《孢子》——人皆可為“造物主”！

Wendy家電腦“壽終正寢”的時候，2008年最受玩家期待的游戲正式出來了，忍不住傻笑著對裝機的人說：“至少要能玩《孢子》啊～”如果操縱一個人從生到死（甚至復活！）的感覺不夠過癮，如果操縱一家公司、一座城市乃至一個帝國的興衰成敗還讓你意猶未盡，現在整個地球都可以掌控在你一人的手里！對于游戲迷來說，只要機子趕得上升級，由《孢子》掀起的08-09年度“大牌游戲潮”是多么美好的事情啊……

Will Wright is literally[確實] interested in everything. Based on his conversation， he might be a biologist or an economist. In fact， he designs video games for a living. Wright is the inventor of The Sims， the revolutionary[革命性的] game in which actual humans control the lives of little simulated[模擬的] humans， making them go to work or fall in love or swim around in virtual[虛擬的]

swimming pools till they drown. The Sims is the

best-selling computer game of all time. Among game designers， Wright is considered a living god. Now he wants to make you a god too.

For the past seven years， Wright has been working on one of the most ambitious video games ever conceived[構想出]. The basic idea is to blow out The Sims to the horizon in all directions: this time you create and control an entire species. Guys， here comes the generation of Spore.

A comet crashes into Earth bearing organic[有機的] material from outer space. This represents an actual hypothesis[假設] of how life on Earth began， called panspermia[胚種論]， which Wright considers to be fairly plausible[可信的]. But that’s not why he put it in Spore. He put it in because it’s more fun than other hypotheses.

God rested after he created life， but you’re just getting started. Next you take care of your new life-form through its single-celled stage until it’s ready to crawl[爬] onto land， at which time you decide where its various eyes and ears and limbs and less easily identifiable[易于辨認的]

appendages[附屬肢體] go. Then it must learn to feed itself and reproduce. Eventually， it forms tribes and builds cities. Finally it achieves spaceflight， whereupon you guide it off into the galaxy to meet other species.

“A game like this can actually generate interesting， meaningful conversations between people，” Wright says. “I think that’s the best thing it can do.”

In The Sims， people told stories about their private lives. Spore should lend itself to very different kinds of narratives[敘述]. “I think Spore is going to be closer to Tolkien or Lucas or Kubrick注，” Wright says， “in terms of these very epic stories about the meaning of life and its destination.” What’s interesting about Wright is that he doesn’t have to be Tolkien or Lucas or Kubrick. He wants you to be. “I’m a little different from a lot of other game designers in that I’m never interested in trying to tell a story，” he explains.

“I’m much more interested in the players being able to tell stories.”

QA with Wright

Q: It’s been almost 20 years since you brought us SimCity. When did you realize that you were able to create something as vast as Spore?

A: I think it was The Sims that showed us the value of having the players in a more creative role [in the game]， able to create their own characters， their own houses. They got very emotionally connected to these experiences. With Spore， we went about giving players the next level of creative control. Almost everything that you see on screen in Spore at some point in the game the players will create and manipulate[操縱].

Q: What is your advice to people who sit down to the game and suddenly it’s seven hours later?

A: (laughs) You always hope eventually [the game] sparks someone to get off the computer and go find out more about global climate， or the history of civilization， or evolution， or astronomy[天文學]. Really， you’re playing with the toy version of something that’s a much deeper subject.

威爾·賴特真的對世間萬物都充滿興趣。聽他的談吐，（你會覺得）他或許是位生物學家或者經濟學家。事實上，他以設計游戲為生。賴特是《模擬人生》的發明者——這是一款具有革命性的游戲，人們在游戲中操控小型仿真人的生活，讓他們去工作，談戀愛，或在虛擬游泳池中盡情暢泳直到溺水為止。《模擬人生》是有史以來最暢銷的電腦游戲。在游戲設計師當中，賴特被尊為活神仙。現在，他想將你也變成一位造物主。

過去的七年里，賴特一直忙于一款人們能想到的、史上最野心勃勃的游戲。其基本構想是從各方面徹底超越《模擬人生》：這次你將要創造和操控整個物種。伙計們，《孢子》時代到來了！

一顆彗星撞擊地球，帶來了外太空的有機物質。這體現了現實世界中關于地球生命如何誕生的一種假想學說，即“胚種論”。賴特認為這種學說非常可信。但那不是他在《孢子》中融入這個學說的原因。