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The term creature in Spore refers to the organism controlled by the player. The term is mostly relevant to the Creature stage, because that is the stage where the player controls a single creature. The creature begins the game as a micro-organism called a cell.

Type of creatures[]

There are multiple types of creatures in Spore that the player can encounter through the stages: cells, creatures, tribal creatures, civilized creatures, and finally empire creatures.

Cell[]

Cell stage

A cell in the Cell Stage.

In the Cell Stage, the player interacts with the world as a "cell", although it is more of a small, multicellular creature, like zooplankton. The objective here is to consume food to gather "DNA Points". The cell can then find a mate and lay an egg. This takes the player to the Cell Editor where one can give different abilities to the cell by adding parts, ranging from stronger weapons to various forms of movement. Although players can create their cells, they do not procedurally appear in the Cell Stage but rather pre-made Maxis cells only appear.

As the generations go on, the cell grows larger and the camera pulls out until the cell becomes a multicellular organism, most often referred to as the creature.

After the Cell Stage, cells do not appear in the game.

Creatures[]

Spore Land Creatures

A creature in the Creature Stage.

Creatures, also known as "animals", are non-sapient creatures. In the Creature Stage, the player takes control of a creature in a 3D environment in which a planet is randomly generated to explore. Players can interact with other creatures and objects to gain DNA points which in turn are used as currency to customize the creature in the Creature Creator, as well as necessary to progress through the stage. Creatures can also gain pack members (from 0 pack members to 3 then to Tribal Stage, matching the 4 mini-stages of Creature Stage).

In the Tribal Stage, creatures serve as food sources for carnivorous and omnivorous tribes. Like in the Creature Stage, creatures surround themselves around the nest: they can appear either curious or annoyed in relations, but if one of the creatures is hunted down, they will become scared of the tribe, and unlike the Creature Stage, they cannot be hunted into extinction. Some species, however, can be "wild animals" that will steal food from the tribe if there's no tribe member nearby. They can be also domesticated by the tribe to turn them into pets.

In the Civilization Stage, they serve nothing to the stage other than being run over by land vehicles.

In the Space Stage, they are primarily utilized for fulfilling the terrascore of planets and completing the ecosystems along with plants. Creatures have 3 rows of slots and columns to T-scores (T1, T2, T3). From start, planets need to have high T-scores either naturally or via terraforming, then the 3 rows (and columns if high) of plants need to be filled so it could be possible to sustain 2 herbivores and then 1 carnivore.

Early Creatures[]

Early creatures are referred to as primitive creatures that were edited via Early Creature Creator, playable in the starting game in the Creature Stage, and have a maximum of 145 DNA points spent to count as an early creature.

SPORE tribal creatures

Tribal creatures in Tribal Stage.

Tribal creatures[]

Tribal creatures, unlike animal creatures, are sapient creatures. They broadly appear in Tribal Stage, and other stages except for its preceding stages, Cell Stage and Creature Stage.

In the Tribal Stage, the player takes control of tribal members in the RTS format. The player can command from a single to a group of members to take action on the selected object(s) (attack, impress, gather, etc.). As the player progress through this stage, there will appear several tribes that contain other tribe members. On most occasions, they will attack or gift depending on their relationship with the player's tribe.

In the Civilization Stage, they appear in tribes and are very minuscule and function the same as the wild creatures in the stage; fleeing away from vehicles, they can be run over by them, instantly killing them.

In the Space Stage, they appear in tribes on random planets. Sometimes, other empires request the player to abduct and bring the ordered tribe member at a specific time.

Civilized creatures[]

Libertus citizens

A group of citizens in an economic city.

Civilization creatures, also referred as citizens, are sapient creatures, much similar to tribal creatures. They appear in the Civilization Stage and the Space Stage, with no prior appearances.

Unlike its preceding stage, Tribal Stage, where unique species can thrive and differ from the player's species, the national species is selfsame as the player's species. The citizens may display the Sim-like behavior, such as the activities and interactions they play out. Along with keeping them happy, the citizens, if observed long enough do many cosmetic things such as weddings, protests, military drills, mass praying, and more. They will also have minor activities such as looking through telescopes, and talking, sometimes noticed by citizens performing magic tricks of some sort to other citizens who are willing to watch, perhaps to earn money, etc. There are many speech bubbles, one even with a picture of Will Wrights face, and another with a planet, an early idea of interstellar travel, so these include Space stage as well. The citizens will also act according to the type of city they are residing in. When the city is attacked, the citizens will often fire guns at the attacking vehicles and/or panic and start screaming. When new buildings are placed, such as a factory, often the citizens will react with protests against the placement of factories or cheers when an entertainment system is placed.

