Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Tim Wilson

There’s been a recent rise in popularity of so-called “Zen games.” Zen games are typically casual titles which focus on relaxation and meditation rather than adrenaline-pumping gameplay. Some Zen titles don’t really have a point, other than giving the user a mindless task to relieve stress and block out the world for awhile. Most Zen games place a strong emphasis on calming soundtracks and engaging visuals.

On the surface, Osmos appears to be another Zen title. The game looks exceedingly simple – a bunch of colored, pulsing blobs floating in the dark of space with light electronica background music. The game even references its ambient soundtrack in its level names and prominent display of the artist and song title used on each level. One could certainly be forgiven for completely overlooking this little indie title, available online for a paltry $9.99. To do so, however, would be to miss out on a clever little piece of software that is much more engaging than it first appears.Puzzle fans shouldn't pass this one up.

There are a couple of very basic premises that compromise the core of Osmos’ gameplay.  The first premise is the idea that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You play a little colored blob, or “mote” which resembles a single-celled organism from a biology class. Clicking on any side of your mote causes your mote to propel itself in the opposite direction of your click. The faster you click or longer you hold down the mouse button, the more force you will eject and the faster your mote will travel.

 

The second premise is that objects with more mass will absorb objects with less mass. Think of the classic food chain of a huge fish eating a big fish that’s eating a smaller fish, and you’ll get the idea. Any mote bigger than you will absorb you if it touches you, and you in turn will absorb any mote smaller than yourself.

Where Osmos gets really interesting is in the way it combines these two premises. The tricky part lies in the fact that propelling your mote is accomplished through ejecting mass. Thus the more you move, the smaller your mote becomes. Ejected mass can also be absorbed by other motes, making them bigger. Suddenly, this little Zen game starts to look a little less relaxing!

Osmos starts out with some simple tutorial levels to get you used to the game’s mechanics and various gameplay types. In the tutorials you will see how touching another orb causes you to absorb its mass and grow bigger. You’ll also be introduced to the movement mechanics – fast clicks are good for performing quick maneuvers, for instance. Once you finish these introductory levels there are three variations of the game that you can play, and beating levels in each variation will unlock more levels in that variation.

The first variation is simply known as the “A” levels or ambient levels. These tend to represent the most basic iteration of the game and the most puzzle-like. In each level you are typically tasked with becoming the biggest mote in the level. You are placed in a level with dozens (or hundreds) of “dumb” motes – i.e. they just float around not moving unless you act upon them. Because there is a limited amount of total mass in the level, however, you will need to move quickly to absorb orbs before they collide and form motes too big for you to overtake. A handy goal meter at the top of the screen shows you how far you are from your target size to win the level.

Later on in the ambient levels you will run into antimatter. Antimatter is peculiar in that it destroys matter that it absorbs. So instead of growing larger when you absorb a globule of antimatter, you’ll actually  shrink by that amount. Antimatter plays a crucial role in some of the game’s “impasse” levels which are among the most brain-challenging in the game. Impasse levels fill the level with wall-to-wall motes. The only way out is through careful use of pushing orbs out of the way with your propulsion, as well as selectively absorbing or forcing other motes into antimatter orbs.

Another variation is that of the “S” levels which typically have to do with survival of the fittest. These levels play out a bit like the first level of Spore – it’s eat or be eaten. These levels contain other intelligent motes that will actively try to grow as big as possible and will chase you down if you get close. Most of these levels require you to grow as quick as possible before your competitors beat you to it.

The last variation is that of the “F” or force levels. In contrast to the micro scale of the S levels, the force levels take things to a macro scale. Your mote becomes one of hundreds in orbit around a central “sun.” Propelling your mote and changing your mass will cause changes in your orbital track, or knock you out of orbit altogether which will place you in a collision course with the sun or the outer rim of the level. Your orbital track is shown at all times, and will turn red if you are headed for disaster, or gray if you are in stable orbit. These levels are extremely challenging, as you don’t have the luxury of truly free-form movement as you do in the other levels. Many times on these levels I’d accomplish my goal of growing my mote, only to spiral into the sun when I miscalculated my orbit.

Osmos’ presentation is simple but very effective. Motes that are smaller than you will always be colored blue – the smaller they are the bluer they are. Likewise motes that are bigger than you will always be colored red – the bigger they are the redder they are. Motes are depicted as glowing from within with an alien light – they resemble some sort of weird organisms or cells. The soundtrack adds to this eery feel with sparse ambient electronica. The music is very good if you’re in to that sort of minimalist New Age stuff, and serves as a non-distracting and relaxing soundtrack. There are also some subtle sound effects – a quiet swoosh as motes are destroyed by anti-matter or absorbed.

The game does a great job with the physics – motes react as you would expect them to. Large objects can’t be pushed around like small objects can, and as your mote grows it will feel suitably “weighty” in its movement. Of course, this also means you can potentially be waiting a long time for a large mote to travel slowly across the screen. Fortunately the game offers two ways to control the game’s speed. A right mouse-click will slow the game down, while clicking the middle mouse button will speed it up. You can transfer between these speed settings at will, and indeed you’ll have to in order to beat some of the levels.

Osmos is a deceptively engaging little game.While some levels can be beaten in seconds, others can take a long time as you painstakingly control every tiny movement of your orb. There is a strong incentive to try levels “just one more time.” The game is composed of 47 levels, but you have the option of playing randomly generated versions of each level which means endless replayability. While I could little fault in the gameplay  itself, the fact remains that the gameplay won’t appeal to everyone. Osmos can be extremely slow-paced, and that will turn off gamers looking for a bit more action. On the other hand, some levels require near-frantic maneuvering to beat, which may disappoint those looking for a truly relaxing Zen experience. In the end, however, $10 is a bargain for such a creative and addictive puzzle title. I’d suggest at least giving the demo a whirl and seeing if you find it as "absorbing" as I did.

Gaming Trend Score

84

1. Graphics: 75
2. Audio: 85
3. Controls: 85
4. Gameplay: 85
5. Value/Replay: 90
6. OVERALL:84