And when I read about real phenomena like colliding galaxies, retrograde planets, and the like, my mind goes to stange and wonderful places. How did this come about?Įddy: I was (and probably still am) a sci-fi kid. Peter: Ha – well, I’m glad you “bothered”! One thing that I think is really unique about Osmos is the gravitational mechanic. But here we are, a couple years later, and I think we’ve managed to put out a unique game with a great mix of gameplay, sound, and visuals. On top of that, I learned that Will Wright had hired Brian Eno to do the music! I definitely had a "why should I bother?" moment at that point. As for Spore, Osmos was about one year into development when I saw the first preview footage of its "cell stage". I guess it’s an archetype though, and the comparisons have been inevitable. That’s when I heard about flOw, which I’ve tried to steer stylistically clear of ever since. It’s funny: when I sent out the first prototype to friends, I was concerned they would think the game was too similar to Katamari. The only "modern" game that otherwise influenced me was Katamari Damacy. But it’s true, the physics/controls have more in common with classic games such as Asteroids and Gravitar. What are the games that have inspired you, either specifically or generally?Įddy: Some people are dubbing the gameplay type as "eat ’em up", as opposed to the classic "shoot ’em up". To me, the basic game controls could be traced back to early titles like Asteroids. Peter: I found it amusing that some of the game press have stumbled around looking for a name for a new genre here, the "eat other stuff" category. Osmos’ music reads like a who’s-who of intelligent ambient music, with artists like Norway’s Biosphere. I spoke to the lead designer behind the game, programmer/animator Eddy Boxerman, along with musical-sonic collaborator Mat Jarvis aka Gas aka High Skies. Put it all together, and something magical happens in this $10 game: you hear the music in a new way. The game really feels like an extension of the world of the music. The music isn’t simply a beautiful soundtrack to the game. If blips in early arcade games helped create a zone of play trance, now we have spectacular ambient soundtrack of music by Loscil, Gas/High Skies, Julien Neto, and Biosphere. You can only solve a level by managing speed and motion, and the music helps provide both the literal indications of speed and help your head get into the right zone to lose yourself in the world. More importantly, the music is woven directly into game play, providing subtle cues for dangers, and underscoring the pace of gameplay. It’s immediately beautiful and delicate, a perfect aesthetic union of the texture of the music and the on-screen arrangements of particles. Of course, this is on a music site, and with good reason: what makes Osmos work is that Osmos is musical. Pac-Man, the most successful arcarde game of all time, and one of the few that sucked in men and women in equal measure, was noted for its emphasis on eating as the mechanic. No less than a shooter, it connects to the id and survival instinct. The design makes ingenious use of different kinds of movement and pacing through its different modes, at one point calling upon you to hurtle around a black hole, then move at nearly imperceptible speeds through a seemingly impossible-to-traverse petri dish of massive particles. To me, there’s something happening to the zeitgeist, perhaps a renewed awareness of cosmic (micro- or macroscopic) being, and of movement that draws on free-floating physics.Įven amongst a wave of games in this mode,when you actually play Osmos, you realize that it is something different and special. The move from “shoot stuff” to “move” or “eat” seems to be rising in popularity, with games like fl0w and Spore’s initial “cell stage” encouraging nonviolent navigation. By carefully navigating, applying just the right vector force to move through the shifting landscape, you merge with other particles and escape to safety. In the game Osmos, you become a mysterious particle, floating amongst gravity wells in various fields of material. Space shooters with pounding electronic beats behind them have cleared some of the way. But with the blank canvas of three different media before you, what form should that fusion take? Musicians and artists now have the power to fuse visuals, sound, and interaction, to make a spectacle, an album, and a game all at once. You’ll want superb music on loop, because it may … take some time to get out of this puzzle.
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