"One of the ways in which we explore possible design directions is by building simple, playable prototypes that we can play around with to get a sense for a particular system," reads the official Maxis site.

"Usually these prototypes are never seen by the public, but we thought some of the more intrepid players out there might enjoy playing around with a few of our early Spore prototypes."

Users can download the games from Maxis' prototype page, which provides a short description for each.