GameSpy: Early in development Will Wright talked about how there was a creative tension among the developers between the “Cute Team” and the “Science Team.” Where did you fit in? What kinds of things to you like to see and build?

Lucy Bradshaw: I’d have to say I land on the cute side of that battle. I love the science and themes that were the inspiration for the game and I very much appreciate that the game provokes people playing it to think about the systems that they are playing with, but it is a game, it has a real toy-like quality to it. A sandbox. And for that reason I supported taking the more stylized approach and making creatures more emotive.

The moment that still makes me take a breath is when you are playing in the creature stage and a planet appears over the horizon and moves in relation to your planet. Seeing that planet again, as this pretty little bauble when you first launch your spaceship into your own solar system makes you realize that you are playing in this really vast space (oh and we’re simulating that). My own style of building is making goofy characters; I get hooked on a theme, like ninjas or Puck, name my species early and try to make them live up to their namesake in a way. My buildings tend toward colorful and my vehicles fanciful. I’ve flown anything from a piranha spaceship to one that resembles a four-poster bed.

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