SketchUp Has Been Googled

You might recall my enthusiasm for combining Google Earth and SketchUp:


SketchUp and Google Earth!

And now we find out: Google was equally as enthsiastic. The difference is, of course, I am not in a position to actually buy a software company:

"WHAT'S NEW?
Well, about the biggest thing ever: we’ve been Googled. That’s right, Google Inc. has acquired @Last Software… so you might have just spit your coffee all over your keyboard, or you’re rolling your eyes thinking this is another one of my April Fool’s jokes. Believe me, we’re still having a hard time believing it ourselves, but it’s real — we are now Google!"

SketchUpdate 03.14.06
A new home for @Last Software

Spore - Like TimePhiz for Science

OMG! Got this link from today's Rocketboom video blog. This game takes ideas from evolutionary biology and makes them into a totally compelling game. It's mind-blowingly cool:

Spore Web Site at EA Games

It's part Sim-Ant, part Civilization, part Legos, part interactive cartoon. It works on so many scales it's just amazing: from celluar to planetary -- and you really go from microscopic viewing to telescopic viewing.

On Google Video they have six videos which explain and illustrate the thing completely: "Will Wright talking at the 2005 Game Developer's Conference about 'Spore', which looks like it could possibly be the best video game ever."


Spore Gameplay Video

Was so engaging I had to download the Google Video to my PSP. Now how fun is that? There's a little interview with Wright in Wired -- love ths quote: "I don't want players to feel like Luke Skywalker. I want them to feel like George Lucas."

Wright Hopes to Spore Another Hit

Here's a better article from GameSpot about Will Wright's game design theories and his introduction of Spore at the 2005 Game Developers Conference in SF (evidently where the Google video comes from):

Will Wright Presents Spore... and a New Way to Think About Games

But this parady article of him is much better:

Building Games With the Wright Stuff