We played Spore on DS at London's Rainforest Cafe recently. You can read our first impressions here. At the event, we also caught up with EA's Kyoko Matsushita who told us more about the handheld adventure.
ONM: Could you explain more about the story? Kyoko Matsushita: It's a creature landing on an unknown planet. The creature needs to find out what's out there and eventually conquer the planet. There are a lot of unknown adventures out there and the story will be revealed as the creature sets out to conquer the objectives.
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ONM: So does that mean your creature is going to be a ruler? KM: At the end he will be the ruler, kind of like the God.
ONM: Does that mean you have to choose what type of ruler you want to be? Do you have to be nice or can you be horrible? KM: You can be both. You can be nice and horrible. In order to conquer, you can be social and befriend them [the creatures you meet] or you can fight them, kill them and gain more power.
ONM: Why haven't you made a port of the PC version? KM: It is difficult to portray the same scope of the story and technically it would be difficult to do the same thing on DS. The second thing is the target audience is different from our PC game. It's definitely skewed towards 9-13 year old boys who are the core DS gamers. The idea was for the player to have an affinity with the creature he creates and that would be attractive for the players rather than evolution itself.
ONM: Do you think the DS audience would prefer to be led by a story? KM: Yes they do need a story to lead them. Open ended [gaming]is a great thing but that target age group do need some sort of guidance. PC is much more open. It's based on what the player wants and it takes a totally different course, whereas the DS version has a closer framework.
ONM: Why did you go for that age group? You've got games like Animal Crossing that appeals to a wide audience. KM: We are not limiting per se. In Asia we did testing and it appealed to younger audiences while in the UK it appealed to an older audience. So that's the core group but it could go beyond 13 because some of the female players enjoy the fact that it's cute.
ONM: Yes, the creatures are cute but they're also quite ugly... How much scope is there to mess around with things and create your own creature. KM: There are quite a lot of body parts. Girls, what they tend to do is colouring. Girls prefer pink and warmer, softer colours while boys go for more solid colours. Colour options give let them make the creature they way they want to look like. We've given a lot of options for body parts, considering what both boys and girls would like.
ONM: The combat seemed simple. Will it get harder as you go? KM: The way you fought in the first level. You wouldn't be able to fight like that in level 8 because you need certain type of power and intelligence. So what you need is specific body parts which would allow you and make you capable to fight. So rather than complexity of how you fight, you need to make sure you gain the right body parts and the power from different types of elements.
ONM: Are any of the body parts hard to find? KM: Yeah, some of them are limited unless you progress in the levels.
ONM: Does the placement of legs effect how you play? KM: The type of legs you choose would make a difference. It could be a faster walk. So it makes a difference as to the way you get to a certain place but it doesn't make a difference to your power.
ONM: Tell us about the social aspect of the game... KM: You can combine your creature. You don't have to make a creature that is completely aggressive and full on.
ONM: Are there any online aspects to it? KM: Yes there are. Players can share there own creatures.
ONM: Can you tell us anything about a Wii version? KM: We have been exploring on different platforms but at the moment nothing is confirmed. Wii is a direction that people go for so discussions are moving forward but nothing is concrete.
ONM: Why did you make it on DS rather than any other platform? KM: The DS market is booming and for EA, it is a great challenge to make good DS games. We have always had DS on the plan with the PC, making sure we would launch it at the same time, capture a different audience. DS gamers who played Spore will soon enough be the PC player.
