What do we have here?  Another Spore contest held by MaxisCactus over at the official Spore forums!  While it is super-fun to participate in, we must, no NEED to know what is going on at the Maxis studios!  Please, give us some insight on the future of Spore 🙂

Overview: In this fixed morphology challenge it’s up to you to modify our template creatures to fit the bios provided below. Your entry should be in the form of a Sporecast tagged mcnecrochallenge containing four creatures based on templates provided below. The set of creatures you create should form a cohesive group to have a connected look. Entries will be judged on creativity, adherence to creature bio, how well they animate, and how well the creations in the set relate to each other.
Goal aesthetic for all creatures: Shadowy, purple, dark, spikey

1. Tusked Lamprey
Bio: Indigenous to a nightmare world, the tusked lamprey is a revolting predator. Covered in razored horns, the beast possesses a repugnant mouth-hole ringed with fangs. Forget its small size: even from a distance, the creature is deadly, capable of murdering its target with necrotizing blasts from its inexhaustible lysogenic pustules.
Template restrictions: You may not modify (scale, move, remove) the spine, legs, or mouth. You may swap the feet as long as their size doesn’t change. You may add parts anywhere.
Tags: mcLampreyEntry & mcNecroChallenge

2. Pterodyne
Bio: Beware pterodynes. They’re obscenities capable of ripping the brains and spine from their victims in seconds. Should they approach from behind, they can project their terrorpathic aura to make their prey scream, flail and flee in panic. But if they employ their stealth ability, you’ll never even see the approach of your own death.
Template restrictions: You may not modify (scale, move, remove) the spine, legs, “hands” or mouth. You may swap the feet as long as their size doesn’t change. You may add parts anywhere.
Tags: mcPterodyneEntry & mcNecroChallenge

3. Clawed Spectre
Bio: Seeded on a ruined world as a sick joke, the genetically-modified clawed spectres were ineffective at keeping down the vermin population because there were no vermin to eat. Clawed spectres generally therefore live on diet of each other. Ironically, they also possess ability to resurrect their dead. They slaughter their victims from a distance with blasts of their spectray. Despite their cannibalism, clawed spectres possess sufficient intelligence to use tools, and to employ and revise attack strategies. It’s common for explorers to underestimate clawed spectres. Once.
Template restrictions: You may not modify (scale, move, remove) the spine, legs, or mouth. You may swap the hands or feet as long as their size doesn’t change. You may add parts anywhere. The coiled ram horns may be modified/moved but not removed.
Tags: mcSpectreEntry & mcNecroChallenge

4. Death Mollusk
Bio: Death mollusks crabs are small, vicious parasites of low intelligence, imbued with the horrific ability to drain their victims of energy. Highly mobile and able to strike from a distance, death mollusks are a threat even in death, exploding the moment their disgusting innards cease functioning.
Template restrictions: You may not modify (scale, move, remove) the spine, legs, hands, or mouth. You may add parts anywhere.
Tags: mcDeathMolluskEntry & mcNecroChallenge

What will the challenge winner(s) get?
A chance to be featured on Spore.com! Maxis will hand pick the winner(s) in this challenge. Finalists will be posted before the winning creation(s) are announced. The winning creations will be creatures, not Sporecasts.

Challenge Rules:

  • To submit a sporecast, tag it with: mcnecroChallenge
  • Creatures should retain the same tags the templates have
  • You can submit as many Sporecasts as you’d like
  • All submissions must be in by 11:00am PDT Mar 30, 2010
  • Optional: Post screenshots or YouTube movies of your creation on the forum

Feature Criteria

  • Creation must not have any parent authored by a different creator (other than MaxisCactus and original author if different from MaxisCactus)
  • Creation must not have any offensive creation in its lineage (any parent or child creations)
  • Creation must not have any links or references to other sites in the submission’s tags, name, or description

FAQ:
How Do I use the Template?
1. Right click on either image above and choose Save as. (The second is for non-C&C players)
2. Open your Spore Creature Creator and drag the png into the editor.
3. Add parts and paint to flesh out the character of this creature. All parts including accessory, mech, C&C, and base game parts are allowed. You may not scale, remove or move any parts of the original template, with the exception that the feet may be swapped out for other feet.

Can I use cheats?
Cheats such as AddDNA and Freedom are not allowed. Asymmetry is allowed on the parts you add.

Why do some template(s) have different original authors?
Maxis was inspired by some player creations when making these templates. If your entry has an author other than MaxisCactus as the “original” in the lineage, don’t worry. Your entry is still valid. We want to give credit to the original authors as well for making such unique creations that would be used as part of an official challenge! In this case, the honor goes to celloguy and chimerahound!