I think the funniest moment in all of Spore is when you ally with the Grox. Your screen will be completely overwhelmed with warnings that absolutely everyone in the galaxy has now declared war against you

Had a friend in high school who was so hyped for this game, genuinely would never stop talking about it always told us it would "change gaming forever" then it came out and I can't express to you how absolutely disappointed dude was like he completely stopped playing video games in general for years after that.

I remember making a creature with zig-zagging accordion arms, and when it punched its arms extended outside the skybox

Even as a teen one of the first things about this game that I found very unsatisfying was how you clearly aren't actually on the same "planet" between different stages. Just an environment that happens to have the same theme. Going from creature to tribal or tribal to civ, landmarks don't persist, the size of the whole planet changes, not to mention how the awesome amount of species diversity drops like the Chicxulub asteroid after the creature stage.
There was no persistence in the universe apart from a handful of the things I was directly responsible for creating. That felt like... whatever is the opposite of "immersion".

Very minor detail but I always liked it: when you get to the space stage, any previous space stage saves you had will be seeded into your newest one, on the same planet that they occupy in their save. I always liked to go around and contact/ally all my other creatures.

Spore is the very definition of "missed potential". So many parts of the game could have been better. If they ever remake it or make a Spore 2, it's going to be a great game just by adding all the things that were missing in Spore.

Spore... Spore never changes...

I've returned to Spore recently, and I see the cons, but... for some reason, I enjoy playing it as much as I was a kid. I develop my cosmic civilisation, develop a made up story, set myself a goal and just dick around. It's really a core memory for me, unironically.

Something cool about SPORE that I don't think a lot of people know about, your save files can somewhat interact with each other. In the Space Stage, it is completely possible to go to war with another save file and when you switch back to the other save, you'll see ownership of the system has changed. You won't be at war on that save file however, you still have to initiate it again on that save. Doing this I have wrote stories about warring empires, but I also played in a "hotseat" multiplayer style with a friend a while back where we would take turns playing in 30 minute intervals with a death automatically ending your turn, so it was a race to space and whatever we wanted to do after that. Race to the center of the galaxy, go to war with each other, ally with each other, work together to take down the Grox, whatever.

"wide as a lake, deep as a puddle"
you couldn't have made up a better description of this game

I think one of my bigger issues with Spore is that there is no overlapping self-created narrative that is guided by your choices from one stage to another. You remember those weird slugs you spared in creature stage? Well now they evolved and formed a tribe and still want to be your friends. Remember that one species you forgot to wipe out in creature stage? They are now showing up again in Civilization stage and remember the genocide you committed.

It's little things like that that help motivate a player to continue playing because they know that their choices and decisions matter and create a tension during all of the stage. However, each stage in Spore is completely disconnected from the previous and future stages, so there is no sense of continuity and progression to any meaningful degree.

Honestly, all I want is a good and well thought out spore sequel or remake.

Like, allow us to influence the ecosystem, allow us to make our own parts, allow us to build more structures. A Spore 2 honestly would be so much fun.

I think the tribal stage, is to the civ stage, as the cell stage is to the creature stage.

Each stage acts like a diet version of the next.
Like in cell stage you learn the most basic idea, of mating, editing, eating, fleeing and fighting.
In the tribal stage, you learn the most basic parts of the civ stage, like moving around the world, manipulating units and so on.

I think the only downside is that much of the space stage feels like an echo of the other stages.
Well with the exception of how GA lets you kinda feel like a creature again.

What you get in Civ Stage is Based on how you Played Tribal

Friendly is Religeous, Resilliant is Economic and Hostile is Military

shoutout the liar at my kindergarten playground who told me that if you beat the game 5 times you unlocked the ability to play the game as an epic creature (those giants in the second stage)
ill never forgive you, stefan.

One thing I discovered that actually has impact on gameplay in creature stage, is that short creatures can't reach the fruits in the trees. This can be mitigated by either very either lengthening legs, making a long neck, or giving it long enough arms to reach them.

11:34 Certain parts actually do change aspects of your creature depending on where they are. Specifically, strike parts can play different animations based on if they are on a creature's front, arms, or rear. And I think it was a Galactic Adventure era patch that added those in.
Which gives me the impression of "so these things could have had more area-based functionality..."

I wasn't a child in 2008.  I was 24.  I vividly remember the actual game not being like the original trailer.

thank you for making a creature that actually slaps design wise rather than a goofy hodgepodge of parts

I somewhat fondly remember playing this. Specifically I enjoyed the first segment where you swim around and eat stuff. I also remember being so annoyed by the space section that I uninstalled it and never played the game again.