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Hey everybody, fancy some utter frustration?
http://www.hemispheregames.com/osmos/
(You can also buy, download and install it using Steam, which is what I
did.)
The game is simple enough. You control a small mote. If you touch a
smaller mote, you absorb it and become bigger. If you touch a larger
mote, it absorbs you and you DIE. Don't do this. You can also manouver
by ejecting small particles of mass. (But this gradually - or rapidly -
makes you smaller, depending on your vigourusly you manouver.)
On later levels, they add other challenges - such as motes that don't
just float around but actually swim themselves, wirlpools that move
everything around, "antimatter" that destroys anything it touches, etc.
The nice thing is that, once you complete the basic tutorial, you get to
decide which kinds of levels you want to play.
The game is very slight. The graphics become repetative quite quickly,
but they are quite pretty all the same. And the music is kind of
atmospheric, if rather dull. You can quite easily spend several hours
playing this game without noticing.
The major problem with the game is that it is ABSURDLY HARD. The major
reason for this is that trying to make your mote go where you want is
almost impossible. (You see that level in the video with everything
spiralling around the attractor in the center? It took me THREE DAYS to
complete that single level!) You have the power to slow down time [or,
indeed, to speed it up if you're waiting for something to happen], but
it'll do little good.
Basically, you see something worth eating, and by the time you manage to
get to it, you've used up so much energy manouvering that you're now
smaller than the thing you're trying to absord. Instead of sustaining
you, it kills you. And even if it doesn't, you can easily spend more
energy manouvering than you get out of your meals, so you never actually
get any bigger.
I should also mention that manouvering involves ejecting mass, and this
can also move other motes around. There are levels where you actually do
this on purpose to move obstructions out of your way. (Hence the "speed
up time" option.) These levels are extremely hard. It's almost
impossible to avoid moving things you want to remain still. If you're
not careful, you collapse all available matter into a single giant mote,
many times larger than you, and you now have nothing left to eat, and
it's a stalemate. (Alternatively, on the antimatter levels, you knock
too much matter and antimatter together and end up with an empty space
with no food.)
The number of times I've spent several hours playing a level, just about
come close to completing it, and then accidentally touched the wrong
mote for a split second and lost the game... Do you know what "rage
quit" is? Because this game inspires *a lot* of rage quits. It can be so
damned frustrating.
And yet, I keep playing it... Apparently my logical reasoning skills are
faulty. :-P
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Invisible schrieb:
> Hey everybody, fancy some utter frustration?
>
> http://www.hemispheregames.com/osmos/
>
> (You can also buy, download and install it using Steam, which is what I
> did.)
>
> The game is simple enough. You control a small mote. If you touch a
> smaller mote, you absorb it and become bigger. If you touch a larger
> mote, it absorbs you and you DIE. Don't do this. You can also manouver
> by ejecting small particles of mass. (But this gradually - or rapidly -
> makes you smaller, depending on your vigourusly you manouver.)
From what I see in the trailer video and your description, its game
principle builds up on "flOw":
http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/flowing/
(which is probably much more relaxing)
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Invisible schrieb:
> The major problem with the game is that it is ABSURDLY HARD. The major
> reason for this is that trying to make your mote go where you want is
> almost impossible. (You see that level in the video with everything
> spiralling around the attractor in the center? It took me THREE DAYS to
> complete that single level!)
Gravity: UR doin' it wrong...
In that level you really need to "think spacecraft" - which can be a bit
brain-wrecking at times:
You want to catch up with something ahead of you? Accelerate towards the
center of gravity! This will drop you into a smaller, faster orbit.
Likewise, to "move backwards", accelerate "up" instead, which will bring
you into a larger, slower orbit.
Make sure to keep an eye on the eccentricity of your orbit.
And most of all: Take your time, and heed the Prime Directive: Don't
panic :-)
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