Spore
From Eduwiki
From Spore: "Your Personal Universe in a Box - Tired of you planet? Build a new one as you embark on the most amazing journey ever. Use fun and easy creation tools to evolve your unique creature, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt worlds, and explore the cosmos!"
Essentially there are five different parts of the game. It is a "God" game, where the player is creating everything from little. There are different strategies for each part, and there are different educational uses for each part. You can start play at any one part (though you cannot go backwards from where you start). You can share your creations online, and your old creations show up later in the game in different areas.
Lastly, this game is relatively new, and I have no had ample opportunity to become an expert. I played it once through, determining the last stage probably goes on infinitely (though I find the most fun).
(DJ) Many thanks to Ms. Reynolds for starting this section! She is a much greater Spore achiever than I - I have created several creatures but have not yet passed the "Civilization" stage with any of them. I get discouraged and start again because so far, I enjoy the earlier stages the most.
Contents |
Cell Stage
Description. You are a cell. You get a certain amount of DNA points to create a creature from a huge array of miscellaneous parts. You pick a body, eyes, mouth, and protective or decorative body parts. What you pick depends on if you are able to defend yourself from a bunch of other cells where you compete for either plant matter or other cells for food. I started out with a cute little cell that I gave a few spikes to, in order to protect myself. You name your cell in the beginning, so it was funny later when I no longer had spikes but my race was still named Pokey.
As you make your way through the world, eating and possibly attacking others, you can collect new parts and occassionally mate to re-organize your almost-creature. As this stage progresses, you get larger and more complex until you are ready to enter the "creature" phase.
Strategies. You can choose from a variety of strategies, you can play for looks and create a cell you like to look at, or you might want to think about keeping your cell alive and give it defenses like spikes and speed to run away and offensive attacks like electrocution and poison abilities. I chose a carnivore with spikes, and was able to keep away from the bigger cells and eat enough to survive through the stage. I did die a few times, luckily, you get to start over as another of your species.
This is a crucial stage, as it sets up the options that will be available to your creature in the future. If you eat meat during this phase, you will become a carnivore, and certain features will be available in the "creature" phase. If you eat plant life, a different set of features becomes available. The more challenging option is to try to eat a balance of meat and plant life and to become an omnivore, which opens up another set of options in the creature phase.
Educational Implications. Mostly Science. This would probably be good for teaching about natural selection in Science classes. It isn't too long for just this section, and the idea is that the better you are able to survive, the more likely your species will exist later. It has the content. The DNA points do not give any idea what DNA is, however, and ways you earn it is not the same as actual evolution. For example, my Pokey lost his spikes and gained a poison spitter. There was no inter species mating, and you get to control what parts you gain or lose, which isn't part of evolution (maybe people would want to keep being as hairy as apes...who knows?).
This is also just a quick way to illustrate the way that creatures evolve from very simple cells and become more and more complex over time. This phase only takes 5-10 minutes, on average.
Creature (Hunter-Gatherer) Stage
Description. Now you have evolved and walked onto land. Before you actually see the video for walking onto land, you use DNA points to buy the parts your want your creature to possess. The game reminds you that you need legs to walk (or something!) and it is a good idea to have hands to eat. Then it sets you loose to ally and destroy the other species of the planet you're on. As you explore, you can collect different parts you find to create your creature to new specifications.
Different body parts come with different abilities - social ones (singing, dancing, charming, and posing) and combative ones (striking, charging, spitting, and biting). When your creature has the parts with the highest levels of these abilities, it is easier to ally with other tribes or destroy them, depending on your strategy. Each other species that you join with or destroy gets you more DNA points and moves you closer to the "Tribal" phase.
Strategies. There are basically a few strategies. You can kill and ally as much as possible in order to make extra DNA points and evolve your creature. You can kill whatever you see when you need to eat as a carnivore, and you can try to make other creatures your ally. Becoming allies is actually much harder than killing. This lead to my strategy, I can't afford the DNA points to be "Charismatic" enough, so I just kill everything in my path. I'd try to ally, and when it failed, I'd eat all the creatures! I'd usually try to aim for the alpha if I had enough points because they would yield a discovery.
I adopted more social behaviors and befriended all the creatures I could. Besides, watching them dance is much more fun than watching them bite each other! This is much harder to do as a carnivore, especially since the traits you are offered are lacking in the social strengths. The herbivores and omnivores are much better at singing and dancing. As soon as you are developed enough to form a pack, it is best to have others of your species explore along with you or ally with species who have similar strengths, as this makes it easier to make more allies.
Educational Implications. Science and History. This section seems to give a kinesthetic approach to learning about hunting and gathering, what it means, and how difficult it seems. You additionally periodically need to move to find more food, and this also mimics the ideas taught in ancient history. Additionally, it also still teaches about natural selection.
Tribe Stage
Description. Now your creature has become even more social and has an entire primitive tribe. Here your creature is pretty much how it's going to look for the rest of the game, with the only exception being the clothing and armor you earn points to buy. Additionally, you collect food for your tribe and use it as money to buy your tribe making different kinds of huts which allow you different skills, like music, weapons, and healing. Your goal is to conquer or ally with all other tribes until everyone is your tribe.
You can buy musical instruments for your tribe and use them to make friends with other tribes or you can buy weapons and use them to destroy other tribes. Each tribe you either befriend or destroy is another step towards the "civilization" phase.
