Images: The art of 'Spore' prototypes

"Gaslight" is a Spore prototype that "simulates a process called stochastic, self-propagating star formation." The idea is that as interstellar gas and dust begin collapsing under the force of their own gravity, areas of dense material arise that lead to the formation of stars. And when the stars ignite, surrounding material heats up, moving away from the stars and repeating the process.

The Spore prototypes are a series of small applications developed over the years that the game was being worked on. They simulate some of the parts of the larger game and explore some elements that didn't make it into the game.

Photo by Electronic Arts/Maxis

Caption by Daniel Terdiman