Spore. Best games for kids – have fun and learn!

We can make any creature we want, and their anatomy counts.

Genre: life simulator

Target audience: an eight-year-old accustomed to video games will easily cope with Spore, a game mainly addressed to young people fascinated by biology and evolution of species.

Spore is a game released in 2008 and developed by Maxis, headed by Will Wright – one of the most recognized visionaries of electronic entertainment. Wright – being on the rise after the undeniable success of his previous game, The Sims 2 – upped his game by making a game that was not only revolutionary, but also evolutionary.

Evolution is not a cheap marketing trick here: it's the foundation of the entire gameplay. In Spore, the player takes control of a living organism and is accompanied by five stages of the species' existence: the cellular phase (controlling a single cell); the creature phase (the protagonist becomes a multicellular creature moves on land); the tribal phase (creatures unite into competing tribes); the civilization phase (races under the player's leadership must dominate the planet); and the space phase (unlimited exploration of countless planets with their own life).

Life is a struggle for survival.

Each phase offers a completely different gameplay – for example, the creature phase consists of meeting members of other species or... devouring them to get new evolutionary improvements for our specimen; at the stage of civilization, we have to conquer the planet by means of military force, religious or economic dominance. However, everything here is tailored to younger audiences – from graphics, to elements of fantasy violence, to complexity of the gameplay mechanisms. A great asset is also the advanced, though easy-to-use creature wizard that allows you to create animals of various shapes, sizes, colors, and with any set of claws, teeth, wings, and the like.

Despite the age rating, the game can easily be enjoyed by older players, too. Because Spore, despite the avalanche of criticism that swept immediately after the premiere, is an ambitious game with undeniable educational qualities, which is simply incredibly fun.