If you haven’t heard about Will Wright’s latest project, Spore, do yourself a favor and check out his plans. As the Bard said, ambition can be a grievous fault and this design plan is high on ambition.

We’ve heard ambitious stuff like this before, mostly from Peter Molyneux, who sells each of his games as if it is the ultimate world simulator. Remember how Fable was supposed to have trees that grew dynamically? And how Black and White was supposed to be fun? The Movies promises to allow unprecedented freedom of action but even the claims made for it seem to have been scaled back in the last few months.

So forgive my caution when I hear about Spore. On the upside, this is Will Wright – not a guy known for his hyperbole. Not all of his games have been successes. In fact, when I read about Spore the first game that came to mind was SimEarth, an ambitious environmental/ecological/evolution sim that was more textbook than game. If Spore will allow me to mess about on the cellular level and check out what is going on on other planets, this will be the ultimate god game.

I doubt any game has serious theological implications, but this could be as close as we get. Players might be able to be either detached observer gods – cosmic watchmakers – or interventionst Old Testament deities that micromanage star systems. As the game progresses, players will be able to do more and unlock greater content.

This is yet another game to look forward to, but, by the sound of it it could be a couple of years off. It is a big gamble for Wright, and EA, if they choose to publish it. If it works it could prove as difficult to duplicate successfully as The Sims has proven to be – are there any good Sims clones out there? – and could cement Wright’s place at the very top of the game god Pantheon.