Love the game, one suggestion

[DoubleOBond]

Option to remove the border of the level. Visually it would be nice to see the game without the light blue wall around the level. Of course the drawback is that you don't know exactly where the wall is, but that is the price you pay for the borderless level. Regardless, Bravo...love the game.

[Catinthewall]

I agree that the border is the largest barrier to complete immersion. perhaps a compromise is needed, make the border an environmental feature, rather than a HUD-like feature. Rock for bouncy walls, and something innately deadly to a mote for killing walls. this would make level design even more fun.

[Meal Worms]

Hey gang,

For a game like Osmos you've really only got two options when it comes to level boundaries: either you have 'em, or you wrap around (infinitely large levels can't fly). Thing is, having walls adds interesting gameplay to the game; for example, chasing AI opponents is more fun when you can herd them around, there are a bunch of tricks you can with wall bouncing and conserving mass, etc etc. So having walls is 'a good thing'.

Next question is how to represent them visually. Osmos is a comparitively abstract game (is it a macroscopic game set in space? Is it a microscopic game set in a petri dish? Hard to tell, isn't it? ) and we wanted walls that felt rather ethereal, yet still resisted movement. So that's what we went with. Being able to disable walls so they don't draw makes it tricky for players to some of the advanced moves that really add to the game, because by not seeing exactly where the wall is, you lose precision with your maneuvers as a player. So we went with the gameplay decision rather than the 'full-on wall-free ambiance' decision.

Thanks for your comments, keep 'em coming!

Dave

[fred104]

I would like to see much larger levels with many more motes. I'm sure it would be computationally expensive, but if you have a high end machine it would be worth it

[DoubleOBond]

Hey gang,

For a game like Osmos you've really only got two options when it comes to level boundaries: either you have 'em, or you wrap around (infinitely large levels can't fly). Thing is, having walls adds interesting gameplay to the game; for example, chasing AI opponents is more fun when you can herd them around, there are a bunch of tricks you can with wall bouncing and conserving mass, etc etc. So having walls is 'a good thing'.

Next question is how to represent them visually. Osmos is a comparitively abstract game (is it a macroscopic game set in space? Is it a microscopic game set in a petri dish? Hard to tell, isn't it? ) and we wanted walls that felt rather ethereal, yet still resisted movement. So that's what we went with. Being able to disable walls so they don't draw makes it tricky for players to some of the advanced moves that really add to the game, because by not seeing exactly where the wall is, you lose precision with your maneuvers as a player. So we went with the gameplay decision rather than the 'full-on wall-free ambiance' decision.

Thanks for your comments, keep 'em coming!

Dave

Sure, it'll make it tricky, but if the player is ok with that, why not? IMO, if you are going for ethereal, make the wall shimmer and have "space dust" or something bright and moving like fog but the boundary doesn't go into the level.