In the Space Stage, they function the same as the tribes in terms of missioning.

Empire creatures[]

Empire creatures, also known as space-faring creatures, take a huge role in the Space Stage; they control their empire, which means they can control/colonize planets, stars, and their own territory, and they have their own randomly assigned philosophy available in the game. They function in the same fashion as the civilized nations in the Civilization Stage in terms of interaction, except the empire creatures can assign missions, repair the player's spaceship for a fee, and trade. They are found within the colony and practically function as the rest of the other predecessor creatures. Some missions will request to eradicate sick empire civilians on a specific planet within the time stamp. However, when eradicating the empire's creatures without the reason, will mildly decrease the relationship with the empire.

Captains[]

Main article: Captain

Captains were introduced in the Spore Galactic Adventures expansion pack. Unlike the previous creature types, one of the most unique aspects about captains is that they can be equipped with new accessories via the Captain tab that enchants them with new abilities and other functions. They can also function as empire creatures in the Space Stage.

Creature forms[]

Babies[]

Baby creatures are the youngest and most fragile type of creature appearing in both the Creature and Tribal stages. They have half less health and are mildly weaker. Killing any babies of a specific nest will automatically turn the relationship of species hostile.

In the Creature Stage, any second-level nest creatures are able to have babies at their nest. Babies may follow any member of their nest, but prioritize alphas if available. Socializing with them is mildly easier and have fewer semicircle bars than normal and alphas. Babies won't retaliate attacks unlike normal creatures and killing them will give less DNA points and turn species hostile towards the player.

In the Tribal Stage, tribes can spend 10 food to add new members starting out as babies to the tribe. It takes no more than a minute for baby members to enter adulthood. Babies are more vulnerable, having half the health of adult members, and have no way to defend themselves, they are prone to be attacked by wild animals or enemy tribe members during the raid. Wild baby creatures can be also found in the nests that function similarly to the Creature Stage.

In the Spore Galactic Adventures, the creature can be resized to the smallest size possible.

Epic creatures[]

Main article: Epic creature

Epic creatures are gigantic and the most powerful type of creature that can be encountered in every stage but the Cell Stage.

Rogue creatures[]

Main article: Rogue creature

For rogues to spawn, they are required to have high and balanced social and combat skills.

Genetics[]

In Spore, creatures and other creation types utilize the steganography for small .png files of creation, which is the procedural code compressed to a small size that generates the creature on a player's machine.

The player naturally cannot create a creature without a mouth; it needs food to survive. At least one mouth is required to save without any modifications.

Historical types[]

Aquatic[]

Aquatic life was originally included in the game as an option for the player's creature, but they were removed due to animation difficulties (player would need to navigate in three dimensions underwater).

This does not mean that aquatic creatures do not exist on the planet, as there are the fish caught by tribes, cells, and the Sea Monster, but rather the player cannot play as one (except for the cell, as the player plays it in the cell stage).

Flying[]

Any creature can fly if given at least one wing, which are available in the detail section of the creature creator and can only be used effectively in the creature stage, however a creature will fly long distances in the tribal stage. The level determines how long one can fly, and the skill is called Glide.

Glide also adds the "Jump" ability, but will override it, leaving the creature only to glide, even when pressing on the jump button.

In the GDC 2005 presentation about Spore you can see a little creature flying away from behind a rock after the Willosaur escaped from the Splodey and Will Wright says "...on the other hand this guy is kinda fast...", talking about his Willosaur. Also, a more defined birdlike creature can be seen in the presentation as the Willosaur emerges from the water and onto land, the bird is seen on top of a tree and flies across to reappear again to fly above another tree and into the distance.

According to Gamespot, it was seemingly impossible to create a flying creature during the E3 playable demo of the Create a Creature system.

In a demonstration at Gadgetoff 2007, Will Wright created a winged creature in the creature editor. Despite having large wings relative to its body size which displayed some functionality once in the game world, i.e., they flapped as the creature walked, the creature did not ever take flight.[1] However an article published on the 13th of February 2008 at bit-tech.net claimed that placing wings on a creature would allow it to take flight.[2]

An element of flight is still in the game with the creature creator having four types of wings that allow the players character to 'fly' for different lengths of time. Only the highest-level wings allow a creature to achieve anything resembling true flight.

In the new expansion pack for Spore - Spore Galactic Adventures, the player's captain can be outfitted with a jet pack. If the player flies too high, lightning can strike the player's creature on planets with high atmospheres.

Gallery[]


Historical[]

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