Spore

Spore is a multiplatform god game under development by Maxis and designed by Will Wright that allows a player to control the evolution of a species from its existence as a multicellular organism to a spacefaring sapient creature. The game has drawn wide attention for its massive scope, and its promise to simulate this development of a species through open-ended gameplay using procedural generation.

Spore was originally a working title, suggested by developer Ocean Quigley, for the game which was first referred to by the general public as Sim Everything. Even though Sim Everything was a first choice name for Wright, the title Spore stuck. Wright added it also freed him from the preconceptions another Sim title would have brought, saying "...Not putting 'Sim' in front of it was very refreshing to me. It feels like it wants to be breaking out into a completely different thing than what Sim was."
Civilization IV lead designer Soren Johnson joined EA Maxis on April 2, 2007 to work on Spore.
The release date has been the subject of massive speculation, but Electronic Arts has maintained its tentative Spring 2008 release date. On October 24, 2007, Wright stated that Spore was in a fully-playable build, and would be ready in roughly six months (around April 2008.)

Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS, and mobile phone versions of the game have been confirmed. Beuchner stated in a G4TV interview that the DS and mobile phone versions will focus on one phase of the game. Other platforms have been discussed, but not officially announced.

The Gameplay
Spore will be a simulation that "ranges from the molecular phase to the galactic phase." It will consist of several long phases, each with its own style of play. Will Wright also mentioned that he wanted the player to be able to spend as much or as little time as they wanted in each stage. If one person likes the creature stage, the game will not force them to move on until they are ready.

The games and films with which Wright associated the various phases are:
1. Pac-Man for the cellular phase
2. Diablo for the creature phase
3. Populous for the tribal phase
4. SimCity, Risk, and Civilization for the civilization phase
5. SimEarth, Destroy All Humans!, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey for the space phase, with elements of sandbox gameplay.
DICE 2007 referred to it as similar to Master of Orion.

Each phase of the game determines the starting point of the next phase. In the Game Developers Conference presentation, the creature that Will Wright was "guiding" through the creature phase was based on his earlier cell creature. It had three legs, a tail, eyes and a mouth in roughly the same position. He had evolved this creature through gameplay of the prior phases.
He mentioned that the creatures' personality, whether it be logical or emotional, peaceful or violent, etc, is also affected by this gameplay.
During the 2007 TED conference seminar, Wright revealed that all phases could be accelerated to any time dilation, even having eons pass by in moments during the experimentation of a planet's biosphere.

Official Site: http://www.spore.com/