More Awesome Than You!

I'm curious as to what you guys got.

The very first one I got when I got Spore was, I think, YMCA (I THINK that's the name). 3 different pack members that don't belong to your species.

There's Aluminium Cell for finishing Cell in Hard.

There's one for completing Creature without being killed, but the name escapes me.

I don't really think it's an Easter Egg if you can see it on the list of achievements without actually accomplishing it.  I'm not knocking the value of getting the achievement, I'm just saying that most of them are not secret.

There are half a dozen secret ones.  I've heard that one of them is for creating a Cerberus, but it doesn't happen if you use the Creature Creator.  Maybe it's only if you create one in-game.

EDIT: Apparently the "General Custer" achievement I got for killing off 30 tag-alongs in Creature stage is a secret one.

 - Gus

Uh, they are secret if you can't see the achievement list to begin with... (Achievements are stored on some server, not available if you do not connect, and I suspect many of us arr unable to connect...)

I've gotten one for not attacking anything in cell stage (herbivore, obviously)

The "three different allies" in creature, already mentioned.

One for completing an entire game in one session, when all I did was take a pre-played (as in, from cell to space) creature and stick it in the space stage on another planet...

In my very first game I got the "Encountered something you created in a previous game" one, because I met another of my race in civ stage. ::)

Ah, and Cerberus. Right. I created it in-game, so, probably? (Something I heard about Cerberus is that the three things have to be different things, not three of the same thing. Honestly, I created it without even knowing there was an achievement for it.)

And some others...

The only one not mentioned that I have gotten was "Survivor" for not being killed in cell stage. I got it my first time through cell stage.

I remember three of mine:

Something for extinctificating 20 different creatures in Creature stage.

Something for meeting a creature I made before (already mentioned).

And one for getting from Cell to Space in one session.

There's also one for creating a creature in-game that maxes stats in at least 4 categories (for example, dance, sing, strike, pose, spit, etc.).

SPORE FAN - for logging 50 hours of Spore playing. HALP.

Joker - Input a cheat

Does this include non-achievement secrets, and "proper" Easter Eggs? I noticed SimCity 4 music in the Civilisation stage...

Oh yeah, I got that one, too.

That's a badge. Not really an easter egg, but it's pretty silly. Especially since you only get it from cheating in Space and it helps you by giving a badge point.

I got that max-stats one as well.

EDIT: New one: Speed Demon. Gotten by finishing Creature stage in under an hour.

Do these 'achievements' give you anything that you don't have/get when you play offline?  Or are they just for the lulz? If the former, they may be the only reason to have a legitimate copy of the game.

They're just for lulz.  However, they're also goals to shoot for once you've mastered the game.  I may end up going for each of the personalities because you get a different award for "winning" space with each.

 - Gus

I've heard the MULE theme when trading at a planet before.

I don't remember what it's called, but you can get one by going through all of Creature stage without legs or feet. Arms and hands are ok.

Slugger.  You'll definitely get that if you do the Devolution Challenge.

 - Gus

I'm only at Tribal right now, but I got the ones for having three pack members of different species, having three domesticated animals of different species (one of whom was a pack member that came through with me, apparently,) and one for meeting one of my own creations. Where can you view these badges besides where you first get them, anyway?

Look under Achievements in the Sporepedia.

 - Gus

From main load game screen, click 'Share', it should be under the highlighted option here:
(http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p282/Lady_Faizah/Spore/Screenshots/Achievements.jpg)
(If you've got a legal serial number, obviously.)

Badges are something else entirely, viewed in Space stage. Here's a screenshot of that, with the icon that is on the button (which is at the bottom of the window, by where it tells you how much money you have) to click to bring it up highlighted.
(http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p282/Lady_Faizah/Spore/Screenshots/Badges.jpg)

There's also one for flying for 200 meters without touching the ground. Seriously, that's what the description says.

Aaah. So the achievements don't mean anything if you ARR'd it, gotcha ;)

On to Civ stage. It's more fun than it should be to drive my cool car over to one of the backwater tribes and watch them run in terror.
(No wonder there were mushroom clouds in the speech bubbles during the "transition to Civ stage" video. My little froggies want to nuke everything. XD)

With pie. They want to nuke everything with pie.

I see no flaw in this strategy! Nukes disguised as pies. The enemy'll never know what hit them.

Careless Parent: Losing 5 planets (in Space, obviously)

You get that one even if it's 5 allied planets, not yours, that get lost.

That consoles me. I am not a careless parent of my own children.

Not 100% of the time, anyway.

I got the Careless Parent achievement while on my way to the Core.  I think it's very difficult not to, because there will be ecodisasters and Grox invasions while you're on your way, and you can't afford to return, or you'll never make any forward progress.

