Osmos

Osmos is a game unlike any other I've played before, and frankly, I'm not sure how to go about labeling it. It's called Casual/Indie on the Steam store, which is about the least helpful description ever. It can be extremely relaxing, or seem like the most difficult game in the world. I would point out it has strategy, puzzle, and even physics elements, though not in the sense that it would fall into any of those genres, rather those concepts will be in the back of your mind as you attempt to complete a level, doubly so for the later end ones. Perhaps the best approach with a title such as this is to simply describe what the game entails, and let you come to your own conclusions about how you would classify the game.

You take on the role of a mote; just one of many in any given level. Generally you're goal is to become the largest mote in the level, though a few levels have your defeating specific motes to succeed.

An early level. Just become the biggest. But avoid the red ones, for reasons I'll explain shortly.

There are three key mechanics to the game. First, if any two motes make contact, the larger of the two will absorb the smaller as long as they remain in contact, so if the one being absorbed moves far enough away that the larger of the two does not grow fast enough to remain in contact, the now diminished mote survives. This is important because you can survive an encounter with a larger mote. The second is that to move, and this only applies to you and a few other special motes, you must expel a portion of your mass. The more mass and the faster you expel it, the quicker you will accelerate in the opposite direction. However, at the same time, you'll shrink, which is almost always the opposite of what you'll want to do in this game. The final mechanic is physics, which occurs in a number of ways. The first involves movement, wherein you'll gain momentum in whichever direction you're accelerating. In a similar fashion, those little motes you shoot out will impact other motes around you, and can be used to slightly nudge very large stationary motes around. Given enough time, since momentum is conserved, you could slowly move everything else around the screen. The final thing to remember about physics involves a few special levels that are similar to a solar system, as you'll find attractors, special motes that suck everything in, set up to act like a sun with the motes taking on the role of planets - but as long as you maintain a good orbit, you'll survive.

Okay, so that's the background in a nutshell. Towards the beginning of the game you'll simply be tasked with becoming the largest mote in a completely stationary environment, usually where things are a similiar size. So you'll need to judge which motes you can reach without losing too much mass for the potential gain. This is simple when things are roughly the same size as you. It's not so simple when they are 50 times your size.

Well, it's not quite 50 times bigger, but it's still a great illustration of a level where you'll need to move carefully.

That's where strategy comes in. You'll need to look around for something you can actually absorb, and you may not find anything. What do you do then? Use the motes you expel to nudge things around, which will cause some motes to shrink when they collide, hopefully giving you a chance to swoop in and absorb them before they completely disappear. You'll need patience, though the ability to slow down or speed up time on a sliding scale does help for those critical moments that need lots of input or those times when you just are waiting for something to happen.

After you get out a bit further, the levels start branching off, breaking up into three categories - basically different game types. Force levels have attractors, or occasionally a repulsor, that impact the other motes in the level. You're usually tasked with absorbing these, rather than just becoming the biggest, and it can be tricky. A level with several attractors will become very chaotic very quickly, as each gains mass it becomes more powerful, exerting it's influence across the level, and so you will need to come up with a solution to quickly deal with them before they've absorbed everything and things look very bleak for your chance of success.  Special force levels have you orbiting a stationary attractor, and those are the levels I most enjoy, as you'll speed up or slow down, gain mass or lose it, and change your orbit as a result. Basically, I hope you remember your physics courses.

A nice, calm, orbit. Slow down, and you fly into the 'sun'. Speed up, and you fly out to space. Change your angle to go to an elliptical orbit. God, why do I know this stuff?

Sentient levels have other living motes, which you must absorb. These can be very tricky, because some do not live by the same rules you must, moving very, very quickly. Generally the motes are more passive than aggressive, but you must always make sure you don't end up as lunch.

The final category is Ambient. These come in a few different flavors, but the premise is always the same - become the biggest. Sometimes all the motes are moving, sometimes they are stationary, and sometimes there is antimatter, which follows all the rules regular motes do, but destroys normal motes when the two come into contact.

Antimatter makes things a bit more interesting. Also, you're the tiny blue spec in the center. Have fun!

The variety of gametypes makes things interesting, and each one requires a different strategy. No two levels are exactly the same, even if the underlying principles are. For example, a level may have fewer motes that are close to your size, or just fewer motes in total, which would require you to carefully plan your route, and then execute it with near perfection. For the most part the result is a relaxing, easy paced game with good music that functions well at any game speed and pleasant visuals. However, should you wish to take on some of the last tier levels, that isn't always the case, as the difficulty seems to escalate exponentially. To give you an idea of what I mean, at the final level there are four achievements, one for beating each zone, and one for beating everything. Each zone - Force, Sentient, and Ambient - does consist of multiple levels, so it's much more than beating three more levels, and they are broken in to subcategories, so there is a lot to do. The important thing however is this, which comes from the global achievement data off of Steam: 20% of players have unlocked the final tier, 16% have completed Sentient, 9% have completed Ambient, 2% have completed Force, and less than 2% have completed all three. In other words, the game gets incredibly difficult at the end, and 98% of people never end up completing it. The game is still worth getting, but just know, particularly if you're a completion focused person, it does get quite hard. If you'd rather just have a good time with a casual game, you can certainly do that too, but that would be limited to the first half of the game.

You orbit one of three attractors, each of which orbits the large center one. This level is NOT easy.

Osmos is a game which I picked up way back in 2009, and put a good chunk of time into until I hit a brick wall of difficulty, as explained above. It wasn't until more recently, when I finally joined the smart phone crowd and picked it up in a Humble Android Bundle, did I rekindle my interest in completing the game. I put a total of 8 hours into the game, but about 25% of that time was spent on the last few Force levels, by far the hardest in the game (except for the secret levels that come afterwards, but those achievements are at or less than 1% completion). Despite the frustration and the level of difficulty towards the end of the game, I still absolutely recommend it. Way back when I picked it up it was $2, and it has been in several indie bundles, so you could probably still get it around that price, but it's worth it up to about the $5 mark. How much you're willing to part with could depend on if you're looking for a fun casual game, or a challenge, one that only 2% of players have completed. Either way, Osmos is a very good game - 8 out of 10.

So, the final breakdown:

Score: 8/10

Suggest Price: $2-5