Creature Stage

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The Creature Stage is the second stage in Spore, and takes place in a third-person 3D format.

Overview Edit

The core mechanic of the Creature Stage is to gain DNA points by befriending or hunting other species, with the goal to increase the brain size of the player's creature. The Creature Stage ends when the creature reaches sapience and the player chooses to move on. The player has the ability to unlock creature parts that are useful for hunting or socialization; most creature parts have abilities useful to these strategies, and in addition, the creature has one consequence ability gained by the player's strategy in the Cell Stage. Each increase in brain size will gain one space to add a member to the player's pack (including befriended creatures). There is a maximum of three spaces. The creatures in the player's pack can make it easier to befriend or attack other creatures. The player can use this as part of a long-term goal for determining the consequence abilities in future stages, based on hunting or befriending other species, or a balance between the two.

Creature Parts Edit

Before playing this stage, the player has a chance to edit their cell into a proper creature, albeit with cell parts. The player can add legs or create a slug. The parts you choose for your creature will decide which base parts you unlock. Similarly, the base parts you use the most will increase your chances of unlocking an upgraded version of that part^{Source needed}.

If you're going for a particular look, you'll need to choose carefully. See each Parts section below for tables listing all the different parts and their DNA cost. More general information on limbs, eyes for sight, hands, weapons and accessories is given at their respective pages.

(Amphibious creatures or other such combinations are not possible, nor are subterranean or arboreal creature. There are no underwater portions of the game, except for the Cell Stage).

The abilities of the creature depend on the parts added in the Creature Editor. There are 4 combat abilities, 4 social abilities, and 5 movement abilities.

Combat Abilities Edit

• Bite: Damages target through a bite with low damage but fast cooldown.
• Charge: Usable only from range. Stuns target, and deals slight damage.
• Strike: Heavily damages all nearby enemies, but with a slow cooldown.
• Spit: Spits out a purple liquid. Usable at a range and in combat as long as the enemy is far enough away. Does damage over time and will also stun the target if it is attempting to charge.

Social Abilities Edit

• Sing: Makes the creature sing to the selected target.
• Dance: Makes the creature dance for the selected target.
• Charm: Makes the creature charm the selected target.
• Pose: Makes the creature pose for the selected target.

Other Abilities Edit

• Sight: Allows the creature to clearly see its surroundings.
• Jump: Allows the creature to jump, and to increase the jump, add better feet to it.
• Glide: Allows the creature to fly. Higher levels allow it to stay airborne longer.
• Sprint: Allows the creature to move faster for a short period of time.
• Sneak: Allows the creature to become invisible. Higher levels allow it to get closer to creatures before they see it.
• Mating Call: Allows the creature to call for a mate, or to call its nest to help navigate. If there are no creatures at your nest, the player can also use this to spawn one (for example, when trying to form a pack before migration).

Early Creature Creator parts Edit

Parts in the Early Creature Creator are the same parts that were available in the Cell Stage. When constructing a creature in the Creature Stage these parts are only available at the very beginning of the stage; if you have evolved your creature from the Cell Stage then only the parts that you unlocked in the Cell stage are available. The abilities the parts give in the Creature Stage are somewhat related to their function in the Cell Stage.

• Mouths - Grant Level 1 Bite and Sing abilities.
  • Filter Mouth - 15 DNA Points. Herbivore: allows the creature to eat fruit.
  • Jaw - 15 DNA Points. Carnivore: allows the creature to eat meat.
  • Proboscis - 25 DNA Points. Omnivore: allows the creature to eat both fruit and meat.
    

Note: If the player's creature has a mouth with a different diet to that which it gained via card at the end of Cell Stage (Carnivore with Proboscis or Filter Mouth, Herbivore with Proboscis or Jaw, or Omnivore with Filter Mouth or Jaw), it can have a different diet to the card, allowing the creature to eat food of any type, although this will not affect the different types of mouths it can gain as new parts.

