Here are 15 space creatures, some of them played from cell stage onwards, most of them not.

(Played races are: Breetaxian, Kwarissus, Orlin, Mordons.)

From main load game screen, click 'Share', it should be under the highlighted option here:

(If you've got a legal serial number, obviously.)

Badges are something else entirely, viewed in Space stage. Here's a screenshot of that, with the icon that is on the button (which is at the bottom of the window, by where it tells you how much money you have) to click to bring it up highlighted.

Is there a list somewhere of what spices are good, and in what order? I've heard pink and purple are good, red sucks, everyone starts out red. (Though one of my home planets has a pink moon.) Don't waste your time on a red spice system, etc, etc.

I could perhaps have stuck with Ockie/Octagor, but I decided to create something new instead...



(Also: Shot from behind.)

Download.

I've only hidden two things in the mouth, and only because the effects for those two things would be obvious anywhere else. It looks much better animated than my octapus creations do, there's no revealing of hidden items on this one that I can see, except maybe when it opens its mouth real wide.

I realise that if I'd only given it two legs I could have hid better items in there, but it just didn't look right.

Uh, they are secret if you can't see the achievement list to begin with... (Achievements are stored on some server, not available if you do not connect, and I suspect many of us arr unable to connect...)

I've gotten one for not attacking anything in cell stage (herbivore, obviously)

The "three different allies" in creature, already mentioned.

One for completing an entire game in one session, when all I did was take a pre-played (as in, from cell to space) creature and stick it in the space stage on another planet...

In my very first game I got the "Encountered something you created in a previous game" one, because I met another of my race in civ stage.

Ah, and Cerberus. Right. I created it in-game, so, probably? (Something I heard about Cerberus is that the three things have to be different things, not three of the same thing. Honestly, I created it without even knowing there was an achievement for it.)

And some others...

"Less time working" does not necessarily mean it was easier work.

They worked in my game. I've even run across a couple.

The most interesting thing I discovered last night, when I went through and 'dressed up' a bunch of my creatures for tribal, civ, and space, was that I suddenly had three new space races surrounding my planet, in the very next space-level game I loaded. I'm glad I only chose to do three of each, now...

Uh, as far as I can recall? I summoned her on TwoJeffs' Crystal Ball, most likely. (It's how I often find sim partners.) She seemed to marry in just fine fine, I've never used any engagement/marriage related cheats. I can't recall if I moved her in first, or if I moved in on marriage. It was pretty soon after installing FT (She married my CAS 'test' sim) so the details are a little ... forgotten. I do remember that she was a dance instructor, though I don't know if that makes a difference.

If there's a way to get to the center without ignoring your whiny colonies, I certainly haven't found it. (Ungrateful bastards. Do I have to do everything around here? Let the damned ecology collapse, I can repopulate it later. Spice raid? Let 'em have it, I won't be back before the storage space runs out, so I won't miss it.)

It's even worse when it's other colonies. Enemies calling to extort you, allies calling for help, or just to give you a random $10k (like you can even buy anything with that) etc.

I like cell stage. Two options: eat, and attack. Simple. Space is awesome, but occasionally annoying.

Woo, I just reached the center of the galaxy last night. That was hard. Ended up having to quickly jump from hostile system to hostile system to make it. Died twice. (Thankfully respawned at a nearby colony instead of my home colony, that would have been painful making that long trip again.)

If anyone has any tips on how to reach the next place (if you've hit the center you'll know what I mean), PM me. (I do have some idea regarding the general area, but it is a much larger area to search than 'the center of the galaxy', and with no helpful arrow...)

Actually, I've been hiding things myself. Case in point, Ockie:

All of his attack stats are 4 or 5. (I suspect they were all 5s in the pre-Spore creature creator) Also, it's not just things hidden under his hat, his hat is also a weapon. (A spitter, turned around)

Here's his deadlier cousin, Octagor:

Appearance-wise, he's just had a change of paint job. However, he now has 5s for the socials that don't require hands or feet, and has 5s for all styles of combat.
Right-click, save as to get an Octagor of your very own.

Okay, where's it hidden?

Gastfyr, I do recommend entering, it's a great way to stretch your building muscles. Prior to this, all my houses were a series of 4x4 boxes within larger, and suspiciously box-like, shapes. One house was craaazy, I used 4x5 boxes. Gasp!

Most of the things I've done in these houses (that kitchen/dining, for example) I had never done before. I never actually intended to share my July entry, it was just something I banged out at the end of the month because I was bored. If it comes down to it, you can muck about in there and keep it to yourself, as a kind of practice run.

I'm basically just throwing stuff together to see what works. (Personally I prefer my first pinkish-purple house entry to my second block of flats, but, I just wanted to see if I could build from the same house in two different ways.) It's fun, and I'm learning. Win/win!

Seriously. I find tribal and civilisation to be a bit of a drag, civilisation is a snap if you're economically based (finish tribal in blue), just keep trading and buying everyone else out, but it's hardly exciting. But, space? Totally worth it.

What I don't get is, if it's $50 US ($60 Aus) for the game, why does it cost $99.95 Aus ($83 US) for the exact same thing over here? (The 'galactic edition' crap is even more expensive, $139 Aus/$116 US)

Sure! Always up for more, filling the game out and such.

I've been uploading more things to my photobucket every couple of days myself, I've got two folders: One pre-Spore (all creature creator) and one post-Spore that also has things like buildings and vehicles.

A favourite from the latter is this fellow here: (He's just got a randomly generated name, Kwarisses, which I later changed to Kwarissus for no real reason.)


('Just crawled out of the ooze' version.)


('Final' version, pre-tribal.)

