Aquatic Stage

The Aquatic Stage was a stage that was originally going to be included in Spore, but did not make it to the final game. However, this does not exclude the possibility of an Expansion pack or patch to add this stage to the game.

During the SXSW 2007 demo, Will Wright said that the underwater phase was on the verge of being cut out. He also said that, if cut, the aquatic stage would be one of the first things to add via an expansion pack.

Creatures
In the Aquatic stage the creatures were going to be fish, amphibians, and reptiles. The creatures could be covered with tentacles, fins, and other such parts like in the Creature stage. The parts you would put on your creature would affect its personality. For example, if you were to put on a lot of weapon parts, your creature would be aggressive, and if you were to put on a lot of social parts, your creature would be friendly. It is unclear if there would have been Epic fish similar to the Epic Creatures in the creature stage. The Sea Monster could have been one of these " Epic Fish ". Carnivores, just like in the creature stage, would be able to hunt and kill other fish, while herbivores could eat algae or seaweed. Also, like the current Creature Stage, omnivores could do both.

In GonzagoGL's (who is a prototype Spore Creature) files, when one looks under its Data sub-file, then clicks on the Models sub-file, there is a file called Underwater, and inside that are some odd sub-files, including (by exact name), jelly fish, rare fish, swimming tripod, underwater flora, underwater rock, underwater rock small, and whale; this matches the animals seen in the 2005 E3 movie of Spore, and the "Unidentified Creatures" article in Spore wiki.

Terrain
In the aquatic stage, there was going to be a vast world with giant underwater mountains, deep trenches, underwater plains and hills, and the like. There were going to be underwater ruins as well.

Underwater Worlds
There was even a proposed underwater world, with an underwater civilization and vast underwater landscapes. Since this stage didn't make it to the full game, these planets did not make it either. More concept art and early beta-ingame screenshots here: Sporeinsiders

Underwater Civilizations
When Spore was being developed, underwater civilizations were proposed. As in the Tribal stage, you would be able to place your village underwater to start an underwater tribe. In the Civilization stage, you would be able to make underwater cities, which could produce submarine-like vehicles. It is unknown if being able to make your spaceship dive underwater was ever considered. The underwater cities and the idea of villages didn't make it to the full game due to animation problems. You can, with terraforming, put tribes underwater, but they just swim.

Despite some rumors to the contrary, aquatic civilizations do not exist in Spore. All civilizations are land-based and all cities are built on land. However, Will Wright has hinted that underwater civilizations may appear in an as-yet uncompleted expansion pack. It is, however, possible to build vehicles that travel over seas.

These rumors come from an old video created by Spore on YouTube where, as they build a city in a bubble in space, the player says that "about this time we could build cities in these bubbles underwater". This was removed however due to it not working with the mechanics of the game. If a city was underwater it could not be attacked, traded with or converted; thus the game would break at Civilization stage.

There is no way to go underwater again once cell stage is finished, with the exception of sea vehicles. You can swim in the Creature stage, but going too far from shore will result in being killed, because the Sea Monster will attack your creature. It has no effect on the overall game, however. Sometimes in the space stage you can flood tribes and/or creatures, although it does not kill them, by way of the Sea Monster or drowning.

Reasons for removal of Aquatic Stage

 * Problems with animation.
 * Problems with navigation since you are in a 3 dimensional space.
 * Problems with camera calculating
 * Possible errors in alpha textures (this partly lead to the navigation problem as well)
 * Possibilty that the movement controls would be too much like the space stage

Interviews
There is an interview with Ocean Quigley, the art director of Spore about the Aquatic stage in the Spore:the Evolution book. Originally, there was going to be an underwater level before you got onto land, a sort of fish level. We even prototyped it, and it was shown in the storyboards at GDC, but ultimately we decided to bail on it. The main reason was navigation. In the Cell game, you were operating in a 2-D space, essentially navigating on a plane. In the Creature game, the ground acts as a plane. But in the underwater game, you were in a volume, where you would have to navigate in 3-D. So navigation put the kibosh on the underwater game, even though our early prototypes looked pretty nice, with shafts of light spearing through the water and some nice underwater effects. But this was abandoned and now we go directly from the Cell game to the Creature game.

This has been widely criticized on Spore Forums(like the Sporum) because the spaceship also navigates in a volume, and most fans say the same navigation system would work for an aquatic stage. Alteratively, mouse movement and/or camera angle could be used, similar to in air combat games.

Expansion
If an expansion is released that includes the aquatic stage, then integrating it into the game will be complicated. If the stage is released, then a player could have an equal number of different-colored consequence cards. To resolve this issue, Maxis may make it a choice of what philosophy you want in the space stage if this occurs. Another problem involves what would happen when a space faring race plays the game. Will the slot for the stage simply be empty? Also, in the editors there is an early creature editor. When the expansion is bought, will there be a cell editor and a modification to the early creature editor to produce a sea creature editor? A way to solve this issue is to simply merge the aquatic stage with the creature stage. This way, the player may choose freely whether they'll stay in the water, or move to land. Until now, no expansion has been confirmed. However, an expansion containing the aquatic stage is highly anticipated by Spore fans. For now, it is only fair to say that if there is an aquatic stage for Spore, it will most likely come in a sequel to Spore, along with a large array of other features/stages.

Trivia

 * Aquatic Stage may be a reference to the prehistoric seas of Earth.
 * There are many user made Adventures much like the Aquatic stage, which can be found on Sporepedia.
 * The Aquatic Stage was actually not an individual stage, but rather a portion of the Creature Stage.