The demo for the Spore Creature Creator has leaked early, with the actual Creator Creator due a day late on the 18th.

It’s a testament to how good it is that I’m actually considering paying the $10 for the only marginally more functional full version.

The Creature Creator is only a small part of Spore, slated to come out in September. In the game, the creatures you create will fight for survival, advancing up the evolutionary chain, building civilizations and finally becoming sentient space explorers. In the Creator Creator, you can make your critters, and then… not much happens. They’ll walk around and do a little dance, and then that’s it, you’re done. It’s like a sandbox game, except Will Wright just hands you a plastic shovel and a picture of a beach.

I realize I’m not the not the target audience for the Creature Creator. It’s intended for “casual gamers,” that is, people who don’t really like games all that much, to get an introduction to Spore and maybe buy the full $50 version. There’s nothing wrong with expanding your customer base, but just playing the demo has convinced me it’s a worthwhile purchase. I’d buy it tomorrow if I could, but for now all I can get is the same limited demo with four times the parts.

Still, there’s something primally appealing about the Creature Creator. Like a lot of kids, I made a doodles on pieces of scrap paper of fantastic creatures with twelve legs and eyes on their butts and gave them names and backstories. The Creature Creator is a scrap of paper where whatever you draw comes to life. And know that, in a few months, my creations will be flying all over the Internets, randomly populationg other people’s virtual Spore galaxies… Well, maybe I can justify $10 for that.

One thing I do wonder, however, is whether or not there will be some kind of rating system or flag system for the random creatures. The creation system is flexible enough that you can makes some pretty obscene things, like this beast with two backs. (Seriously do not click that link if you don’t have a tolerance for the naughty.)

I’m not sure I want to spend all my Spore time battling an endless parade of living genitalia, is all I’m saying.

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