Osmos HD
Floating in Space has Never Been More Fun
Posted August 9, 2010
Originally built for the PC community, Osmos HD for the Apple iPad is a gorgeous consumption game that's similar to Sony's Flow for the Playstation 3. Simple in design, you play as a gelatinous blog called a mote that envelops other motes around it by simply touching them. The concept is beyond easy, but the strategic decisions made in real-time require patience and subtle movements to beat each level. It’s very much a casual game that can be played on short breaks, essentially hopping in and out of levels.
The rules are straightforward. In order to propel the mote, you have to expel portions of the mote to move. This action makes the mote smaller, but can send you in the direction of a smaller blue mote to envelop. Alternatively, red motes will suck up the mass of your mote, hence you need to keep a safe distance away from them. As blue motes are sucked up, the mass of your mote grows and red motes become blue. In many levels, the goal is to become the largest mass on the screen.
There’s also a time component to consider. You have the ability to slow down or speed up time in the mote’s world. For instance, if a blue mote is careening toward your mote, it’s probably more advantageous to speed up time to make it happen sooner and preserve your own mass. In later levels, there also green motes that attempt to flee your blue glowing blob. There are also levels with gravitational pulls that require lots of careful planning to create a path designed to envelop all the blue motes.
What’s really impressive about this application is the responsiveness of the control scheme, the variation among the levels and the increasing level of difficulty along the way. There’s also a considerable amount of variation in how you play a level. Choosing a different direction at the outcome of the level requires an entirely different path to victory. Beyond the two game modes, Odyssey (campaign) and Arcade, the developer also included achievements as well. These achievements can be shared socially via the OpenFeint integration, likely an early look at how achievements will look on Apple’s upcoming gaming service similar to Xbox Live.
If you enjoy casual games, then shelling out $4.99 for Osmos HD is really a no-brainer. This iPad application is the perfect time-waster when on the train or simply used to stretch your brain on a little 5 minute break from work. It’s a game that anyone in the family can pick up, play and have a tremendous amount of fun. I can easily recommend this game and it could very well be one of the best titles to come to the iPad in 2010.
The rules are straightforward. In order to propel the mote, you have to expel portions of the mote to move. This action makes the mote smaller, but can send you in the direction of a smaller blue mote to envelop. Alternatively, red motes will suck up the mass of your mote, hence you need to keep a safe distance away from them. As blue motes are sucked up, the mass of your mote grows and red motes become blue. In many levels, the goal is to become the largest mass on the screen.
There’s also a time component to consider. You have the ability to slow down or speed up time in the mote’s world. For instance, if a blue mote is careening toward your mote, it’s probably more advantageous to speed up time to make it happen sooner and preserve your own mass. In later levels, there also green motes that attempt to flee your blue glowing blob. There are also levels with gravitational pulls that require lots of careful planning to create a path designed to envelop all the blue motes.
What’s really impressive about this application is the responsiveness of the control scheme, the variation among the levels and the increasing level of difficulty along the way. There’s also a considerable amount of variation in how you play a level. Choosing a different direction at the outcome of the level requires an entirely different path to victory. Beyond the two game modes, Odyssey (campaign) and Arcade, the developer also included achievements as well. These achievements can be shared socially via the OpenFeint integration, likely an early look at how achievements will look on Apple’s upcoming gaming service similar to Xbox Live.
Graphics
- Visually, the graphics are just stunning in their simplicity. The shift in colors when gobbling up smaller motes is beautiful and the glowing lighting effects bring life to the floating motes on the screen. The transitions are stunning and the physics engine is without flaw.
Audio
- The dreamy, hypnotic tunes that accompany each level perfectly fit the space style landscape and the sound effects match the ambiance as well. It’s definitely better when listening to headphones and the developers give you that little hint at the start of each game.
Conclusion
If you enjoy casual games, then shelling out $4.99 for Osmos HD is really a no-brainer. This iPad application is the perfect time-waster when on the train or simply used to stretch your brain on a little 5 minute break from work. It’s a game that anyone in the family can pick up, play and have a tremendous amount of fun. I can easily recommend this game and it could very well be one of the best titles to come to the iPad in 2010.