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bit-tech.net has published a new hands-on preview of Will Wright's upcoming god sim, Spore, as well as an interview with lead producer Thomas Vu. The game will allow players to take single celled organisms from the primordial ooze to the lofty reaches of outer space, tinkering with the evolution of the creatures at every stage.

From the interview:

BT: What about the art style? Spore has a very distinctive look with lots of bright colours and a cartoony appeal. Was that a restraint of the engine or a deliberate choice?
TV: It was a conscious choice. Our art director, Ocean Quigley, is a really great guy and he worked closely with us. With our engine we can make the game look very dark or even brighter, but we chose the art style which we thought would have the most appeal to the most people.
Importantly though it also gave us the leverage we needed to use the usual Maxis humour. We wanted the game to feel like you could use it to make a joke, but at the same time you can make a dark and evil story with it – mini-devils running around and so on. We didn’t want to dictate too much.

BT: You mention the typical Maxis humour and one of the funniest things I’ve seen is when someone spends hours building a city in Sim City only to have it all wiped out by a tornado or a UFO or whatever. Are we going to be seeing random events like that in Spore?
TV: Yeah, there’s randomness, but I can only talk about some of them though. One is that, because when you’re in the Space Stage you can visit other planets, when you’re in the Creature Stage other player’s stuff will come to you sometime. It isn’t controlled by them, just taken from their game.
We talked for ages about what it would be like if they abducted you and if there would be probing (laughing)…and there’s lots of things we could have done with that. The humour is something that we tend to add very late though. One of the things we only just added is, when you’re in Tribe Stage and you dance in front of other towns to socialise with them, they can score you and hold up scorecards. It’s always fantastic to see people sit back and be like “A four? A four sucks!”
To be honest though, a lot of the humour is for the players to make. We’ve seen everything from flying snails to flying toilets.

bit-tech.net: Thomas Vu Spore Interview

bit-tech.net: Spore Hands-On Preview

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