Review of Osmos

[Ace Pace]

A quick review of a game by Hemisphere games named Osmos. This game is up for $2 on Steam for the weekend and I decided to just buy it. A trailer is here though I didn't bother to check it first, there is a demo as well.

The gameplay mechanics are pretty simple, you're a floating blob of matter, a "life form" or whatever, your goal in life is (usually) to be the biggest blob around. You do this by absorbing other pieces of matter, you die if you are absorbed by a bigger piece of matter.
You move around by ejecting matter from your body against the direction of your travel vector (the opening screen pointedly mentions Newtons Third Law, if it wasn't clear enough). This about sums up your end of the deal and if we left it there, would be a pretty crappy $2.

So there are gameplay modes, 3 of them. The first one, named Ambient is very simple, you get a field of matter and your job is to be the biggest of them all. No pressure or anything. Accompanied by the electronic music that resembles private airplane lounges more than 'sublime effects', it can be a very relaxing and interesting set of levels.

The second is named Force and seems to comprise of missions oriented around gravity. The first style starts you off as a blob of matter surrounding a 'star' and attempting to grow. This is surprisingly not as easy as it looks as orbital mechanics are not the simplest thing. The second style (there may be more I have yet to discover) is an attempt to "capture" (I.E eat) blobs named 'Repulsors' which are, oddly enough, repulsed by you according to your mass.

The third, Life is my term for it, is 1v1s (or maybe more later on) with other 'sentient' blobs of matter, where you compete to 'eat' them. This seems hit and miss, either a rather interesting bout filled with ejecting matter as you try to maneuver away from the enemy, or complete 'blargh' as it accidentally gets eaten in the first minute.

The sound I've mentioned in a sentence and that's about as much as it deserves to get. However the graphics are quite nice, fitting both for wide screen and for normal aspect ratios and being quite unique. A blue/red color scheme makes it easy to recognise who is eatable and who will eat you, and the effects work well enough.

Overall, I just bought it, but it seems to be worth a night or two of fun and it's something I feel comfortable playing with others around.

[Sarevok]

Just played the demo. It's a beautiful little game. Almost fills like you are a living biological cell in the microscopic world.

[wautd]

I've been hooked on it some time ago. It's a fun little game. Very relaxing at first, but oh so frustrating when things start to get more difficult. Worth the money