My reaction to the Sims 3 promotional stuff is only slightly less bored than my reaction to the Sims 2 promotional stuff, which is to say I never found Sims 2 all that impressive compared to Sims 1, until I played it. I am planning to give Sims 3 a chance, it's not like I've got anything to lose.

Also, I believe the 'one sim/household' rumour is garbled, and the truth of it is that you can only play one household at a time, but you can switch households whenever you feel like it, exactly as you can with Sims 2.

As to the original topic, in the family I started when I got FT, there are currently three generations. There's the deceased(old age) CAS sim and his elder ex-hobby-instructor widow, their three children, two just back from uni, while the third (and youngest) just hit elder on another lot, right before I installed AL. I play where I feel like, as it gives me a headache trying to keep the ages straight across different lots. (Especially as 'young elder' had a veritable clowncar of children, who I'll probably never play again after they graduate from uni...)

I have to admit, some of the Spore previews I saw were a tad underwhelming. (I won't lie though, I always intended to at least try the thing. I've never been easily won over by promotional garbage, nor lost by it. Stuff that makes it impossible to play the game legally, that makes me keep my money. Bought BV, it refused to run, claiming the CD in the drive was not the CD. Haven't bought another EA product since.) The game though, that's anything but. People may like/dislike different things about it, but there's definitely a lot to explore. Especially once you get out into space.

Every time I think of the space stage, I think of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. '"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."' (Yeah, I looked it up.)

Spore is also very customisable. Even I can make things in it. (I'm better at creatures, I had time to practice with the creator that was released earlier. I made a crappy Enterprise-based space ship, and was actually quite proud of it, until I noticed that there was already a better ship of similar design by Maxis.) And you can customise everything. Even the colour of the planet's land, sea, and sky. (May not be available on home planet, some tools aren't, but you can go to town on any colony planets you might have.) Honestly, you could sit around all day just creating things, if you felt like it. (Though that'd get dull quickly, for me.)

I love the early stage UFO visitors, the normal game play, but from the other side. Before I got to the space stage, I witnessed a couple of abductions and thought, gee, that looks cool. Never really thinking that I'd get to do that. I've got two races at the space stage, and I think I've got the hang of this terraforming business. (I transfomed a lava-world by my home system's sun into a T3, woo.)

The biggest time-saver I found when it comes to terraforming: You're given 10 each of three plants and three animals during the quest your home city gives you. (If you don't have them after going through the quest dialog, check your cargo bay has at least 6 spaces and try again.) You really only need to put one of each on the planet, it'll fill in the rest. That leaves 9 more of each, for 9 other planets. (Also, you can take as many plants/animals from worlds as you like, they'll repopulate.) Also, plants can be 'dropped', they'll be fine. Zip them out there. (So long as you're over land.) Animals can't, you need to be more careful when beaming them down. (When I beam something up - spice crates, etc - from within city limits, I inevitably beam up a few citizens. I just chuck them out. Heh.)

Yeah, I know what you mean. I don't remember what I did about it, probably sent her for a 'swim'. (In a pool with no ladder...)

I have occasionally wondered if other NPCs are afflicted similarly (I had a streaker once with the surname Johnson and I was tempted to marry him in, for the lulz) but, knowing my luck, they'd all be afflicted the same way: Llama furries. Bleh.

It's a known issue, and as far as I know there's no fix. I married in a cheerleader shortly after getting Uni, and she kept changing into the llama mascot suit. Bleh. It's because some of the NPC coding lingers, even though she was never a mascot herself. Cheerleaders and mascots are probably in the same NPC group, or something.

Best advice I've heard is to not marry them (cheerleaders, cow mascots, llama mascots) in, but, apart from the furryism, it seems relatively harmless. Just annoying.

Maybe she just didn't care? Heh. More likely EAxis didn't see fit to put in a 'positive' memory for that. How do you even get a negative relationship with a toddler, anyway?

I wonder though, if it would remember the last lot you moved a grave to?

To test this, I grabbed a random two sim EAxian bin-clogger family, the Picaso couple from FT, moved them into an apartment, killed one (Heh. I smote him, and his portrait in his wife's fear panel (fear he'll become a zombie, etc.) is all sooty.) and sent the grave off, saved, visited the cemetery with the remaining sim (and the grave was there) and then went back home to kill that one as well.

And, sure enough, there her grave was, in Central Park.

Thank you. They're kind of cute the first time, but since I've got three worlds in play at the moment (one each of omnivore, herbivore and carnivore) they were getting old. I don't need to see the 'find a mate' animation that many times. Seriously. (And to think I was wondering how to turn the cinematics back on in the Sims... No more.)

Other minor irritants:
Some of my pre-created creatures don't show up as playable, but I have encountered them on other planets during the space stage. Though it may just be that they're 'unevolved', and I was trying to start one at space level. But there's not much point in starting later anyway, as playing through earlier stages grants special abilities.
Those little easter-egg achievementy things? ("Yay, you didn't attack anyone as a cell!", and so on) Apparently to view your achievements you need to log in. (Badges earned in space mode are properly in-game, at least.)

I'm considering buying this one, just because the achievements thing bugs me. Those are my only issues, so far.

Edit: Well, I found my missing creatures. About a quarter of them went to the 'Downloads' menu, which was where I looked first, and the rest went to 'Everything'. Which is also filled with the 1.6k Maxis creations. I don't know why, and I wish they'd gone to 'My Creations' in the first place, but at least I found them.

Does the resurrection always result in a zombie? If so, it might be an 'evil' spell, thus unavailable to good witches. Also, if there is a good version of the spell (there should be, but this is EAxis...), check that the good witch has a high enough magic skill, and high enough alignment. ('Check abilities' on the spell book, skill and alignment are shown above the abilities list.)