Osmos demo, comments and suggestions

[x-fury-7]

Waow ! really nice game, I'm in love :p

Scaredy is my favorite level, due to the challenge (the damn manoeuvres really well !) . As Sanguinax It makes me ask about the possibility of Osmos being a multiplayer game ?
I also discovered your project through Joystick (yes another french fan here !) I hope they will keep in touch with your project.

Well I definitively wait for the retail version (or another demo, I want new levels !!).

[Rich51]

Excellent game demo. Looking forward to the full version!

[Meta]

Me too...
Or maybe a new demo?

[qbus]

I just got your demo off Steam and its great... look forward to a full version later... if there is no pre-order now (the way 2dboy did it).

[linfosoma]

I just tried the demo, first of all, Im really glad this was released on Steam! I buy all my games there and otherwise I would have never found out about this game.
Second, Im impressed with your work. Not only from a gameplay and audiovisual design perspective, but also as a concept.
I consider this game what Spore never got to be (it also reminded me to Orbital from the Beat Generation series for the Gameboy SP).
Specially when I got to the last level, man that battle was epic! The AI is incredible, I truly felt I was battling with a living being for survival. I was actually kinda sad I had to eat him/her/it, but that´s the law of the jungle I guess. One must move on.

I see that the game will probably not include multiplayer for the PC. That´s sad, it would be nice if you could add that later on as a DLC, I wouldn´t mind paying extra for a feature like that. The risk vs reward nature of trying to eat the other while not trying to loose too much mass, which can potencially be exploited by your oponent would make some nice online battles.

Another thing I would like to see on the PC version is gamepad support. I know it sounds weird but I would like sit in my sofa and relax while I see if it´s possible to assimilate the sun on that round level, something I have yet to try because I was to exited to see the next level.
Something like what they did with Everyday Shooter or Geometry wars would be great for this game in my opinion.

Once again, congratulations for such a great project and vision. This is a must buy in my book.
Alex.

[ilk]

i liked it. . .

To me, it felt like your physics off the walls was a little off, should be more friction, less spin, but maybe it's just me.

This also maybe just me or my mouse setup but holding down the left mouse button should propel me faster then several individual mouse clicks no?

For your final version and for replayability; add in ways to keep track of stats per level, % absorbed, time for completion, # of fails, the more stats to see the more replayability you get for a minimal investment in coding.

In game ideas; I'm sure you've already got a million on your own plus 2 million you know you don't have time to put in =)

[Benihana]

I for one loved the demo, it was simply amazing. A feature I think I would like to see would be a charge-up shot of sorts. Sometimes when the osmos gets too big, I wish I could charge-up and shoot out a significantly larger particle to give me more acceleration.

Solace's suggestion is pretty good too! Such as when you absorb one of those orbs, it actually diminishes some of your mass. Perhaps it even re-ejects another mass-diminishing orb.

Or perhaps even a "gravity" feature that when activated, it would draw in all surrounding orbs towards yourself at the cost of significant mass. The plus side would be increased rate of mass accumulation, at the risk of mass loss leading to orb termination. Or even the risk of absorbing some harming orbs, like Solace's.

Of course some of these may sound bizarre, and the demo itself is most beautiful. I am excited to see how the final version turns out!

[Baleur]

This is the kind of extremely simple but extremely complex games i've grown obsessed by the past years
I'd love to see this game become huge, rather than released too soon. As it is now, sure its awesome and all that. But i want more!

I was amazed at the level with the big thing in the center that attracted the other smaller orbs. I'd love to see this game go from a cellular level, all the way up to planetary and intergalactic scales.. Yes pretty much like those "Eat the world" games. But with a realistic newtonian twist.
Imagine controlling a tiny pebble in a solar system (could almost be a copy of that level), trying to grow larger and larger to finally count as a planet, but with slight gravitational interactions.
And even higher up, to control a star or small black hole, now having evolved beyond the "swallow" stage, and instead using gravity to capture other stars, eventually forming a galaxy.
And at the top level, controlling a galaxy, but with each dot within you being a star that you have to eject in order to propell yourself, and each dot (a pixel) in turn has slight pull & tug on each other nearby dot (within 5-10 pixels or something).

[spiralinfusion]

I really like this game and will definitely purchase when it is released. I already have a few friends turned on to the demo. You guys might already have my following things in mind, but just to put these suggestions out there to make the game the best it can be:

1) higher quality/different backgrounds other than just the floating particles, perhaps subtle morping textures or organic light patterns. Basically, make it look so good that people wouldn't mind just keeping it on their screen eye candy or a screensaver. Nothing that would mess with the calm/minimalist feel of the game, though, or make the gameplay confusing.

2) give the user the option of completely hiding the game display elements (level name, trackt artist, etc), or make the display elements fade out after a few seconds of each level. This will greatly increase immersion factor. In the same vein, you need to change or completely get rid of the boundary lines. Why not just make it so that the boundary lines are the acutal edge of the viewable playing area during full zoom-out? If you have to have the boundary lines visible, at least try to the give them some sort of cohesion with the design of the level or background. Faintly glowing/morphing wavy lines, maybe. Or perhaps just make the background fade to black at the boundaries. Anything would be an improvement over the the plain line boundaries.

3) this one might not be possible given the current stage of music/audio development, but the icing on the cake (cake being the great soundtrack) would be music that changes subtley as the player increases/decreases in size. As each song track has a certain number of music layers, certain layers could be made to play only when the player is certain size, with all the layers of track playing when the player is larger than most of the other objects. This approach would work great with the ambient-style music since there wouldn't be any sudden or dramatic transitions in the music to disturb the calm feel of the game. You wouldn't even need to change the existing soundtrack at all, just assign different arrangements of the existing songs layers to certain sizes of the player's object.

I think the above suggestions would do a lot to improve the already great feel of the game.

[eddybox]

Thanks for the great feedback and suggestions everyone -- it inspires us to push even more towards making the best game we can.

Yes, we're very excited to have Osmos on Steam as well! It's just the demo for now, but come this summer...

To respond to some of your comments:

- the full verison will definitely feature more gravity levels: bigger/faster/more-complex systems, moving attractors, etc.
- music: nothing nailed down yet, but yes, more wonderful ambient electronica coming your way. (some with "procedural" variation.)
- visuals: been hard at work on this, trying to make things richer/more-alive/organic while keeping that soothing, minimalist feel. (not obvious.) feel free to check out some of our experiments at: http://vimeo.com/user989434/videos. agreed on the walls as well: they need work.
- pre-order: yes, i'd like to do this.
- player/level stats: we're planning to add some. (and possibly a "unique" scoring mechanism.)
- more mote-types/abilities. there are a number of great suggestions in this thread. all i can say is... we're working hard on it, and keeping a few surprises up our sleeves.

Oh, and don't forget to vote for your favorite finalist in this year's IGF. Voting closes this Friday: http://www.igf.com/audience.php

Cheers,
Eddy