Simulating Everything (for Fun)

Will Wright is a well-known designer of software toys, from SimCity to the Sims. His new game has been in development for a few years and is planned for release in spring 2008. It's called Spore, and it looks amazing. Basically it simulates just about everything, from single celled life to space faring civilizations, with a tremendous amount of player control through editors, time acceleration, interaction with other players' creation via the web, and who knows what else, all within a dynamic universe that includes evolution, physics, societies, and more. The learning opportunities are pretty obvious, but as always with Wright's creations, the play's the thing.

Wright gave a very cool talk and demo on Spore at the TED conference earlier this year, and I just learned about the video of his presentation. So here it is.