• Movement
  • Cilia - 15 DNA Points. Grants Level 1 Jump ability.
  • Flagella - 15 DNA Points. Grants Level 1 Sneak ability.
  • Jet - 25 DNA Points. Grants Level 1 Sprint ability.
• Eyes - 5 DNA Points. Grant Sight ability.
  • Beady Eye - 5 DNA Points.
  • Stalk Eye - 5 DNA Points.
  • Button Eye - 5 DNA Points.
• Weapons
  • Spike - 10 DNA Points. Grants Level 1 Charge ability.
  • Poison - 15 DNA Points. Grants Level 1 Spit ability.
  • Electric - 25 DNA Points. Grants Level 1 Charm ability.
• Legs - 50 DNA Points. Grant Level 1 Speed.
  • Brawnysaurus
  • Phatella
  • Thundercalf

Hands Edit

Feet Edit

Limbs Edit

• Arms & Legs: One difference between the arms and legs are how they look. Another difference is the fact that legs must be touching the ground when placed in the Creature Editor. This is opposed to arms, which can be placed more freely.
• Each arm originally comes with a basic hand, while each leg comes with a basic foot. Neither adds any attributes and can be replaced as the game goes on. Each arm and leg segment has a complexity of 1.5 and a cost of 15 DNA. Thus any arm or leg with 2 segments has a complexity of 3 and DNA cost of 30; a limb with 3 segments will have a complexity of 4.5 and DNA cost of 45. The default graspers and feet have 0 complexity and cost 20. Note that you can only get the Exoskeletal Limbs by updating Spore. You may also add separate limbs to another to make it longer. Grab a limb and hold Ctrl and move the arm over the limb you want to add it to.

Eyes & Senses Edit

You can cover your creation with ears, antennae, eyeballs, pig snouts, and so on. The items that are placed in pairs are automatically arranged symmetrically. In fact, you can make a single pig nose split in half so that one nostril is on one side of your creature and the other nostril is on the other side. Just as with all the other items, you can adjust the angle and size of every eye, ear, nose, and mouth you place.

Weapons Edit

The first column is available in the free creature creator demo.

Mouth Edit

What mouths you can use is determined by your consequence trait from the cell stage.

• Note: Only Omnivores can use the Bot mouths.

Gaining DNA Edit

Creatures can deal with other species by befriending them or exterminating them. Some species are naturally hostile (red angry face) and cannot be befriended unless you use Siren Song. Every time a creature is befriended or killed your creature gains DNA. Once you have befriended 3 of the species or rendered them extinct, you will gain extra DNA. If you hunted those creatures they will become extinct and no longer appear in your game, if you befriended the creatures then if your brain is large enough you may recruit them for your pack. Either way, you may rest at the creatures' nest to restore health.

Eating eggs Edit

Another lesser-known way to gain DNA is by eating the eggs of other creatures. This also takes care of creatures hunger but almost always results in angering the nest you ate the egg from. For carnivores who do not want to kill all the surrounding creatures, they can eat eggs and run, which will give them DNA and keep any one species from becoming extinct. This makes it easy for carnivores to make friends while still maintaining their diet and only making one (or eating from an already hostile group) nest of enemies. Even herbivores can eat eggs and gain this benefit. Also by using this method you can effectively neither befriend or extinct any species and gain all your needed DNA through eggs by playing an egg eating race. High sneak and sprint, however, is useful for this method as creatures often attack you when they notice you eating their eggs.

Like killing a Baby Creature, stealing an egg will instantly put your relations at hatred if the creature is neutral or lower, causing the entire nest to attack you. However, if you befriend two creatures from the nest first, they will not attack you. (Do not befriend a third creature yet: that will ally you with the nest, and you won't be able to eat their eggs at all.)

Progression Edit

At some stage, the player's species will migrate to another part of the continent; reuniting with them is another way to gain DNA points.

After gaining a certain amount of DNA your creature's brain will increase in size. After the first increase in size, you can use social skills to persuade other creatures to join your pack. The maximum amount of creatures you can have in your pack increases by 1 each time your brain increases, near the end of the stage you can have 4 creatures in your pack (including yourself). After a creature's brain becomes big enough and they become sapient, the player can enter the Tribal Stage.

Also, as your creature's brain gets bigger, their maximum health level will increase, allowing them to survive fights against tougher creatures. They also appear to grow larger.

Each time you get closer to the end of Creature Stage different animals become stronger and have more to kill.

