An icy comet streams through space, past a bright yellow star and toward an ocean-covered planet. The comet collides with the planet’s atmosphere, breaking into tiny shards and falling into the ocean. From out of the shards a tiny primitive life form emerges.

Although this could have been how life got its start on Earth, this planet is just one among millions of similar worlds in the Spore Universe.

Spore is a recently released strategy game from Will Wright, the same man who conceived Sim City and later The Sims, which puts the player in a 3D, fully-interactive world granting total control over the evolution of a life form.

Spore is the perfect way to satisfy that all-powerful deity living within each and every college student with a few surplus hours.

Logan Earnest, a senior in the CTVA department, has been playing the game a couple of hours a day since it was released earlier this month.

‘You’re God of your own world, conquering or making peace with other planets,’ Earnest says.

Everything from the creature’s body style, to its defenses and eating habits are controlled and put in place by the all-powerful player.

While one click of the mouse sends a creature walking, swimming or sliding off, another commands the creature to eat, and another one commands an attack on a neighboring creature, tribe or civilization.

Hours with Spore slip away unnoticed as the creature advances from a tiny microorganism fighting for small bits of food to a space-faring civilization that commands fleets of ships and manages relations with neighboring societies.

The game, however, does not bog the player down, but advances to other stages of development quickly, busying one with modifying the creature’s appearance, designing vehicles, buildings and eventually planning entire cities.

Playing God is fun.