this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2026
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@hactar42
I always wanted to play Spore, but I never have.
Have a look at Thrive, it's still in development but the first couple of stages are playable.
I really like that the project is FLOSS and made in godot: https://github.com/Revolutionary-Games/Thrive
It was actually a pretty fun game, and if I recall correctly, eventually free. You might actually be able to find it online somewhere.
Although I’m not entirely sure if you wanna call it a game, per se… It was more like an evolution engine wherewith you got to experiment with different traits combinations, and eventually end up with an evolved creature of sorts. Interesting and amusing.
It seemed like something one might find in a fifth grade biology class as a teaching tool. But fun!
It was supposed to be an evolution engine. That’s how they developed it and how the tech demos and marketing pushed it.
But then it ended up being simplified and gamified so much that it basically didn’t matter what you did, so the only fun part was making your creatures look like penises.
LMAO— ok, true…
But I actually bought the game (yes, once upon a time people used money and exchanged it for software) and the original version was just the evolution engine. There was actually some controversy at the time that the game didn’t actually contain any “game“. Eventually, further updates turned it into the “penis creation engine“ you described.
But who doesn’t love a lovely, well designed penis?
It really was a shame that they never turned it into a “best designed penis competition” game. I believe I would’ve been very good at that.
I was there, I bought it too. At release it was already dumbed down so much that it did not live up to the expectations from the tech demos.
Thrive is very much a spiritual successor to those tech demos.
The game was hobbled in development. I remember reading the early development stories and stuff as it was being made and they wanted to make a serious evolution sim. EA basically forced them to make it a light hearted kiddie game and so it pretty much died on release.
I mean it was extremely popular, got a sequel, and remains one of the top pirated games to this day
There is no spore sequel?
Darkspore is the sequel
Didn't know THAT was a thing. Not gonna lie it looks pretty rad.
@eurodyne
Yeah, it sounded so cool, but reading reviews they always make it sound like it wasn't much fun and didn't live up to it's potential.
It absolutely did not live up to its potential. It could’ve been a lot more, and that was very clear every time you played the game. But what could it have been? Even the game creators didn’t really know in what direction to take it. They created something very interesting, but had no real path to develop it into an actual game. It was just an interesting novelty, and that’s what they released. An interesting novelty.
Still, though, it was fun to play with.
It really reminds me of no man’s sky
It's definitely worth at least one playthrough. You'll likely do a few replays.
Easy, casual, like a linear sandbox for lack of better terms.
It wasn’t and it didn’t. Cool concept, primitive execution.
You can buy at gog : https://www.gog.com/en/game/spore_collection
I did recently, got nightmares from it.
HA, I just thought the same thing!