Suggestion: Replay feature! (after beating a level...)

[thraab]

Hello there fellow Osmos travelers.

I'm wondering if the dear talented people behind Osmos are still working on their baby, and if they are, I suggest they try to implement a Replay feature for after completing each level.
That way people could enjoy observing how they managed to get so big starting so small! Especially with the time control.

Just an idea, but at least it's not as complex as implementing a multiplayer mode, eh... (>_ >)

[jamesstarmer]

I was going to make almost the exact same suggestion.
Being able to see yourself change from a dot to osmosing everything, would be cool.

I Imagine It would be difficult to add the feature though.

[Richard H]

The devs could correct me but I imagine the main difficulty would be the interface. Seems like a deterministic system (AI included) once you have the random seed. You would just need to record all the human control inputs. No rewind of course, unless it was in block jumps. Wonder how much memory it takes to store the entire state.

[Meal Worms]

Great suggestions gang! Yeah, recording replays would be a lovely thing to add. You're right tom some extent, Richard H that the game is largely deterministic; however, the determinism is highly dependent on the framerate because Osmos uses a variable timestep (the AI brains will make different decisions depending on the precise state of the level, etc), and there'd be a fair bit of effort required to separate the rendering stepping from the simulation stepping.

If we were to add fixed timestepping, though, we wouldn't be far away at that point from full multiplayer. Who knows what the future will hold...

Dave

[Richard H]

Ah, ok, that's interesting. I guess I'm seeing similar behaviour from one run to the next on AI levels since I'm probably getting a relatively constant frame rate and only trying to apply pattern gameplay to the first 30 seconds or so. (Damn you "forever" Feraxes! )

In that case it sounds like a bit more of a headache. Not sure what percentage of your processing time the physics represents but a fixed physics timestep might not scale well across different hardware configs so what you have done for the game you have seems like the best choice.

So I guess when I fast forward the game on the orbital levels I'm affecting the physics a bit? Unless you just do more physics or apply some fancy integrators. Not that its going to stop me. I think my technique for Epicycles variants would take a couple of hours if I wasn't hitting fast forward so much.

Yes, multiplayer would be interesting with a fixed time step. I guess you would have to run at the update rate of the slowest machine and all human input, even that applied to the local player could have to be lagged by at least the send/acknowledge time between machines. You could probably get away with that for this type of game. (though I might notice the lag a little playing anyone outside my island continent) There's probably a smarter way to do it than that I guess. Its not like you are physically affecting everything around you at every moment. Hmmm ... Ah, better you than me

[bluemanontelly]

Replay would be brilliant, I was going to suggest it too. Any chance? If this is possible to implement, then it would be a logical next step to have the ability to save (ok I suppose you'd have to be a bit mental to want to watch them too often but it would be better viewing than much of the stuff on TV!)