Befriending Edit

To start with, you cannot befriend a species with a red face relationship unless you use Siren Song, the consequence ability of Herbivores, on them. It may not change the face, but until they stop dancing to the music, you can socialize them to yellow face. Your relationship must be an orange face or higher if you do not have Siren Song. This can be accomplished by hunting many creatures of the species very quickly, changing the red face to shocked face (Mouse over the creature to see your relationship with the species). To begin, enter the social stance, select the creature you want to befriend, and then click again on it or use a social ability. A semicircle divided by bars will appear, with the relationship of the species above it. The creature will then sing, dance, charm, or pose, depending on their level of that ability, and fill up section(s) of the semicircle in purple on the right side. You must then copy them (or use a different ability if it is significantly higher) to fill the semicircle on the left side in purple. Once the two bars meet at the center or on the right side, that creature is befriended. From now on, that creature will have a yellow star around the relationship face. Befriending alphas will give you a new part, but that is harder. When you have befriended 1, the relationship face will be yellow for neutral, 2 is blue for friendly, and 3 is green for allied. Impressing a befriended creature will add it to your pack if you have empty slots. Rogues will give you 100 DNA if you succeed in befriending them and it is recommended in some cases that you get one into your posse as they tend to have very high socialization abilities. Epic creatures can only be befriended if you befriend the normal version of the Epic creature. Lastly, if you keep your pack until you advance to the tribal stage (right after creature stage), they will become your pets that will give you food in tribal stage.

Events Edit

Sometimes in Creature Stage, one of several events may occur. Major events cause a more intense version of the battle music to play, and nearby creatures will flee in terror.

• Epic Creature attack

• Meteor Shower - This happens just before the middle of the Stage. There will be a flash on the screen, and a large meteor will fall to the ground, and when it crashes it will break into pieces, which rain down on the planet. Other creatures will run around in terror. This appears to have no visible effect on the planet, but if a meteorite hits your creature, you will be stunned for a while. BUT, if the large meteor hits your creature, nothing happens. If you want to see for yourself, wait for the meteor shower then pause the game and find it in the sky. Make sure you have fast feet and use sprint, no matter how far away it looks. You will know a meteor shower is starting if creatures suddenly jump and start running around in fear.

• UFO - This happens at the end of the Stage. A UFO will appear in the sky. It may be one of your UFOs, a Maxis UFO, UFOs made by other players, or even a Grox spaceship. Nevertheless, it will fly around and may abduct other creatures or plants. Be careful, as it may try to abduct one of your pack members. Other creatures will run in panic, which may interrupt you if you are socializing. The creature you are controlling can be abducted, but only get pulled up, not actually get inside the ship. Click on the spaceship to add it to the sporepedia.
• Rain - rare graphical effect in the Creature and Tribal Stages. You can see rain, lightning and hear thunderclaps when it is raining. Sunbeams may travel through the clouds. Apart from this, it has no other effect. Creatures sometimes run to shelter underneath trees. In Spore Galactic Adventures, it is possible to add rain as an effect to planets in the Adventure creator from the Effects menu. There are two kinds of rain: rain and rain clouds. Regular rain adds constantly falling rain to the adventure, whereas raincloud will add clouds with rain falling from them. Many players prefer the latter as regular rain can fall inside buildings, and appears to 'move' with the camera, making it look rather artificial.

Sights Edit

• Natural Landmarks
• Creature levels - Creatures of many sizes, from baby to epic
• Cocoons - Strange cocoons creatures enter that hatch into more advanced creatures.
• Drinking creatures - Sometimes a creature will go to a body of water and touch it with their mouths as if drinking.
• Sleeping creatures - Sometimes certain creatures sleep, and if woken, angrily snap at the player's creature.
• Non-nesting creatures - Some creatures don't appear to have nests, some roam solitary, while others run about in packs.
• Rotting food - If meat or fruit has been lying around too long, they become rotten, attracting flies, and emitting odor in the form of a green gas effect.

Strategy Edit

Creature creator Edit

• If you start from the Cell Stage, you can choose your creature's diet in the Early Creature Creator. At the very end just put a Carnivore and Herbivore Mouth on whilst in the Early Creature Creator, don't remove them and you will become an Omnivore even if you were previously an Herbivore or Carnivore (the trait card remains, though). Alternatively, give yourself a proboscis, perhaps with a reduced size to hide it under a visible mouth part.
• Try to use up all the DNA points in the Early Creature creator because whatever DNA you don't use in the early creator is lost, this way you can take off all of the extra parts you got and have extra DNA points to use in the creature editor.
• Removing joints from limbs so that they become double-jointed saves a lot of DNA. You can do this by holding Ctrl and clicking the joint closest to the foot.
• 5 DNA points can be saved by keeping an eye from the Cell Stage and not trading in for an eye from this stage. All eyes have equal functionality.
• When in the editor, try to remember when you can't afford a more advanced part to replace another, that you'll gain DNA points by selling the older part.
• Near the end of the stage, remove the eyes outright. If you can have two or three pack members, your range of vision isn't actually decreased by that much, and the extra DNA can mean the difference between low-level parts and high-level parts in a pinch. In fact, just before you evolve to Tribe stage, about the only noticeable difference is the lack of color.

