Space, the Final Bit

Sporous thoughts. Rushed too fast at the game and got up into space. I always wondered how a game-that-was-4-games would play, and I guess my initial instinct that it would alienate almost everyone at least somewhere along the line was right, at least in the very limited sample of one that I have to hand. In converstion (ie, I have never checked the reference) I would evoke Stephen Hawking and his publisher's (?)injunction that he remove as many equations as possible from A Brief History of Time because his audience would halve each time one appeared. I kind of thought that the same would be true of a shift in gameplay control or focus, and I do have radically different responses to each of the parts so far. Cell level is pretty and relaxing, but feels fairly pointless to me, although my 7 year old daughter is a fan. Next stage was interesting enough as I boogied and waggled my butt to get through without getting violent once (and it was fun to play through with the junior game critic that is my daughter). The Civilised stage was a pushover as I tankrushed the planet, but with religous texts blaring from loudspeakers on my Converto-Wagon. Somehow I have gone interstellar as an evangelical godsquad herbivore, which is certainly playing against type. I'll see if I can dig up some screenshots and add in a while, but I am aware that I rushed the design side, which is where the real glory of the tools rest. Having helped aformentioned daughter (who, come to think about it is perhaps slightly overexposed to games) in MySims for the Wii it was all very familliar, but slightly more adult. Closer to Duplo than Mechano, and a long way from Maya, Max, or even SketchUp, but interesting enough to twiddle with if I wasn't being such a gamer in a hurry all the time. Hummm. More thought required.