Have you tried your hand at Spore Islands on Facebook yet? I’ve been playing the beta for the past month, it’s a pretty good web based app and a fun time-waster at work (during break, of course!) If you’re curious about why the game was designed and the decisions behind the limitations, check out Games.com for an interview with two of its creators – Caryl Shaw and Frank Lantz.
Spore Islands is drastically different from other Spore-inspired efforts that we’ve seen on Facebook. Why the change?
Caryl Shaw: In the past, Spore has focused on using Facebook to educate people about our PC game. With Spore Islands we actually wanted to create a social game based on Spore that was fun and used the opportunities for connecting with your friends that Facebook offers.
Frank Lantz : We wanted to take the essence of Spore – creating and evolving your own creature – and find an expression of it that was “native” to the social setting of Facebook.
For hardened players of Spore on Mac and PC, what do you think they’ll get from playing Spore Islands? As such, what might Spore Hero players gain from playing?
Shaw: The thing that I like best about playing Spore Islands (and I’m definitely a hardened Spore player having been on the team for almost 5 years) is that I can send my creature off to play with my friend’s creatures. I have been going back and forth with my Associate Producer Meghan all week – she evolves the Bobbinator and overtakes me on my Island and then I update Killer (my creature) and clobber her back. It’s been really fun to play Spore with someone else.
Lantz : It’s all about the social interaction. One of the coolest things about Spore is the way it integrates user-generated content, in Spore Islands the user-generated content is the gameplay – you’re always adapting your creature to stay one step ahead of your friend’s creatures, and they’re adapting their creatures to stay one step ahead of you.
