The original 150 were alright, but those new ones were just odd and confusing.
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...
What is this, four, five posts? And I've already derailed a thread? Bad Neil! No cookies for you!

Spore creatures are awesome! <-- back on topic

[off topic]
I stopped paying attention to Pokemon after the new ones came in. It just didn't seem the same.
[/off topic]

So... how about them there Spore creatures?

Don't you mean 57% increase?

It looks really fun!

Sad thing I can't run the demo. I get that error message about a security module. I read it's because I can't run both the demo and Process Explorer. But even without Process Explorer running I get the same error message. I give up... and I doubt I'll buy the full creature creator. Very sad thing.

Err.. yes. Actually what i meant is that my version costs 157% of the US version.

I wouldn't call having cheaper games "paying a price."

I was referring to them charging 9.90 in the local currency, which is more than the USD equivalent.

Not so much when you take in account that our price includes taxes. But yeah, nice trolling there anyway, I can't believe some fell for it

Meh...

In EUROs

Finally, got it a few hours ago. Here's my first two creations:

It's my cat, Harry:
{"name":"595725","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/9\/4\/9471c4246a353d7da328964cc4249f84.jpg","w":400,"h":300,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/9\/4\/9471c4246a353d7da328964cc4249f84"}
{"name":"595727","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/9\/e\/9e997ebfe615980184cd0a2cbdba7b84.jpg","w":640,"h":480,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/9\/e\/9e997ebfe615980184cd0a2cbdba7b84"}

And a moogle:
http://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/595726
http://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/595728
http://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/595729

And here's Mario set 1, with originals to compare. Some aren't that close, but oh well. Bowser turned out great, hence why he has the most pictures. The Piranha is cool, because the bottom thing (to replace the tube) spits blue balls, which looks like it comes out of its mouth at the top.

http://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/595733

Tomorrow, I'll start work on Final Fantasy 1 monsters. Yay!

Okay you've all convinced me, I'm downloading this thing.

... It sure is a big file.

Alright, I'll take a moment to review this product now. I didn't play it for a few days and made a few creatures today / yesterday.

MySpore Page

Build Mode
This part is excellent with a few minor annoyances. I don't like the sizing control (using the mouse wheel). When I have something selected, using the wheel should always affect that selected item, regardless of where the mouse is. Unfortunately, the mouse also has to be over the selected item (slightly losing the point of selecting it). As for the vertebraes, you can't even select them. It gets difficult to make minor modifications to small things. I'm assuming the thought was speed over accuracy.

There's enough items with enough options to create a huge set of different creatures, as evident by the amount of spores uploaded on spore.com. However, I hope they add more ears and noses. The eye department is a little lacking as well.

I'm curious if even more items will be available when the game comes out. Has anyone even come close to running out of money (dna currency?)? I always run out of complexity first. Perhaps this will make more sense when the actual game comes out (no, I haven't read any other material on this subject).

Creating joints is a little funky too, but no one ever said Maxis had good UI design. (;)) I wish I could just click a button that gave me another joint to work with on the selected limb.

I wish I could zoom out further for when I'm working on larger creatures. I also wish I could have more stats/abilities to work with...seems slightly lacking. And what about water-bound creatures? Can anybody say Spore 2?

Other than that, awesome! Anybody could have fun with it and create some really neat models. From the people who try to make something serious, something balanced or something silly...or something perverted (I would say that sums up all the categories). It'll be fun to use this in conjunction with the full game.

Test Drive
Good call on carelessly syncing videos with YouTube. Very user friendly here to do things that are external to the tool (taking pictures, animated avatars). Plus, checking out some of the features gives a taste of what gameplay will be like.

Only question here, why are the abilities the spore has unavailable here. You know, sing, strike, sprint, etc.?

Paint Mode
My least favorite of the modes. Sure it does neat stuff, but they really sacrificed control for ease of use here. I might as well just throw a bucket of paint at the creature. Why can't I select an item on the spore and paint that item individually? (Probably technical reasons, like conserving space) Still, I have a hard time painting it the way I want. At least let me do the base color of each item as I specify!

Also, it's not very clear what the option one picks does in the different mode. You can kind of tell (e.g. this paints the bell, this creates spots), but why not let us choose a basic torso shape instead of only that ball torso that is currently used?

To me, this mode needs the most work.

Overall
Overall, I'm pretty happy. I can make most creatures I see (I've so far made some ff1 creatures, mario creatures and mythical creatures...plus a few originals focused on balanced stats). Pretty neat little tool that gets me pumped for Spore (and I already was). Glad they are utilizing social networking too on their spore.com site. I just wish I could get the colors right.