Wikipedia

 

At first glance, Spore is a "teleological evolution" game, or "god game". The player molds and guides a species across many generations, growing it from a single-celled organism into a more complex animal. Eventually, the species becomes intelligent. At this point the player begins molding and guiding this species' society, progressing it towards a space-faring civilization. Spore's main innovation is the use of procedural generation for many of the components of the game, providing vast scope and open-endedness. Wright said: "I didn't want to make players feel like Luke Skywalker or Frodo Baggins. I wanted them to be like George Lucas or J.R.R. Tolkien."

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In concept, the editors start simply in the cellular phase and move to higher levels of complexity acting as tutorials for progressive levels of gameplay. For example; the tide pool editor as demonstrated so far has a small set of choices (three sensory, three movement, and three attack options) and a two-dimensional structure compared to the E3 2006 creature editor demo which, for sensory alone, had nine options of four tiers each for a total of 36 options as well as three-dimensional structure.

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For example, if you give your creature four equine legs, you can logically expect it to gallop around like a horse"

In Wright's first public demonstration of Spore, he created a tripedal creature in the creature editor. The game then determined how a lizard with three legs and a prehensile tail should walk. Other animations of the lizard including hunting, eating, swimming, dragging objects, mating, and dancing, all of which were procedurally generated based on the model that the player created. Wright then revealed several pre-made creatures which moved realistically, despite their exotic design: large, insectile creatures with multiple heads and six legs, a walking bird whose massive head caused it to tilt while turning, and a dog-like creature with a set of unusually branching limbs. He also humorously demonstrated a creature that looked like a Care Bear, indicating that players could create animals similar to those found in nature or popular culture.

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Will Wright lead the Keynote for SXSW (South by Southwest) which is an interactive festival held in Austin today. First up, we’ve got a tape of the demo:
There’s more footage coming (of Will Wright talking), but we’ll have to wait for the HD processors to catch up. I’ll keep you posted!