Spore

Yesterday, I was treated to a lesson in how to play Spore. Forgive me for some disjointed reporting - I was frantically trying to keep up with Austin as he deftly navigated around the computer game.

Austin showed me the star Dando, and the system of planets. Austin explained that he can't colonize gas giants, but you can colonize a planet with a solid surface. I asked, Q: "Why do you need gas giants in a star system?" A: "They suck in all the comets."

Planet Marinus is a "T0" planet, so it has no terra score. It's a very hot, erupting planet. I asked Austin if it is inhabited, and he said there is a colony on Marinus, and they built their own atmosphere.

Now Austin is going to visit some special spice planets. Spice is traded like money. You can also trade Sporebucks. A colony needs a factory to make spice for trading. Some spices are more valuable in planets or colonies outside the place where they were manufactured. A1 is going around to other empires to see which ones will pay the most for green spice.

Message: ecosystem collapse! Austin is going to save the ecosystem. There are infected animals and he has to go and kill them.

Empire = colony

Maxor is A1's home planet. When he's on his home planet, he can recharge for free.

A species develops from Tribal to Civilization to Space.

A1 is placing an Embassy on an alien race's planet. He says, "They will slowly start liking me." Then he asked for a ship, and they gave him an allied ship to use.

Austin is going to put some working buildings in his Empire. He invited me to design my own factory, so I built a factory and designed it the way I like best.