Spore, a game developed by Maxis and released by Electronic Arts in 2008. It is probably one of the most talked about games within the video game industry, of how much content was shown off across various talks, presentations and interviews, only for the game to release with a half of the content originally envisioned.
Through the video, we explore the common sources, such as GDC (Games Developer Conference) showcases and compare them to the final released version. Some unique and one-off information can only be found within this documentary, as other 'Retrospectives' or developmental videos on Spore do not cover or did not have access to the information at the time of their release.
This documentary goes through an extensive range of sources conducted across researching to compile them together to understand why Spore, became the game we received. The research included over 35 interviews, presentations, videography, and photography content.
This is excluding the private interviews conducted by three members of the development team; Morgan Roarty, Lydia Choy, and Alexander Peck that I personally interviewed to gain their personal insight and provide their comments throughout the documentary.
The documentary was in development for over four months, from initial research, scripting, voice-over, recording footage and then editing. The script consisted of over 14,000 words, including quotes.
Total Documentary Length: 1 hour and 17 minutes (01:17:30).
You can view the documentary on YouTube for the best quality.
YouTube Thumbnail
Some highlights and unique graphics created for this documentary can be found below. First is the YouTube thumbnail. The thumbnail focuses on dark colours, while letting the Spore logo and text be the focus. The UFO is custom designed, explained below, and is meant to be beaming the Spore logo into existence.
The thumbnail is simple and allows the colours be to be the focus, with the purples and blues throughout the background, and the logo as well, allowing for the viewer to see it compared to all lighter colour pallet thumbnails.
When designing the thumbnail, researching of similar style documentaries was important, as seeing how others created and showcased the gameplay and screenshots in the thumbnail to be their main point, but since they present within multiple different videos, having a unique thumbnail allows for a creative response and stand out against the current content available.
Chapter Transition
I created a custom chapter transition using Adobe After Effects and gameplay footage. The chapter transition creates a clear break between each chapter and identifies to the viewer that the sub-topic has changed.
The video is simple, and features the galaxy background from the main menu of Spore, blurred and slowed down to have a small spinning motion - without causing any motion sickness. The the text fades onto the screen and has a 'shimmer' effect being purple and maroon move across the text - meant to symbolise a UFO's beam. The music featured is part of the Spore soundtrack, used to break up the current voice-over and background soundtrack to create a more unique tone when moving from chapter to chapter.
Sub-Title Effect
As the documentary is long, some sections are broken down into smaller sections, such as each gameplay stage, or different issues that occurred throughout development. Thus resulting in creating a 'sub-title' transition. This effect is played on the screen - while visuals and music continues, but voice over pauses to allow for it to be read before voice-over continues.
It features a custom designed UFO, made in Adobe Illustrator and an abduction beam also made in Illustrator. The UFO slides onto the screen, the beam appears - waving to indicating it's projection/abduction - and then the UFO has some small hovering movement, which then the UFO slides back out of frame.
(Video Effect has been enlarged for viewing and does not feature any audio.)
