Spore, Alien Creator?

[DaveChase]

I have been playing around with the Spore(TM) creature creator and having some fun. It has occured to me that this might be a neat program to create your own alien animals or races.
NOTE: I am not promoting the game Spore or that you should go to any Spore Forums or websites.

What is cool about the creature creator is that you can make the creatures move/dance and record it. View the creature from all angles also.

You can color it in limited ways but for animal I think it is enough for the effect.

I was thinking that since you can capture mini movies of creature (there is sounds but not much control of the sounds made), that you could have a active visual to show players landing on an explored planet and let them make their decisions on what they see (and hear) instead of just telling them what ever.

I do not have the Spore game itself but I have read that you can make many more things than the limited (and very inexpensive) creature creator program.

What you think?
Later this month I am going to try and create a creature from one Traveller Creature/Alien describitions.

Dave Chase

 

[veltyen]

The creature creator is good, but with some glaring limitations.

Firstly the enforced bilateral symetry. This could be a problem. Unless I am missing something even critters as simple as Moties would not be possible to sketch. While partial bilateral symetry is pretty common on Earth, full bilateral symetry is rare, so this being enforced seemed a little odd.

Limited legs and arms. They are based on a mammalian model. Tentacles cannot be done in a straitforward way, neither can some of the other options that are used for limbs.

Lastly all species are based on a single notochord design (apparently only notochordia exist ) which strongly limits other body plan options.

That said, you can still whack out a huge variety of interesting beasties.