Spore Creatures

The gameplay is largely based on the Creature Stage of the larger game, with elements of Nintendogs and Drawn to Life. Spore Creatures characters are ball and line generated 2.5D. Unlike the characters of Spore, creatures are rendered in 2D, but the environments remain 3D.

The gameplay largely focuses on interacting with other creatures to perform quests, play minigames and befriending or battling them to progress in the story and obtain new parts, of which up to 280 can be unlocked. Befriending creatures, which allows the player to have them along with one other creature accompany them in traveling and assist in befriending or fighting other creatures, consists of two mini-games, which are cuddling, which involves repeatedly dragging a smiling cloud over a creature, and dancing, which involves the player tapping dots representing beats when they reach an outer arrangement of flowers. Combat consists of the player, optionally accompanied by up to two befriended creatures, battling another creature by dragging the stylus over the enemy creature to damage them or using Bio-Powers, special abilities that can be used in combat at the cost of energy, to damage or prevent them from attacking or protecting or healing the player. Health can be replenished by eating food that corresponds to the player's creature's mouth type while energy can be replenished either by eating flowers or using parts that are able to gradually replenish energy.

The game begins as a new species of creatures, the Oogies, are born on the planet Tapti. Two members of this species of particular importance are the protagonist, simply known as 'Oogie', and Little Oogie, a small and primitive creature. A mysterious spaceship is flying around the planet, abducting various creatures; it captures Little Oogie and flies away. Oogie pursues the ship all over Tapti, and when it begins to fall apart after bashing into a number of objects, collecting its pieces along the way.

Oogie eventually catches up with the ship as it finally crashes, and its pilot, an alien called Gar'skuther, clambers out. Gar'skuther simply summons a new ship and flies away, still in possession of Little Oogie, who has now grown a strange tentacle from his back. Oogie uses the parts he has collected to rebuild the first ship and pursue Gar'skuther through the galaxy.

The DS version received "mixed" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of one six, one seven, and two eights for a total of 29 out of 40.

IGN said, "The adventure is lengthy with tons of achievements to shoot for. The creature creator might not be as elaborate as PC Spore, but there's still a ton you can do to make some bizarre organisms." Eurogamer, however, panned the game in its review, stating that the game ignored what made Spore special, and that the "imaginative and sociable sandbox game feels like an afterthought, stuck in an uninspiring cycle of fetch-quests and grinding." Official Nintendo Magazine said that progress in stages always requires specific body traits, forcing the player to constantly edit their creature, and removing the whole point in the game. It was a nominee for Best Simulation Game for the Nintendo DS from IGN in their 2008 video game awards.