I tried to finish “Spore” last night. I failed.

But as I noted in my write-up last night about my first week playing the game, EA’s experimental game is not at all sized like a play through of Sid Meier’s “Civilization.”

No, “Spore” is paced like an epic and is taking me more than a dozen hours to get through. I’m sure it’s longer than “Too Human” and “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed,” the last two game I’ve completed.

When a game takes over my free time, as “Spore” I can wind up playing it well into the hours I’d otherwise be sleeping. And that… brings problems.

I have little memory of playing “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” when it came out or “The Wind Waker” several years later, for example, because I played those to the moment I was falling asleep with the controller at my side — at moments when I decided I’d just “rest my eyes” for a second.

Last night I tried to finally quit out of “Spore,” with just one last bit of leveling up needed to complete the game. I would have needed to play a couple more hours to finish. Before shutting down, I was prompted to save the game. Only after I clicked “don’t save” did I realize what I had done. I had just wiped about two hours’ progress. Why? Because I was tired. I didn’t know what I was doing.

Gaming and sleeping — the two don’t mix and shouldn’t even come close together.

Next: Guess what I’m playing tonight.