Will Wright:

The great creator of The Sims again with its powerful zoom microscope, gives a new twist to the genre of imuladores s evolution and transports us to the most realistic fantasy. Now, from the hand of one of the greatest geniuses in the history of video games, we will experience the process that leads a single-celled organism to grow and spread to end up conquering the entire galaxy.

In the world of video games there are quite a few names, some with more weight, others with less, but only a few have managed to enter the Olympus of developers. One of them is, without a doubt, Will Wright , creator of such iconic games -and who have created schools- such as Sim City and The Sims , a genius who has always tried to find an original way of telling everyday events so that by controlling them we felt like gods. Thus, Wright allowed us to govern cities, create planets, generate life … But he also put us in helicopters, let us manage the elevator system of a skyscraper and introduced us into the hierarchical system of an anthill.

And, in addition to all this, he is the only person in the world capable of sweeping sales by counting our own household chores. His philosophy is: Do you want reality? Then turn off the TV and try playing The Sims or The Sims 2 ! Any Big Brother falls short! Now this American has returned to one of his old obsessions. He has gone from life in the suburbs to once again being interested in the whole, in life in its very essence. Of course, in his mission he has had help. Computers now allow you to do whatever comes out of your head. And it is that his fame and the economic well-being generated by The Sims , a series that has already sold more than one hundred million copies, guarantee any project that comes from him. And that feeling that if he touches something it has to be good serves as another guarantee.

New video game

The new titlemade in Wrightis namedSpore, a game that is actually five. On the one hand, we have the underwater phase. In it we will have to control the life of a small unicellular being that has to survive in the violent marine world. Other critters will try to eat it. Our goal: to grow and be faster than our rivals.

The second section of the game is that of the creature itself. We will have todevise a new species. As creators, we can develop it to our own liking: put more legs, more mouths, change its color … Once we are happy with the work perpetrated, we can release it to the world. She will begin to meet other creatures, to interact with them, to reproduce and to fill the, for the moment, depopulated environment that we inhabit.

At this point we have only one thing left to do: become the dominant race on the planet. To do this, we will have to try the next section of the game: that of thetribe. And again the problems begin, because soon we will discover that we have enemies. We will have to eliminate them, trade, create alliances … This is the section most similar to real-time strategy games like Age of Empires. In short, to evolve, sometimes war is necessary. The next step is a kind of return to the origins of Wright’s career, that is, toSim City. Our creatures already own all the territory they step on. Now we will have to help them to live more comfortably, to have the best infrastructure and cities in the world.

And that brings us to the last point:conquer space. Once our planet already knows us little, it remains for us to go through the cosmos sowing our seeds. This section stands out especially for its online possibilities, since in this way we can, for example, colonize worlds of other players and let our creation mix with those of our friends.

The originality of this product makes it more special than any other from the Wright factory. Long before he was released on the market he had already conquered the public, who were expectantly looking for more and more information about him. A few weeks ago the creature generator went on sale, and in just a few days a million designs had already been uploaded on the Web, which shows that not everyone is a genius for nothing.

VERY INTERESTING has been able to speak with Will Wright to learn more aboutSpore, his way of conceiving work and his figure as a video game star.

-How do you feel when you return to the games of creation and evolution of life?
-I have always been fascinated by biology and evolution, but only recently have we had computers powerful enough to create a game that would do justice to the subject. So in a sense Spore makes me feel like it’s the first opportunity I’ve really had to deal with evolution.

-What are the biggest problems you have encountered during the development of Spore ?
-It can be said that there were two great challenges. The first was to shape the technology behind all the content. This includes things like bringing the creatures to life with procedural animation – that is, generating animations based on real-time simulations – as well as obtaining an infinite number of unique planets. The other big challenge was the design issue of making all the different genres included in this game result in a consistent experience.

-What is your favorite part?
-I think right now I’m enjoying the spatial part, especially because of the enormous amount of strategic possibilities it presents.

-What is the difference between Spore and other evolution games like Sim Earth , Sim Island or Sim Life ?
-The key, once again, is that for the first time I do not feel limited as a designer by the state of technology. The result is that we can present the player with enormous amounts of information and very diverse possibilities; somehow, in new video games we can imitate and simulate the real biology and evolution of species.

-What has surprised you the most about the response of the players?
-The biggest surprise by far has been the response from our recent Creator Creator release. In just 18 days our players have created more species than are known on Earth! I imagined that we would reach that number at some point, but I was looking forward to it more towards the end of this year.

-What ideas or concepts did you have to discard throughout the development?
-In order to launch Spore we had to cut some aspects of the original design. Thus, we eliminated the phases of evolution under the water and put them within the phases of cellular development. Also at the beginning of the project we had thought about introducing underwater civilizations, but building such a 3D interface turned out to be too troublesome for even the hardest gamers.

-What new options will Spore bring in the future? What will you surprise us with in the next game updates?
-We are looking at how to focus Spore from different angles after completely finishing the original. Some of them are related to other types of gameplay, but we are still placing a great emphasis on the creativity of the editors.

-Besides Spore or The Sims 3 is there any other Will Wright game in development?
-Yes, I have a few projects that are slowly taking shape. I look forward to dedicating more time to them when Spore is already established in the market.

– Is there a video game that you have always had in mind, but that you have never made because technology has not allowed it?
-At this point I don’t feel limited by technology as a designer. There are a lot of ideas that I would like to put into practice.My only limitation today is actually my own imagination, not the power of a computer..

-What are those little things, those little details that you like the most about Spore?
-One of the aspects that I like the most is that it has a lot of very funny cultural references. We hid them in various parts of the game. These are mentions of some of our favorite hobbies: movies, TV shows, games, and the like.

-How was the experience of becoming a villain in The Simpsons: the video game? Will you release a game called Sim Sandwich as advertised in it?
-I’m really delighted to have become a supervillain! In fact, I’m considering changing my career to become one in the future … But first, I need to find a really good devilish dungeon, ”he says amused. AboutSim Sandwich, it’s probably one of my next projects. I’m researching hard to get it!

Victor Sanchez