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dkirschner's Osmos (PC)
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| [July 24, 2010 03:40:57 AM]
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I give up. The last level is too hard! Many of the Force levels were quite challenging, and one of them took me 1-2 hours to finally get, but this one takes the cake. Osmos really does require a lot of patience, dexterity and skill in the later levels. In this particular level, your object is orbiting an attractor, which is a type of passive entity with a gravitational field, like a planet, around which you and other matter orbit. The goal is to absorb all 4 attractors in the level. Step 1: Absorb most of the objects orbiting the attractor. Step 2: Propel yourself out of that orbit and into the orbit of another attractor. Step 3: Absorb the objects orbiting that attractor. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you're big enough to absorb an attractor, and then absorb all the attractors. I haven't made it far into the second attractor's orbit before I realize I'm going to lose the level. Either I'm not good enough at switching orbits or I'm taking too long to absorb matter, allowing the matter orbiting the other attractors to grow large. Possibly both.
While I appreciate the challenge, I'm not sensing a great feeling of achievement or reward awaiting me, and the time spent to get there is looking tedious. I'll keep this game forever in my Steam library and show it to people, and may even replay some earlier levels for fun, but doubt I'll ever bother to finish.
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| [July 20, 2010 10:42:56 AM]
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I had read about how ambient and beautiful this game was. I had an image of it in my mind as something much more unique than it turned out to be. Ambient yes, beautiful yes, but original, sort of. It's kind of like Feeding Frenzy with space debris, or the beginning of Spore. Though not entirely original, it is very well done.
You're a...thing...I can't decide if the game takes place in space or in a primordial soup. Your thing inhabits a perilous environment nonetheless. The goal of each level is to grow huge. There are other types of objects in the environement, some inanimate and others like yourself. You propel through space absorbing entities smaller than you. Careful, because the minded entities are trying to do the same thing, and will absorb you if they're bigger and get close enough. You propel yourself through space by ejecting matter. Thus, moving makes you smaller, so careful when propelling toward an entity about your size because it may be bigger than you by the time you expel enough matter to reach it. Some entities are 'attractors' with gravitational fields. These grow quickly. Other entities are 'antimatter' that, instead of absorbing or being absorbed, destroy matter in proportion. Two same-sized entities (one antimatter and one regular) colliding will destroy one another and leave no matter instead of one double-sized entity. Others are true planet-type entities, with smaller entities orbiting them a la orbital physics.
Levels are broken down into type of challenges depending on what types of entities are in space. Sentient levels involve growing large with other minded entities that are trying to do the same thing. In ambient levels, you simply grow large, but have obstacles to doing so, such as antimatter and densely populated space. These dense levels I enjoyed because each movement is vital. One slip and the level is ruined. I had to think about which direction to propel, how much matter to eject, which bit of antimatter I needed to send towards matter and in which direction, etc. The final type is force levels that feature the orbital physics. In these, the player must grow large orbiting one planet-entity before 'jumping' to another planet-entity's gravitational field to absorb its orbiting bodies, and continue this until you're huge. I found these the most difficult, but a lot of the fun in this game lies in the challenge and repetition. You can try to memorize steps to an extent and improve over time.
So, fun and interesting game. It's not as relaxing as I thought I would be. Ambient yes, propelling your little organism through space for its life, not relaxing. It was actually pretty intense for the music and look of it. I recommend playing it for sure though. I'll also leave off with a thought about simulations. The orbital force levels really did a neat job of demonstrating these principles. Planetary accretion is basically built into the gameplay. Something like this game can be used to demonstrate physics and astronomy. Assign names to the planet-entities and call the orbiting entities planets. Build in a tool to edit mass, orbital velocity, orbital shape, and have a go with modeling planetary systems. Imagine a game where a player 'plays' a planet during a solar system formation, watching the formation of a star, trying to accrete debris to become a planet, watching out for bigger objects, maintaining an orbit...sounds neat to me.
Right, and I still have one force level left that I've been stuck on forever. Game is still in play as I intend to beat it one of these days and unlock some achievements!
This entry has been edited 1 time. It was last edited on Jul 20th, 2010 at 10:44:03.
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dkirschner's Osmos (PC)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Monday 24 May, 2010
GameLog closed on: Saturday 24 July, 2010 |
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