Spore/Cell Stage



The cell stage is the first part of your spore journey and plays a lot like Pac-Man. The goals are simple; 'Eat or be eaten' and find parts to upgrade your cell.

Start of Life
A comet crashes into the ocean of a small planet. The rocks are displaced everywhere and out of one comes your cell. The first choice is to pick a carnivore or a herbivore mouth then your ready to start eating and amassing DNA points.

Cell Editing

 * For more information see Spore/Cell Editor

You can edit your cell at any time you want if you have enough DNA Points. To edit a cell, click on the 'Call Mate' button on your screen and then follow the sound of another cell. Swim up to the cell and then you can enter the Cell Editor.

Food and DNA Points
Depending on if you chose carnivore or herbivore, you will eat that corresponding food, obviously. While swimming around, eat the food and it will give you points as you go. Look below to see advantages and disadvantages to each approach.

Objects
When first entering the tide pool it seems quite empty, with just a few cell or plant bits floating around and some blurred large shapes in the background. However, this soon changes after you've eaten enough food to grow a little.

Now the tide pool starts to come alive a bit, with many other cells interacting with each other. By hovering the cursor over cells you can get more detailed information about the cell, including its creator (currently only Maxis, as cells cannot be shared via Sporepedia) and some of its vital statistics.

Part of the aim of the phase is to unlock parts for your cell, which can be achieved usually by killing a cell that has the part(s) you lack, or letting another cell do it for you) or by retrieving the fairly rare meteor fragments that are also in the tide pool.

Other than this, you may occasionally bump into obstacles. These can be bubbles, which pop but slow you down a little, or transparent rock-like obstacles and later on, shells.

Archetype Benefits
Below is a list of the possible advantages a player can get depending on their personality through the game. Some are part omnivore and part herbivore or a full herbivore or another combination.


 * Bard — soothing song — all your enemies stop attacking you for a period of time
 * Ecologist — safari vacuum — sucks up plants and creatures in a planet
 * Zealot — fanatical frenzy — Take over every structure in a planet
 * Diplomat — static cling — all turrets and vehicles in a planet gets frozen
 * Scientist — gravitation wave — destroys all structures on a planet
 * Trader — cash infusion — automatically take over any planet that has a trade route with you
 * Shaman — return ticket — beams back to home planet
 * Warrior — pirate rally — summons pirates to attack a planet
 * Knight — summon mini-U — Summons a mini version of your spacecraft.

Carnivore
Carnivores are meat eaters; therefore they cannot eat plant chunks (green). The advantage is that, unlike herbivores, their mouths can be used as a crude weapon against other cells. Carnivores can either eat up meat chunks, or kill another cell, which then splits into several meat chunks. It is possible to complete this stage without killing another cell, but it is much harder to do so.

If the cell remains a carnivore until the end of the cell phase then it will carry this characteristic, and the consequence abilities it gives, into subsequent phases

Herbivore
Herbivores are plant eaters; therefore they can only eat the floating green pieces, or feed off of one of the arms off one of the larger green 'plants'.

Because herbivores are more inclined towards a passive nature their mouths cannot be adequately used for defence. However, herbivores, like all cells, can make use of spikes as an attack/defence mechanism.

If the cell remains a herbivore until the end of the cell phase then it will carry this characteristic, and the consequence abilities it gives, into subsequent phases

Omnivore
Spore doesn't provide you with the option to be an omnivore from the beginning, but by adding a herbivore and carnivore mouth to your creature it allows you to eat both types of food.

Later on in the phase you may discover the proboscis, which allows you to 'suck' nutrients out of anything you happen to bump into. The main difficulty with this option is that you need to play a careful balancing act for your cell to finish the phase as an omnivore.

If the cell remains a omnivore until the end of the cell phase then it will carry this characteristic, and the consequence abilities it gives, into subsequent phases