Spore is a game developed by Maxis, published by Electronic Arts in 2008 and Released on PC & Mac. This game was ahead of its time, when it came to mixing and mashing together many different concepts. Other games had to struggle with this concept where Spore evolved and dominated this space for games.
Spore spliced together Sci-Fi, Life Simulation, Action, Real-Time Strategy, and Colony Management game this was a cut above the rest and even still stands today as one of the most innovative games of the early 2000’s.
In this game, you start as a single-celled organism where you can choose to become either an herbivore, carnivore or omnivore. This choice will give you the opportunity on how you would like to move on with your evolution. As you feed and grow, your small single-celled brain will be given the chance to do more complex tasks.
As you move up the evolution chain you will eventually go to dry land where all the fun begins. You will start to hunt or gather genetic material from other creatures bolstering your own herd. As evolution is a non-stop process your animal herd will turn into a tribe with the same purpose hunt and evolve and as their progression will become more civilized. When your colony modernizes they will eventually be able to explore the deep recess of space.
Much like Spore, these games on the list carry with it some of the aspects of that game that are more detailed and have richer focused concepts in their design.
1) Civilization VI
Civilization VI is a 2016 installment of the Sid Meir’s Civilization game franchise developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K Games. This turn-based strategy game lets you take control of a civilization that starts fairly basic but not entirely stone-age.
You control the progress of your small settlement that will eventually grow and expand into a bustling metropolis. In this growth, you will find multiple ways to progress either by capturing lands and growing your territory, while establishing your nation’s intellectual growth by making wonders and understanding how to modernize the mundane process of daily life.
As growth and expansion bloom so do the competition, as a leader you would need to interact with other nations may it be political or by warfare this adds a great dynamic on how you progress with your civilization in this great strategy game.
2) Universe Sandbox
Universe Sandbox is a unique interactive and educational universe simulation game that lets you create a universe to learn and understand how space and all its mysteries can be both beautiful in design and intimidating by nature.
This game provides an experience of learning and a way to understand things by experiencing the moment as it happens, especially for visual learners and if you want to have that experience at first hand you can play this game on VR.
In this game, you are able to explore many possibilities on how planets or interstellar bodies react to one another, or what would it look like, for example how stars are born and how they would eventually turn into a black hole. So if you are filled with wonder and curiosity about how the universe works this would be a great game for you.
3) Natural Instincts
Natural Instinct is a type of simulation game that lets the player guide animals and help them go about their day from finding food to drinking water and even reacting accordingly to the presence of humans.
This game was developed by DreamStorm studios and published by Games Operators. This game is certainly unique in its charm, a sort of zoo environment-themed game but instead of a zoo, it is in nature instead. Tackle challenges and observe animals in their habitat while guiding them in the best possible way to survive.
In this game, the animals will be running free while near human settlements which means roads and other man-made dangers will be encroaching in the animal’s habitat. This is where you would need to assist them in their survival by giving them hints and guiding them to help them live their natural life while they live as nature intended.
4) Niche – a genetics survival game
Niche is a turn-based survival game with the idea of genetics and breeding at its core. The objective of the game is to survive, and the way to do that is through genetic breeding. So, that your creatures would have a better chance of adapting to the many threats from the world, natural predation to adapting to the current climate of the biome.
This indie game from Stray Fawn Studio is mainly a survival game with the concept of picking the right genes to ensure the survival of the species. By picking and choosing the right genes to deal with threats like predators, you may choose to develop offensive traits or evolve to live and migrate to a different biome to avoid the threat altogether.
The Choices made in this game determine, if the species goes extinct or not. That choices made may be detrimental to the survival of your species by choosing different genes that improve against threats from other creature may not be good against surviving nature itself is just as an example of different ways to ensure survival.
You will have a lot of fun understanding which niche of survival is the best one for each scenario in this cute but challenging game.
5) Flotsam
Flotsam is a post-apocalyptic survival management game that lets you take control of a colony at sea collecting debris such as plastic bottles or wooden planks with this, you will start to build your small floating colony and sail the seas in search for survivors or other materials.
Developed by Pajama Llama Games and released on early access on multiple game stores like Steam and GOG that is currently available to play on PC. The game is simple to understand and manage just keep your people fed and hydrated and everything will be ok.
As your colony grows so does your people’s needs, so you will need to sail across the seas and begin your scavenging of fresh materials and building and growing your sea fearing colony in this water world themed survival game.
6) ARK: Survival Evolved
Ark: Survival Evolved is a survival game that was worked on by four developers that embarked on the creation of a game with such magnitude which are Studio Wildcard, Instinct Games, Efecto Studios, and Virtual Basement.
They created this game that both have soft tones like base building, resource gathering, dinosaur taming and breeding, and hard tones on its combat aspects like Warfare, hunting, and waging war on other players, that also comes with its deep lore and mysteries to uncover.
You awake on a mysterious island with a small implant on your forearm and as you get your bearings you will come across many different creatures that have been far long extinct. To survive you will need to gather the essentials like food, water, shelter, and warmth.
As you play the game you will learn to tame the wild animals and dinosaurs on the island and create your base of operations you may also utilize their natural abilities to work in your favor either for gathering resources or producing some of the materials needed for crafting.
As you and your base grow in technology starting from thatch to wood and eventually metal workings and automation, letting you or your friends become the undoubted alphas of the island as you dominate the ARK.
7) Jurassic World Evolution
This game lets you be the park owner of a new Jurassic Park in the hopes of succeeding were previous owners of the park failed catastrophically. Using the originally developed system of taking DNA and splicing it with modern animals, births new dinosaur life in this dino theme park simulation game.
Developed by Frontier Development this latest installment of the Jurassic Park game franchise provides a lot more in-depth features previous park mangers of the same theme.
You will be managing 3 things this time around, Science and Development which improves the genetics part of the park, to create new life from old recovered DNA, Park themes and entertainment is the “theme park” side of things where creating attractions for tourists and making money is the primary need of this department and last but not least
Security which provides a level of insurance when it comes to creating more dangerous and more energetic dinosaurs preventing their escape and make sure that the horror of the past doesn’t come back and bite you in Jurassic Park.
Final Thoughts
As said Spore created a benchmark of creativity and simulation that have complex mechanics that is delivered in an easy to understand way. So these selections of games may not be an exact comparison they do maximize one or two of specific aspects of Spore that makes them really interesting to play.
So, if you have played spore before or have heard of it, these games may give you that feeling of creating and caring for life, while surviving the unforgiving whims of luck and nature.
Do you like our Games Like Spore list?
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So, in order to appreciate our effort we are expecting your opinions in return. Do, kindly reply with which of the above games like Spore has attracted you more.
