Learn the ABCs of Spore's DNA with this simulation retrospective.
by Ben Silverman
He once won an illegal cross-country race by bolting from New York to L.A. in 33 hours. He's amassed a legendary collection of trinkets from the Soviet Space program. He's built BattleBots, squared off against Stephen Colbert, and counts Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto as a close personal friend.
Will Wright's greatest achievement, however, isn't what he's managed to do with his madcap, Willy Wonka life, but what he's managed to do with yours. The godfather of the god-game genre has turned millions of normal, everyday humans into city planners, queen ants, and all-powerful deities. His next game, Spore, will turn them into things that have yet to be invented, letting gamers evolve single-celled organisms into intergalactic emperors using one of the most technically advanced pieces of software ever created in the game space.
But as evolution suggests, it didn't just appear out of thin air. To truly understand Spore's place in the gaming universe -- and, in turn, Will Wright's -- you've got to know where it came from.
Raid On Bungeling Bay - 1984
And in the beginning, there was...Bungeling Bay? Okay, so it's not exactly a Big Bang, but without this quirky little shoot 'em up for the Commodore 64, the entire simulation genre might never have happened.
BUNGELING BAY SCREENS
Wright certainly didn't see it coming. Primarily an action game, Raid On Bungeling Bay had players guiding helicopters around small maps in an effort to bomb the biscuits out of six factories manned by the evil Bungeling Empire. Meanwhile, the factories would start developing increasingly potent ways of fending off player attacks, lending a sense of urgency to their mission.
Believe it or not, it was in those seemingly innocuous factories that the seeds of Spore first took root. During the game's development, Wright found himself more immersed in crafting the factories than piloting the chopper, a revelation that led him to begin work on an entirely different sort of experience. Catering to the art of creation rather than the act of destruction, it would go on to become one of the most important pieces of code to ever grace a gaming PC.
SimCity - 1989
SIMCITY SCREENS
If the fifteen minutes we spent watching C-Span last night is any indication, city planning meetings are about as exciting as doing your friend's math homework. So the fact that Will Wright built a veritable empire on the back of a game that features zoning, roadwork and money management as its core gameplay mechanics says a lot about the guy's vision.
Likewise, SimCity said a lot about the joy found in micromanaging an organic metropolis. Unlike similar games that came before it, the cities of SimCity felt alive, growing, morphing, and evolving on their own, while the player pulled strings and cleaned up messes. It launched the god game genre, but more importantly, turned the act of nurturing artificial intelligence into a fun -- and bankable -- video game.
SimEarth - 1990
If SimCity was a full-blown gaming revolution, SimEarth was a propaganda pamphlet, failing to enjoy anywhere near the financial success of its city-building forbear. But in terms of impact on Spore, the equally ambitious SimEarth could be considered the missing link.
SIMEARTH SCREENS
In the game, players were tasked to develop an entire planet by managing its atmosphere and nurturing its ecosystem in order to evolve sentient life. Sound tricky? You have no idea. Despite being given a wide range of handy tools and informative panels, gamers were often left perplexed by the game's obtuse mechanics. Natural disasters, global warming, pollution, mass extinctions and mysterious anomalies would often signal the abrupt end of a developing species, leading many to "play" SimEarth by simply letting the game run by itself for a few hours, then coming back to check up on the progress. They don't call it a 'simulation' for nothing.
SimEarth was eventually ported to other systems -- including the popular Super Nintendo -- only to wind up fading into obscurity as more actionable games took its place in the Sim series.
SimAnt - 1991
SIMANT SCREENS
Take this lost gem, for instance. Simulating the trials and tribulations of a thriving ant colony, SimAnt introduced a more action-oriented way of playing a god game. Players guided their dutiful little pals through a garden of obstacles in an effort to defeat enemy ants, fend off predators like spiders and antlions, and eventually drive away the owners of a nearby house. Not content being a big, buggy sandbox, SimAnt was the first sim game with truly specific goals.
But take a closer look (not with a magnifying glass, please) and you'll find what really sets this hard worker apart: the relationship between the ants. According to Will Wright, the way in which the ants related to one another formed the basis for another leaf on Spore's family tree, The Sims.
The Sims - 2000
SIMS SCREENS
Talk about a fast start: within two years of storming shelves, Wright's digital dollhouse passed legendary adventure game MYST as the best-selling PC game ever. More accessible than any of his prior efforts but in many ways just as engaging, The Sims featured an addictive mix of relationship building and interior design that serve as the blueprint for Spore's social gameplay and amazing Creature Creator, respectively.
But The Sims was more than an amalgam of clever ideas and binary code -- it opened gaming up to the masses, quickly becoming a breakaway hit not only with gamers, but with their previously uninterested significant others. Wright's older games were built for strategic minds thirsting for micromanagement; suddenly, he had his finger on the pulse of a new era in gaming, one that much preferred shopping for wallpaper.
The Sims 2 - 2004
SIMS 2 SCREENS
By the time the sequel hit, The Sims franchise was a legitimate pop culture phenomenon. And for the most part, it simply offered more ways to make your fake little friends live outrageously dramatic lives, with a fancy new graphics engine to boot. If it had stopped there, it wouldn't be on this list.
Except it didn't stop there. It kept going, rounding second, passing third, heading for home...and eventually introducing sex to the simulation genre. Indeed, two consenting Sims could now mate and pass on their traits to a new generation. Though Spore had already been in development for a good three years by the time the first Sims were making babies, the concept of generational gameplay that forms the heart of the Spore experience might have never reached full maturity without enjoying a trial run in this mega-hit.
Posted: 3 Sep 2008
