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Is this the most ‘creative’ game ever?

WHERE ARE WE?: Creatures conjured up by Spore players and (inset) the winning creator from India Ajay Gupta with his prize — a HP laptop.

Bangalore: What was just another offering in the arena of PC, online or console games has become within a few weeks a cult item that the young (and young-at-heart) worldwide have embraced.

‘Spore’ releases the creating instincts in players, allowing them to develop new species — starting with a single cell organism like the amoeba, ‘evolving’ it into an intelligent social animal; building a tribe or even an entire civilisation of such beings, taking them to outer space if they desire.

First released world wide by Electronics Arts in September, the game’s blend of science, fun — and elements of social networking — has made it one of the biggest successes in the games arena in India.

Fans have conjured up some awesomely weird creatures — and for Ajay Gupta, it has meant a prize winning entry and a free trip to Hong Kong where he received a HP Pavilion notebook computer in a SporeShow contest sponsored by EA , jointly with Hewlett Packard.

Unleashing the creativity of the young has always been something educators have strived for — the other-worldly monster organisms flowing from the fertile minds of Spore players may not be quite what they had in mind.

But like Sudoku, a few years ago, Spore seems to have cut across cultural barriers to inspire people everywhere.

Spore is available in India for Rs. 999 in the PC version. India Games distributes it for GSM mobile phones at Rs. 99.

‘How to build a better being,’ went the title of a National Geographic Channel presentation that documented the Spore story and is now available on DVD.

How one wishes one could do that in real life!

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