You’ve probably heard of this type of game; big fish eat small fish and grow bigger, to eat bigger fish. This time, Hemisphere Games brings us a top indie game called Osmos: you are a single-celled organism (a mote) and have to propel yourself around and absorb smaller motes in order to complete the goal, which revolves around becoming larger, most of the time.
In Osmos, you control a small “mote” in space. You can propel yourself by ejecting a piece of yourself out of the other end of yourself, following Newton’s laws of motion. Be wary, you do not want to waste your size for temporary speed. You can gain more mass by absorbing smaller motes while avoiding larger ones for the time being, as being absorbed by a larger mote will result in failure. Time spent waiting for the organisms to collide can be minimized with the time slider, which also lets you perform precise actions by slowing time down.
What could qualify as one of the best indie games, this game is extremely simple and its relaxing peacefulness and simplicity are one of its greatest pluses. While the game is simple, the levels do become quite difficult after the first introductory levels. You can start off as an extremely small mote surrounded thickly by larger ones, and carefully navigating around, hunting for smaller organisms can become a difficult chore.
This top indie game is fun, with three different game modes, each with a different key element that keeps the game interesting. They range between other smart AI motes that will hunt as well that you must absorb, or where everything is being spun in orbit around an attractor, in a fashion similar to gravity and maneuvering around arranging collision course with motes.
I’ve found the game to get boring pretty fast, and overtime levels get ridiculously difficult in scale and take far too long to play. The graphics are pretty basic, but as it is one of the best indie games, this is to be expected. The game is on a 2D level with most of the objects looking pretty much identical. The sound is not as good as you would expect for a casual game that is meant to be relaxing and peaceful rather than packed to the brim with action.
Conclusion: Osmos is a simple game where colliding organisms can be fun and relaxing..