Finding parts Edit

• Different body parts are found in Bone Piles scattered around the world.
• If you have a certain part on your creature, newly discovered parts are more likely to be an evolved version of the parts your creature currently has. For instance: if you want more mouth choices, choose a low-level mouth and then look for bone piles to find evolved versions of that mouth.
• Befriend or kill Alpha creatures of different creature types.
• If you happen to come across a crashed alien ship, there are usually strong parts nearby.
• Use the Sneak ability to steal from an Epic creature's giant bone pile. Epics cannot detect sneaking creatures, no matter how close.

Surviving Edit

• When your creature is hungry and you can't find food, return to the nest and mate. Your offspring's hunger bar will be completely full.
• When meteors fall from the sky, don't run around in circles -- watch for the shadows and avoid them.
• Swimming too far out into the ocean results in instant death, courtesy of the sea monster. Look for when the water becomes darker on the minimap to avoid such a fate.
• If your creature has hands, they can pick food from tall trees, or pick up items and throw them. Sticks do nothing but annoy the creature you throw them at (even your own species), while shells and rocks will stun them for a little while. You can save some throwing items by placing them at your nest. If the tree happens to be too tall, then pick up a stick and throw it at the fruit.

Socializing Edit

• The further into the Creature Stage you go, the more you'll notice that when trying to socialize with another creature, they'll call their other members to socialize with them. An easy way to stop this is to just walk near the creature you want to socialize. Notice how they walk away if you get too close. Use this to "push" them away from their nest to socialize with them more easily.
• Not as powerful as Rogues but more powerful than the average creature are Alphas. They have 25% extra health compared to normal creature and may attack harder as well. It takes one more turn to socialize with an Alpha than with a normal creatures. Alphas of your own species can only be found at new nests after migration or other nests that aren't your home.
• Socialize and hunt in turns of one generation. Put lots of socializing parts on your creature and convince a few powerful allies to follow you. Rogue creatures would be ideal for this, but getting them into your pack is fairly difficult. Once they are in your pack they can be used for some serious warfare. Now you need to get ready for hunting by evolving from a singer into a killer. Once again optimize your creature for killing. Your pack will still follow you after you hatch. With enough DNA, you can evolve a creature level 5 in both killer and social.
• If you are a herbivore with a lot of DNA but no new body parts, buy weapons or health parts; you never know if a moving pack of predators might find you and attack.
• Remember that by using Siren Song if you are a herbivore, you can neutralize creatures that feel negatively toward you, and make it much easier to ally rogues, however you will need to use it again to get them in your pack. Siren Song also lets you befriend hostile creatures. Test it if you do not believe this.
• The Siren Song doesn't just help with socialization, but if your creature is about to be killed, you can use siren song which will stop your enemies from killing you, giving you enough time to flee from them or ally with them.
• Avoid creatures with the angry red face -- species that hate yours for no reason (or because in the past you killed a baby of the species or ate an egg). Instead, look for those you can have a better relationship with.
• Always look for Rogues, they are invaluable with high-end socializing. Plus, if an angry creature attacks the Rogue, he can take far more hits than any other creature save an Epic.
• Try to socialize with creatures who have many weapon parts. If the creature has too many weapon parts, there may be little room for social parts making the creature easy to ally with. While you won't gain much DNA, it will make an easier social game or it will add more powerful creatures to your pack.
• The Omnivore consequence ability Summon Flock can help when befriending. Pack members also help, depending on what level socialization parts they possess.

