I will lose my life to this game

[AtmaWeapon]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8372603330420559198&q=spore

Check out Will Wright's new child, Spore. I do believe someone last year posted something about this here, but the game deserves discussion.

I won't spoil it for you, but watching the video is like watching Dragonball Z, just when you think he's about to end it, he says "Now THIS, is to go BEYOND!"

This is why Peter Molyneaux cries himself to sleep every night, Fable and Black & White were hyped to do things that Will Wright is DOING, and many things that seem impossible are being done.

I want and I want bad.

[MacWeirdo42]

I want this game so badly... Been waiting for months, will continue to wait for months, but it really looks to be worth it. Oh, you just had to compare it to DBZ, didn't you? I've been contaminated now!

[ShadowTiger]

Dude. ... I ... ... ... There is ... ... ... DAMN.

I remember seeing every screenshot I've ever seen of Spore from this video, but I've never seen the video until today... That is just incredible. I really can't help but wonder how large the game will be. I heard that the game files won't be larger than 100 KB or so apiece, ... or something like that. ... Obviously I don't know what I'm talking about though, so just go ahead and ignore that little rumor.

[ZTC]

I'm about 1/2 way watching the vid, and I am very impressed.
I'm getting this game.

Interesting comparason, Atma

[Grasshopper]

Wow. I've never seen it either. Not even screenshots. Just a few, but wasn't impressed. Now though, I'm truely impressed.

[Saffith]

Wow. It's even cooler than I ever imagined. Yes, I think a great many of us will be losing a good chunk of time to this game...


I heard that the game files won't be larger than 100 KB or so apiece, ... or something like that. ... Obviously I don't know what I'm talking about though, so just go ahead and ignore that little rumor.No, that's what they've said. Since the textures and animations and everything are procedurally generated, there's very little information that needs to be stored in the save files.
Just one of the many advantages of doing things that way.

[Rainman]

I didn't have sound when I watched the video, but it still looks awesome. I heard a bit about it a while ago so I knew what was generally going on. I love games like this.

[Petoe]

Woah!!! This is the first time I even hear about this game (I try to stay away from PC games :p) but I want this game so badly... I WANT IT NOW GODDAMMIT!

Hoo boy... Spore could be one of the best games ever...

[Dechipher]

This could be freakin awesome.

As long as they don't add in 100 expansion packs....

[me2]

Holy crap.

You get to mate haha. This is the best game ever.

[ONeilcool]

Thats amazing... Every second of it.

God Bless you Will Wright.

I almost gave up on the vidoe becausse as cool as it looked it seemed kinda of obvious what you do. But after he started zooming out and getting into an RTS mode, I was speechless. It just doesn't seems possible. Now all I can(without going on dictionary.com to find a better way to say it) is that it is brillant and amazing game.

[gdorf]

Looks cool. I hope its not boring once you get to the "top of the T".

[goKi]

Looks amazing. All i noticed is that it seems way too easy to advance forward by mating and getting an egg. Hopefully that was just a very easy example.

[Grasshopper]

I would only want it as a toy to be honest. And thats sort of how Will Wright explained it. There are goals only to guide you to the sandbox part of the game, which is really what I want to play around with.

[AtmaWeapon]

Looks amazing. All i noticed is that it seems way too easy to advance forward by mating and getting an egg. Hopefully that was just a very easy example. Judging from some of his comments, I think he was playing in super debug mode where he can advance the game through eons at will. If you can get to 'god' mode in less than 30 minutes there'd be no point in releasing the game I think.

[gdorf]

I was most disapointed by the "battle" where he captured prey with his 3 legged creature. It looked boring and cumbersome. It seems like the bulk of the game involves managing civilzations more though. Which is fine with me. :)

I am really excited for this game, too bad it won't be out until October. :(

On another note, I wonder if this will stir up any evolution vs creation debate.

[Kairyu]

I still think it just sounds like Sim City on crack.

[Dogchew9]

....!!!???!....!??!!..... Truly amazing. I can't help but wonder how much space this will take up tho. I like the part where he blew up teh planet :)

[Kairyu]

....!!!???!....!??!!..... Truly amazing. I can't help but wonder how much space this will take up tho. I like the part where he blew up teh planet :)
Very, very little, it sounds like. Very, VERY, little.
All graphical (Possibly almost all ) data will be generated by mathematical formulas within the program.
VERY small.

That does make me wonder, though- would that significantly increase load times? To execute all those equations before starting...

[AtmaWeapon]

That does make me wonder, though- would that significantly increase load times? To execute all those equations before starting...Possibly so, or possibly not. I'm fairly certain most of the texture generation and terrain generation calculations are relatively simple. Once they are made, the results can be stored in memory or files to avoid the need for expensive recalculation.

It will probably take a stronger CPU to run the game than if it had pre-generated everything, but the difference may turn out to be a lag when you change zoom significantly as the game has to calculate your surroundings.

Sim City was kind of similar if I recall, before the game started there was a slight delay as the game created its initial set of calculations.

[MacWeirdo42]

I don't know if anyone's seen this before, but if you want to see an example of the kind of procedural programming Will Wright was talking about, there's a game called .kkrieger. It's an FPS that only takes up 96k of harddrive space. It's not the best FPS in existence or anything, but damn, it's pretty impressive for such a small file size. You need a powerful computer for it, though.

.kkrieger (http://www.theprodukkt.com/kkrieger.html#dload)