Spore prototype tools

Today I discovered a wealth of prototype software made by Maxis, the developers behind the acclaimed Spore god-sim game. The tools were used in early stages of development to test many different concepts and all of it is available online. One of the tools that I really like is BIOME. BIOME use cellular automata rules to create game of life like environments. The software support both standard rectangular and the more exotic spiral automata that can be used to simulate galaxies. There's a lot of example rule-sets for everything from galaxies, to terrain gen and fire propagation.

Other cool stuff among the tools are CityMaze (agent-based city simulation), Cell Culture (spread of life across a planetary surface), Gaslight (self-propagating star formations). You find all of the tools here:

http://www.spore.com/comm/prototypes