Fighting Edit

• A good way to enter a fight is to use Spit at your target, then wait for them to come within a reasonable distance, then hit them with a Charge and follow up with a Strike and a Bite. You're less likely to miss the Charge because your target is coming straight at you. If the animal has wings, the charge can miss if they jump and fly. Spit rarely misses, because sometimes it will go in a zigzag pattern instead of a normal pattern. You can also lure an enemy to your nest using Spit, and your species will kill them for you.
  • This is a useful strategy for killing epics, which give a large amount of food and DNA points.
• If your target is running away, use your spit ability to provoke them to attack. Also, spitting at a creature that is trying to fly away will temporarily disable its ability to fly (for about 5-10 seconds or so).
  • When using spit, remember that it helps to be on the same terrain level as your target.
• When a creature comes charging at you, spit at it and it will slow down, and the charge will not hurt you.
• To kill a creature stronger than you, lure it close to your home nest, spit at it, sprint to your nest and the other members of your species will help you quickly kill it.
• Alpha creatures will give you new parts and will have a star depending on the level of the creature and will give a part depending on the star number (a level 3 star gives a level 3 part etc) the numbers go from 1 to 5.
• Take advantage of a UFO event to take on strong creatures are too distracted and frightened to fight back.

Fleeing Edit

• Sprint, Sneak, Jump, and Glide are good for getting out of tough situations.
• When fleeing from a battle, switch to "Social" stance, pause the game, and double click on your members. When you un-pause the game, your creature will beckon its pack members to follow it, and they will run away from the fight.

Preparing for the Tribal Stage Edit

• When your evolution bar is full, you can still get DNA points for allying or killing a species, but the amount you receive will be substantially reduced.
• When you reach the Tribal Stage, your creatures will sometimes use their natural abilities to fight, so attach the strongest fighting abilities you can when you're about to evolve, but don't get rid of social abilities, they can help a lot in allying rival tribes. Furthermore, in Spore Galactic Adventures all natural abilities are used, so a balance might be useful.
• Any animals of another species a player has in his/her Pack at the time they evolve to the Tribal Stage will automatically start out as domesticated animals. This might save a small amount of time at the start as the player doesn't need to domesticate animals if he takes them from the Creature Stage.
• When your species evolves into a tribe, it will not matter much what mouth you have, fruits are abundant and easy to gather, meat needs to be hunted, eggs (from pets) are for both and if a herbivore fishes at a fishing spot they will collect seaweed instead.
• Find a nest near the ocean (but not on the shore) before you advance into the Tribal Stage. This is extremely useful later in Civilization Stage and also useful in Tribal Stage.

Consequence Abilities Edit

The following table lists the consequence abilities given by the different types of victory in the Creature Stage.

Creature Stage Achievements Edit

Hidden achievements Edit

• Cerberus - Evolve a creature with three heads.
• General Custer - Lead 30 posse members to their deaths.
• Slugger - Finish Creature Stage without ever evolving legs.

Notes Edit

Trivia Edit

• The Creature Stage icon resembles a Willosaur.
• With each brain increase, it can be compared to periods in Earth's history. The start of the level can be compared the Paleozoic era, the first increase the Mesozoic era (with epic creatures, which normally appear at this stage, representing dinosaurs, and if you're large you could represent crocodilians or early birds), the second increase the Cenozoic era, and the final increase within the last few million years.
• You might find creatures that live on hilltops and are hard to get to. Try coming back with high jump and fly skills.
• The size of a creature doesn't matter if they were made huge in the creator. The size of the creatures you see are based on how evolved they are.
• When you evolve into tribe stage, the cinematic and music that plays are both a reference to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• Epics seem to disappear after the meteor shower (a reference to the KT event). Occasionally new epics will appear.
• There seems to be no concept of separate genders in Creature Stage. All creatures seem to be able to lay eggs. However, in the Space Stage, some members of your species will have male voices, while others have female.
• There was a large argument over letting the player enter a sexual mating game in which they would have to seduce and impregnate another member of their species. This was also carried onto a smaller debate on allowing players to obtain new creature parts and skills through cross-breeding with other species.
• Sometimes if you evolve a creature without legs it will seem much bigger than the other creatures in your nest.

See Also Edit

• Environment
• Habitat
• Creature
• List of Creatures in the Creature Stage
• Reproduction
• Creature stage images
• DNA Points
• Nests
• Procedural verb
• Creature editor
• Creature levels

External Links Edit

• E3 Spore Presentation

• 2001 Ape Scene This also has a monolith in it, which in the space stage you can shoot down to other planets to increase the intelligence of its tribes. Later on, the ape learns to use the bone as a weapon, as does your creature with a stick when you evolve to the Tribal Stage.

• My Spore Guides A collections of guides and videos for different stages of Spore

Gallery Edit

Rain in Creature Stage

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