Forgotten Lore of Internet Gaming: Spore UBD: Underground By Design

[Kurshok]

For those of you who have been interested in a wide array of game genres, you may remember the buzz years back for Spore, a game whose online servers shut down not so long ago. Spore was an "evolve your own alien race" game, which got a lot of great publicity and was a lot of fun. I remember a big ad for it in Boston some years back when I visited it on a school trip. Sadly, EA consumed the smaller company that made it, Maxis, and sucked it dry, as it has done to many small game companies. One community within the overarching Spore creator community, started by a user called "Dirtymeat" and 2 others, was Spore UBD, or "Underground By Design". They pushed the engine to the limit to make the normally cutesy game into a horror show, utilizing asymmetrical glitches and other glitches prior to updates that added asymmetry, unique color schemes reminiscent of gore, and unique placement of parts to resemble bones to create mutant abominations. They may have even been responsible for inspiring the later Creepy and Cute parts pack, as well as the spinoff Darkspore. They were usually well received in the community, although there were a few "cute purists" who hated them for making a "cutesy child game" into having a horror subgenres. With the later Galactic Adventures expansion, they were even able to try their hand at horror game adventures within the game.

[Kurshok]

The founders were Hydro_Glyph and Dirtymeat, Dirtymeat being leader of the fanbase or "UBD Milita" whilst Hydro_Glyph was the original founder. Zevais and MrFisto were some prominent members of the UBD community.

Edited August 27, 2021 by Kurshok