Osmos

Osmos is a physics-based puzzle game for the PC, developed and published by indie games studio Hemisphere Games and released on August 18th 2009. Osmos was created around the concept of Isaac Newton’s third law of motion: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” and aims to be a relaxing and ambient experience. It has already received attention at PAX and the Independent Games Festival but what exactly can you expect from Osmos? The answers are here.

Just drifitng around

In Osmos you take control of a single-celled organism (a mote) in a pool of other similar organisms and your goal     in all levels is to essentially become the largest organism in the level. When you absorb other motes, the size of your mote is increased by an amount equal to the size of the mote you have absorbed. However, while you can absorb all cells smaller than yourself, colliding with any cells larger than yourself will cause you to be absorbed by them and fail the level. To propel yourself around the liquid world of Osmos you must place your mouse cursor behind your mote and click, causing your mote to begin moving in the opposite direction of your cursor. But every time you do so your mote will jettison smaller motes in the opposite direction it is moving, decreasing its mass. This means that often the trick in Osmos is working out if the amount of mass you will gain from propelling yourself in a certain direction will outweigh the amount you will lose.

This all sounds simple enough so far but when the game throws you in with other sentient motes, enemies that can alter gravity and other hurdles to overcome, the game can become an interesting and challenging experience. The levels of the game are divided into three categories: Sentient, Ambient and Force. Sentient levels are levels with the most weighting on competing against other “intelligent” motes, ambient levels are more simply based around the idea of just becoming the biggest mote with little affecting normal gameplay and force levels are based around combating the challenge of gravity-modifying enemies. There is a branching tree of progression for each different type of level which works well and the differences in the levels provide enough variety to make things interesting.

You also have both the ability to slow down (right-click) and speed up (click mouse wheel) time at your disposal,

Look out little mote

which can help towards keeping the game calming in more frantic situations or help you avoid boredom in more laid-back scenarios. In force levels you also often have ability to see your motes path drawn out in front of it. The controls are solid and my only real problem in this department is that clicking on your mote brings up the pause menu and accidentally putting the game into pause is not overly common, but is annoying when it happens.

Like so many other indie games Osmos is a great game to look at and the visuals carry the kind of artistic creativity you’d want from a game like this. Just sitting back and watching the cells drift around their simple world can be a cool and calming experience. The only shortfall of the graphics is that Osmos has little variation in the graphical design of its levels. There may be a few cells of different colours in some levels or some darker “antimatter” motes thrown in to contrast against the other cells, but every level contains the same background and many of the same numerous generic organisms moving around the screen.

The music in Osmos is consistently and effectively ambient and soothing. When the graphics and sound of Osmos come together it’s easy to see how someone can get entranced in the aesthetics of the game. When looking at relaxing music in games it doesn’t get much better than the slightly surreal, but tranquil electronic music of Osmos. It should however be noted that levels aren’t always as relaxing as they look and that there are difficult and even slightly tense situations you will run into in Osmos where the music feels out of place and mismatched as you desperately try and propel your mote away from the massive enemy trying to absorb you.

Amongst the motes

Overall the game and gameplay aren’t completely original, taking components from games such as FlOw and Art Style: Orbient to make up what it is, but the game does some very creative things with the concept it is based around and executes its ideas of Newtonian physics-based gameplay well. The music and graphics intertwine brilliantly and when at their best Osmos can be an extremely relaxing and enjoyable experience, it’s just a shame that the levels lack graphical diversity and the music can be unfitting in the face of the gameplay.