Osmos

Not to be confused with Osmose Productions or osmosis.

Osmos
File:Osmos4a.PNG The goal of most levels is to absorb enough motes to become the largest on the level.
Developer(s)	Hemisphere Games
Publisher(s)	Hemisphere Games
Platforms	Microsoft Windows Mac OS X Linux OnLive iOS Android
Release date(s)	17 August 2009
Genre(s)	Puzzle
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Osmos is a 2009 puzzle video game developed by Canadian developer Hemisphere Games for various systems such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, OnLive, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and Android.

Gameplay

The aim of the game is to propel oneself, a single-celled organism ("Mote"), into other smaller motes to absorb them. Colliding with a mote larger than the player will cause the player to be absorbed, resulting in a game over. Changing course is done by expelling mass. Due to conservation of momentum, this results in the player's mote moving away from the expelled mass, but also in one's own mote shrinking.

There are three different "zones" of levels in Osmos: In the "sentient" levels, the goal is to prevail over active motes of various types that hunt and absorb other motes, including the player. Hunting them typically involves absorbing as many inactive motes as possible before chasing down the active ones with the extra mass one has gained.

In the "ambient" levels, the player's mote typically floats in a large area surrounded by inactive motes, and must become the largest or simply very large. Variations on this theme involve, for instance, starting the game as a very small mote surrounded by lots of larger, fast moving motes, or the presence of "antimatter" motes which shrink normal motes during collision no matter which one was originally bigger, or starting the game stuck in a huge, densely packed area with a large number of other motes without much space to move about and having to nudge other motes out of the way by ejecting mass at them.

In the "force" levels, special motes ("Attractors") influence other motes with a force similar to gravitation. The player has to take into account orbital physics when planning movement in order to save mass when changing course. In these levels, the game optionally assists the player with a course trajectory tool that plots the mote's course, up to a short time in the future. Force levels are complicated in various ways, including levels with mutually repelling attractors, attractors bouncing randomly around an area full of motes, several "strata" of bodies in retrograde rotation about an attractor, and attractors orbiting other attractors.

On June 25, 2012 Hemisphere Games announced the release of a multiplayer version of Osmos for iOS on the company blog and from the game's Facebook Page for July 19, 2012.

Reception

Osmos received generally favorable reviews with a metascore of 80 on Metacritic based on 22 critic reviews. At IndieCade in 2009, Osmos was named "Best in Show" and won the Fun/Compelling award. Apple Inc. selected Osmos as the iPad game of the year for 2010. It also won many other awards that year. IGN awarded Osmos its best video game soundtrack of 2010.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was named "Best Soundtrack 2010" by IGN. The soundtrack includes:

1. Vincent et Tristan – "Osmos Theme"
2. Gas – "Discovery"
3. Biosphere - "Antennaria" (from Substrata)
4. Loscil – "Lucy Dub"
5. Loscil – "Rorschach"
6. Loscil – "Sickbay"
7. High Skies – "The Shape of Things to Come"
8. Julien Neto – "From Cover to Cover"
9. Julien Neto – "Farewell"

A free download of many of the tracks was made available in March 2010.

External links

• Official website