Space is big.  Not even the beloved Star Control 2 captured how big Space is quite as well as Spore.  But even beyond that, there's a penalty to your jump distance once you start getting close, and it gets worse as you go in.  You absolute MUST have the level-5 drive, and even so there are several places where the gaps between the stars are too large to permit progress, despite the star density near the Core being very high.

 - Gus

I don't think *ANY* game in memory has ever truly captured how BIG space is like Splotch has. As Adams puts it, "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is.".

I have had that same quote running through my head since hitting the space stage, and seeing the relative size of my planet to the entire galaxy. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has impressed upon me just how vast space is, not like this. I've long been a fan of sci-fi, countless sci-fi, some spanning multiple galaxies, but, to mangle the quote, "that's just peanuts to Spore." It actually feels vast. Even with my high tech engine, there are planets I can't reach. Arms of the galaxy going completely unexplored. It's mind-boggling, that's for sure.

If it weren't for wormholes, I'd probably feel like I'd never get to the center. As it is, I'm avoiding it.

I was going to say that "The trip to the core is a lot farther than the chemist's," but I thought it would fall flat.

At least we know that our critters would survive the Total Perspective Vortex, for pretty much the same reason Zaphod did.

 - Gus

I got Careless Parent for losing the same colony 5 times - it doesn't differentiate. I had a tiny cargo hold, and since I was running back and forth getting it's T score up, every time I turned my back my enemies would take it (no buildings yet = easy steal)

As for actual easter eggs, I hear our own solar system is in this game...

I've been to Earth.  The system has Merury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.  No Pluto.  Earth, despite what you might think, is not guaranteed to be T3 nor is it inhabited by humans.  It was T1 when I got there, and had all sorts of weird creatures on it.

 - Gus

Poor Pluto. XD It gets no respect anymore.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v730/nz_witch/poor_pluto.jpg)

Feh. Pluto is a planet if I say it is. We defined what planets are in the first place.

Wouldn't be surprising. If we mess it up badly enough, it might stop being T3. As for inhabited by humans, we'll be extinct soon enough.

I'll bet Steve was sent out thousands of years ago in game so that we get to the center to find that the race that sent it out no longer exists.

Mine was T1, but only had trees on it.

I have heard that there is an 'achievement' for destroying it, and that the achievement sticks even if you quit without saving, thus not actually losing Earth. (Which is handy, if you wanted to have more than one race find it, or had other plans for it.)

I kind of feel like I'm in Mostly Harmless territory, here. It's a very "Now what? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogsphere#NowWhat)" moment for me.

Palm Greaser: Pay 50 bribes in Space Stage :D

I found out that if you spin the galaxy fast enough in the beginning, it vomits pictures of the developers or coders or commissars, or whatever.  How many rare stellar formations have you found?  I've seen the binary system, the black hole, and the stellar disk.  Are there any others?

I've seen the binary system; it's my favorite so far. I have yet to see a black hole, and I'm beginning to wonder why I paid 1.5 million for that wormhole thing. I'll keep an eye out for the stellar disk and any others.

I love the stellar disk most.  It was awesome.

If you look where your badges/missions/etc are, one of the tab lists artifacts you've found. Galactic formations count as 'artifacts', and are ticked off there after seeing them. Basically there's the stellar disk, the black holes, and a bunch of different binary star combinations.

Bah.  There are plenty of odd RL stellar combinations.

I ended up finding a black hole and a crap load of binaries today. The black hole was cool. I started my approach to the core, but my attempts thus far have been fail. Still looking for that stellar disk.

I was sent on a space mission to retrieve three llama artifacts. Really makes me wonder about Will Wright.

Llamas have been with Maxis since the first SimCity, IIRC.  Some of the earlier games, like SimLife, SimAnt, SimSafari, and SimTown didn't have llama references, but those are OLD.

I'm sure there was a llama somewhere in SimAnt. Might have just been in cheat codes though, and I don't have the game anymore to check.

I don't thnk I remember any llamas in SC1. They definitely appeared in SC2K, though, and I think that's when the llamas business really took off.

It appears the game refuses to aware the achievement for finishing Civ in under an hour.  I blitzed this afternoon in 40 minutes using Economic on Hard - still the easiest way - and didn't get the award.

 - Gus

That would be the "Rolling Thunder" thing the patch fixed.

I just got that; it's "Village People".  You were close! :D

I got YMCA too, could've been for 4 different creatures in my pack.

The Icon says "YMCA" on it.