Strategies. Here you can use the different things you have purchased for your character's clothing and buildings to ally or destroy the other tribes (which are still different races than your character). To get enough food, you can kill some animals around. You can also ally with them so they can help to protect your little village. I mostly ate mine because I was a carnivore, but I did find a couple pets for fun. Again, I played half the game before I realized I needed to make the huts with the different abilities, so I ended up killing everyone. After I realized how, I still couldn't do it well enough to ally. So I killed all the other tribes for my strategy. This helps to decide what abilities my civilization will have later, so it does matter how you act in each stage.
Once again, I chose the peaceful option - I played musical instruments for all the other tribes until they became my allies. I only used violence to defend my homebase from invaders.
Educational Implications. Mostly History. This section is slightly less educational. As a historian, I dislike that the tribes are different races. That said, you are still a hunter-gatherer, and that can still be taught in this section. Since there is a storage place for the food you collect, you also need to be vigilant of wild animals eating your food, and other races attacking you. With some weaponry, it could have some tactical education for war, though that's not really curriculum. Natural selection is really no longer an issue since you are not changing you DNA any longer. It does sure require problem solving skills, however, if you want to be something other than a genocidal maniac!
This could serve as a stage for discussing different types of foreign policy - is it better to be a genocidal maniac or to build allies? (I'm sure I had fewer casualties on my quest for world domination!)
Civilization Stage
Description. In this section, you have now evolved into a civilization. You need to create a city including buildings. You make a city hall, houses, factories, entertainment, land, sea, and air vehicles. You are expected to try to make your citizens happy. You can start as either a military civilization or a religious civilization and use your means to get people to join your civilization. They all look differently, but if you win them over they become your race. Your goal is to conquer or ally until everyone is your civilization. You can communicate and gift other civilizations, and you can ally with another if you have earned their favor. There are ways to check what you have done to get them to like or dislike you.
Strategies. Here you can focus on happiness and defenses, offenses of military or religious means. You are either religious or military based on what your past behaviors have been. Since I slaughtered everyone, my culture was military. I allied with another larger group and slaughtered everyone else. I was able to ally with them after saying hi and giving a couple of gifts of money (which are earned by mining spices that you supposedly trade). I claimed a few mines for money. I also invested mostly in offensive military land and air vehicles.
I chose to go the religious route and try to convert all of the civilizations around me. This is a pretty simple task, assuming you have the money to keep buying vehicles. Once you have control of enough cities, however, it requires the use of both military and religious strategies. You also have to multitask, as it is likely that while you are trying to convert one city on one side of the map, there is another city elsewhere that is being attacked and demands your attention.
Educational Implications. Mostly General Ed. This can be useful to teach about city layouts, military plans, and perhaps the difficulty of persuasion. However, I find this section lacking in the educational department. Perhaps it is because I am looking through the eyes of a historian. Also, you do not actually do any of the trading that gives you money, so that part is less useful than it could be.
I also find this section lacking in the "interesting" department, which is why I keep getting stuck here and starting over. Academically, it could be a continuation of the benefits of aggression/militaristic behavior over more diplomatic/religious behavior.
Space Exploration/Empire Stage
Description. In this section, you literally see an almost infinite number of stars. You leave your planet and go into space to explore, make money and make an empire. Your goal is to do one or all of them. You can really choose what you do most here. You travel from star to star, looking for life forms, artifacts, spices, making colonies, doing quests for your home planet or neighbors to build a reputation and earn money, making trade routes, protecting planets, and fighting space pirates.
Strategies. There are a variety of strategies involved in this section. You can play to earn the most money, as you can collect artifacts and make colonies and trade routes to make more money. You can also just explore if you like to do so. You can make enemies and fight to conquer or you can make allies and trade (and buy their star systems if the trade goes well). You can just quest (do missions) for the different empires. You can look to build a giant empire. However, it looks like the game doesn't end in this section. I personally tried to do an even amount of each possibility. I made a few trade routes (which seemed to help my income as well as the home planet), I bought a star system and colony. I made two colonies, and I did various different missions to build my friendships with other space empires. I looked for a lot of artifacts as well to sell. The universe is HUGE however, and I get lost some, though there are great tools to help you relocate your home planet and questing planets. Also, you need to keep your ship with enough energy and health so you don't die (though if you do, you are cloned and given a new ship to continue where you left off).
Educational Implications. History, Economics/Business. This part of the game has great economic aspects to it. Here there is evidence of supply and demand as some star system empires are willing to pay for things that go better with their culture/philosophy than others. There is also the need to buy upgrades and decide where to go with them, and what parts of your ship you want to expand. (I expanded cargo and flight distance). This is much like a easy version of a real business. Additionally, you can use this section to discuss and learn what an empire is and it's benefits (I didn't encounter the problems of empire yet, however). It also covers some different basic philosophies which may be taught in some of the grade levels.
Lastly, I also learned how I like to play games. I am not sure if everyone plays this way, or a majority or a minority. I like to try to do everything within the game. I only like to look things up if I'm completely stuck and bored. Otherwise, I'm content to enjoy myself exploring and learning at a slow pace. I usually play for fun more than for the win, though I still love to beat games and level up my toons! :)
