That’s me every time, because I can’t bring myself to eat the other adorable creatures! There are multiple outcomes for carnivores, omnivores, those who kill, those who make friends, and those who do both. And each one of these outcomes gives you different advantages and powers in different phases.
In the space phase, you get missions…and a spaceship. You travel throughout a vast galaxy gathering information, trading, making friends or enemies, colonizing planets, and ultimately, hopefully, becoming god.
Spore has infinite outcomes and possibilities, and the sheer magnitude of the game is mind-blowing. So, how does this single-player game fit into the library? Can it be a collaborative game? Can you base a program around it? Of course.
Spore relies heavily on user-created content. If the player is online, then he or she is going to be surrounded by the creatures of thousands of other Spore players. Additionally, creatures, objects, and buildings that the player creates are being made available to all the other Spore users out there. So even though a teen isn’t directly interacting with other players (like they would in Second Life), they are interacting with a massive world populated by the creations of people who aren’t in their physical space.
The Spore Creature Creator may be the most fun part of the game. The power of the creator is hard to explain; basically, every part of the creature is malleable and customizable. The initial body shape has a spine, and each vertebrae can be pulled, moved, and manipulated. And there are tons of add-ons and skins that allow the user to make a truly unique creature. Check out the Sporepedia for some cool and funny examples. It could be fun to host a Creature Creation contest. It could be just like a Halloween contest: award prizes for funniest, scariest, most creative, etc. If you have a color printer, print out the teens’ creations and put them on display.
Or wouldn’t it be funny to give them assignments? Make a creature who looks like your dad, your principal, your soccer coach, you!
Or, very simply, you could buy four copies of Spore and make it available to teens. Have a weekly or monthly get-together. Games don’t need to be competetive for them to be fun or for a group.
Do you have any ideas how Spore would work in your library? Post them here!
As Jami pointed out in a recent post, thanks to the DRM on Spore you actually Couldn’t just buy several copies for the library and make it available to teens–the game was first released with a limit of three installations. I just heard a brief story on NPR this morning that there’s a pending lawsuit (alleging that the DRM actually makes computers more vulnerable to security threats, nevermind penalizing legitimate gamers who update their computers of operating systems) and the number of authorized downloads has increased, but it’s still not unlimited, and thus, sadly, not a great choice for a circulating game.
Hi MK,
I actually wasn’t thinking of Spore as a circulating game, but as a game to be installed on library computers — in that case, 3 dls per game would actually be too much for my library, where we have 4 designated teen computers. However, I do agree with both what you and Jami are saying about the DRM issues, because it would be awesome to be able to circulate Spore at some point.
The need to constantly make choices as a part of Spore really strikes me as a great tie-in for teens and playing the game in the library. Since teens constantly need to make choices – and learning to make good choices is a part of their development – Spore gives them the chance to do just that in a creative environment. It might also give libraries and teens opportunities for some interesting discussions.
That is such a great point. Like I said in my post, I have to be a vegetarian in Spore– and I came to that conclusion because in one game, I chose to be a carnivore in the cell stage, and when I got to the creature stage, I couldn’t stand to kill + eat my fellow spore creatures! So it really is very clear how the choices you make effect your path throughout the game. The game forces you to follow through on these decisions, although there are ways of changing your course gradually.
Before you buy look at the reviews at the point of sales.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832130013
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B000FKBCX4/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_summary?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
smac
smac,
It looks like a lot of those negative reviews are related to the DRM issue — which, I agree, is a big problem, especially for libraries!
I’ve purchased Spore for my own home use, and it is a wonderfully creative game. I’ve also been pondering if there was a good way to integrate it into our library computers. Circulation of the item is out due to DRM, but I find even local installation on our teen computers an iffy solution. Much of the fun comes from advancing the creature you know through each stage and the consistency of the development.
The single player game has maybe 10 different save spots for various players games, and unless there’s a way to expand upon that then I’m worried that few of our teens would properly enjoy it because old saves would have to be deleted frequently to let new games be made.
If anyone has found an easy solution to that issue, I’d love to hear it.
One problem I ran into when wanting to play with my husband is that you can only have one account per computer, so while my husband and I wanted to purchase two copies of the game to play our own games and send creatures to each other, I wasn’t allowed to sign in as me on my laptop because my husband had already logged in to make sure the game would work. This may be a deterrent from having the game installed on computers in a library since there is a limited number of worlds you can build on.
Another problem that was encountered with Spore, is that you need the internet in order log into the game. A teen came into the library asking for my help because when he tried to install the game it pinged the internet which his parents have made the choice to not purchase for their home. When he looked for help on the EA website, it required him to set up an account to simply email EA about the problem. However I was able to find a phone number buried in the Terms of Service he could call and verify whether the internet is actually required to play the game.
It’s very sad to see DRM practically kill this game. I hope that it serves as a lesson to EA and the big industry that DRM this tight only hurts business.
Jami,
I’m playing the game without logging in…and I haven’t created an account. So, while I only have Maxis creations in my game, I can still play. That may be a work-around in the library.
Forgot to comment on your first point — it definitely seems like the logging in problem WILL be an issue for those teens who want to log in in the library.
I wonder if any librarians have contacted Maxis?