I guess "Village People" was in the pop up message?  I was busy attacking another tribe while my Chieftan was off taming animals.  Oh, wait, that would be Tribal level, not Creature.  Oh, no, wait, ummm...shit.  I got something for having three different creatures in my pack, and something else for domesticating three different creatures.  I have no idea what I was doing now.  Do you think they would have more than one Village People reference?

Domesticating 3 creatures gives you a Domestic Something-Or-Other achievement, getting 3 different other creatures (probably rogues) as packmembers gives you the "(YMCA) Vlllage People" achievement. The achievement is named "Village People", the icon says "YMCA" in it.

Not quite an easter egg, but amusing: in creature stage, walk over a spice geyser.

In my first game, I did that.  I was all, wtf was that thing?  Volcano?  So I walked over it.

Did anyone notice steve is on Simcity 2000's boxart, as well as in the Simcity 2000 intro here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl5huQdshns

Has anyone who has gone to the center of the Galaxy noticed while you are traveling through the hole at some point Llamas start appearing?

Also to settle when the Llama thing started, in the credits of SimAnt it says something about a Llama Technician.

Yes, I noticed the llamas. They were psychedelic.

I actually used a spice geyser to escape attack once. (Hey, I was a weak herbivore right at the start of Creature.) Floated up there while the creatures that were attacking went after someone else.

I suspect the Llamas were originally a reference to the opening credits of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  After the people who did the subtitles ("A Møøse once bit my sister") were sacked, and then the people who sacked them were sacked ("Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti..."), they were re-done at great expense.  The result involved a lot llamas.


 - Gus

That's especially fun to do with maxed out wings.

I assume that's how you get the Flight of the Bumblebee achievement, which I haven't done yet.

 - Gus

I believe that's how I did it.  Climbed to the top of a hill, jumped and flew over to a geyser, and kept flapping.

I've been told that you can also get it by being thrown from the top of a hill by an Epic Creature with  graspers, but haven't gotten close enough to an armed Epic to try it.


Also not really an Easter Egg, but amusing nevertheless.
http://img531.imageshack.us/my.php?image=spore20080913190311mf2.flv
http://img531.imageshack.us/my.php?image=spore20080912224508yg6.flv

Is the Flight of the Bumblebees achievement for flying 200 meters without touching the ground? Because I don't think I needed any fancy trickery to get that; just the highest level wings (and leaping from a mountaintop, I think).

I love those tribal dances around the fire.  They amuse me. :)

The easiest way to do it is to get the highest level wings, highest level jump, and jump into a spice geyser (on a hill, if possible.). It'll shoot you WAY up and you should just fly forward for as long as possible.

You may harass and/or beat me with sticks, but CERBERUS is the three-headed dog guarding the Underworld, and the Chimera is the animal made with a number of parts of other animals (the one I see most is snake/lion/eagle).  So if anyone still wants to build a cerberus, build a three-headed DOG.
On another note I'm glad I read this thread; I wasn't big on playing the game but now I do (I never got very far into space).

Tell Maxis that -- they're the ones that coded it so that putting three different mouths gives the 'Cerberus' achievement.

Except for the part where it doesn't. At least in my game- I made my Hydra with five heads, three different mouth types between them, and no achievement.

Did you make it in "Create-a-Creature" or did you evolve it in the Creature Stage?   The latter earns the achievement. The former does not.

Yeah, well... Maxis is STUPID!  (*snicker*)

Ah. That's stupid.

You are most likely to get the Cerberus achievement if you play with a Green start. If you play Herbivore in cell stage, you may end up with 3 mouths: 1 Meat-Mouth so your creature can remain omnivorous, one Bite-Mouth so your creature can have a bite attack that isn't completely lame, and since the bite-mouth isn't too visually appealing and the variety is somewhat limited, a larger "overmouth" for cosmetic purposes. I like the duck mouth, because everyone knows ducks are funny. With carnivores and omnivores, you really only end up with two required mouths: All carnivore mouths are bite mouths, so you pick whatever carnimouth you want for visual purposes, and then you have a plantmouth for eating fruits for healing after battle. Omnivores do not need a special feeding mouth as omnimouths are, obviously, omni, but there is only one bite mouth worth a damn, and it's not too appealing, so you have your hidden bitemouth and your more visually appealing mouth.

Raptorwild, please check to make sure your posts contain actual useful content before posting.

Happy now?  It's one thing to be slapped by an admin... but... whatever.

I find it strange that there is no award for having collected ALL parts in the creature stage, but one for having done so in cell stage (6 parts... what an achievement).  Kind of a reverse easter-egg, I guess, because I expected at least SOMETHING.

You've had two years to learn that MATYians self police and that poking is an hourly occurrence. I'd say LURK MOAR, but seriously. Think more.