Spore is the hitherto unimagined mash-up of two seemingly irreconcilable and disparate video game genres: the text adventure game and the paddle-and-ball game. The player controls a space ranger of sorts who's been sent to Earth's colony planet, Spore, to investigate a distress signal sent from the now apparently deserted outpost. This barren landscape is navigated according to the standard conventions of homebrew interactive fiction: movement is dictated according to compass points and various inventory items are acquired to employ in the overcoming of small puzzles.

Punctuating the landscape, however, are a series of shimmering, radiant pillars made of energy. Entering into them kicks the game into its Mr. Hyde mode, a workmanlike Breakout clone. Events on the text adventure stage are influenced by success at the Breakout levels, and through traversing all 16 pillars, the adventure reaches its conclusion.