Osmos Suggestions, Improvements & Wishlists

Feedback and support for the PC version of Osmos
wazzie
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 10:03 pm

Re: Osmos Suggestions, Improvements & Wishlists

Postby wazzie » Mon Oct 19, 2009 10:23 pm

I loved the game. Grats guys, very polished work.
Two comments. I finished the game without knowing that there is a "trajectory" help. I guess it can be a bit too difficult for some without it but It feels like cheating. I am pretty sure I am gonna use it when I do the bonus levels...but I just wish it wasn't there... No2: I found it very annoying that the menu came up whenever I click on my guy (or on the attractors). I accidentally restarted the level that I played a couple of times (which is really not fun when I am about to finish a long level). Is there a way to turn this function off?

SolusCorvus
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Oct 20, 2009 12:42 pm

Re: Osmos Suggestions, Improvements & Wishlists

Postby SolusCorvus » Tue Oct 20, 2009 1:17 pm

First I just want to say thanks for making this fantastic game. I'm still playing, so I don't know if any of my ideas are in later stages. But here it is anyway :D.

1) Motes with a hard surface. When you contact the mote, you simply bounce off. Could be variable related to your size or some other factor. So that it is hard most of the time but it is absorb-able when it is 90-99% your mass (or whatever).

2) Antibodies. As you grow, antibodies in the level will attach to your surface. If you collect too many on your surface a leukocyte will come after you, maybe multiple. You could avoid the dangerous response by collecting other motes in the system that have self-antigens and expressing them on your surface.

3) Membranes. I often feel like the mote is suspended in some sort of fluid (especially on the ai levels). Membranes could divide up levels so that there are different areas of the level with different properties ( like different viscosity, time flow, etc). Membranes also could be used for other things because you could make them selectively permeable based on nearly anything ( particle size, particle type, particle velocity, etc ).

4) Variable shaped motes. You could have a mote shaped like a square, or shaped like an amoeba.

5) Being able to charge up the size of the matter ejected for propulsion. A quick left tap spits out a tiny ball relative to your size, holding down the right button spits out a ton of little balls. Instead how about holding down the right mouse button just saves up all the mass to be ejected (up to a certain point) until you release. Could help to surprise the ferax and in certain other situations.

EDIT:

6) Symbiosis. You could absorb certain other kinds of motes ( though they still exist within you ) for special abilities, expressing self-antigens, changing physical properties, etc.

evilteq
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Oct 22, 2009 4:52 am

Re: Osmos Suggestions, Improvements & Wishlists

Postby evilteq » Thu Oct 22, 2009 5:13 am

eddybox wrote:We're listening, and a level editor is high on our wish-list as well.


I love the game. But i would really like it more if i could code my own stuff, share it and see and play what others do. As this is a whislist (:P), i would really like to code different AIs. Maybe even a "playerless" mode, AI's playing each other, seeing how your creation behaves. It may not be suitable for everyone, but i'm sure <del>geeks</del> programmers like me would love it. And as a sidekick, it would be a good way to test AI as you develop them for playes.

Some simple scripting would be nice as well. For example, IA getting easier/harder as they grow larger/smaller; or getting huge cells to autosplit to make some levels easier.

TehWhale
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Oct 20, 2009 1:55 pm

Re: Osmos Suggestions, Improvements & Wishlists

Postby TehWhale » Fri Oct 23, 2009 12:46 pm

Allow lua coding/modules/plugins whatever. :D

spamalot
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Aug 19, 2009 1:20 pm

Re: Osmos Suggestions, Improvements & Wishlists

Postby spamalot » Sun Nov 08, 2009 7:22 am

I love the open scripting idea.

This could mean that the developers lose the ability to release addons oder follow-up versions of the game, since they wouldn't be able to charge for what the users do...

In any case, it would be fun to be able to code myself, create code classes that people could use to have their A.I.s fight each other (-> evolution!) or use to build their own levels. Any of you heard of Garry's Mod? A development like that would be awesome!

BKing
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jun 18, 2009 6:55 pm

Re: Osmos Suggestions, Improvements & Wishlists

Postby BKing » Sat Nov 28, 2009 10:39 am

Love the Game!

Although I haven't finished the game, I would love to see an "expansion pack". Either more levels to expand all three arms ( A-F-S ) or be able to buy a 'pack' for one arm. I love the ambient arm of the game and would buy more levels if inexpensive. Perhaps offer sections that didn't make it to the final game? The structure of the molecule lends itself to infinite expansion.

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majorman
Posts: 21
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2009 9:32 pm
Location: Albuquerque, NM

Re: Osmos Suggestions, Improvements & Wishlists

Postby majorman » Mon Nov 30, 2009 1:01 am

I think the idea of expansion packs is great! I would like to see some new content and would be willing to shell out a few more dollars if the update was substantial enough. I still think a level editor is a huge must and even the ability to play as different motes (I know that most of them have a similar ways of working but it would still be cool to be able to play as a different looking mote).

Also, the idea of having just a sandbox type thing would be very cool. Just a randomly generated, endless environment where you just keep growing and avoiding other motes.

Something I would definitely be willing to shell out a few dollars for would be an Osmos screensaver type of thing. Everything would be controlled by the A.I. and you could just sit and watch them do stuff (somebody else had mentioned this earlier).

Basically I think there is a ton of potential that this game has to really take things to a whole new level in terms of creating a very engrossing experience. Keep up the good work guys!!!
-Major

goetter
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:30 pm

Re: sound redirection

Postby goetter » Wed Dec 02, 2009 3:30 pm

I love the ambient-style Osmos soundtrack. I wish that I could stream Osmos' sound effects through my Squeezebox (network audio player) so I could enjoy the game through better speakers than those in my laptop.

As far as I can tell, this would require an OpenAL driver that would render output to some Squeezebox as an OpenAL device. (If that driver implemented AL_FORMAT_VORBIS_EXT, Osmos could leverage the native Ogg decoder on Squeezeboxen, at least when Osmos wasn't in slow-time mode-- I am assuming that there's some sort of PCM-level manipulation going on then.) Anyway, http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/S ... CPProtocol if you find this at all intriguing.

The other way one could conceivably do this would be to have an OpenAL device implement a Shoutcast server on localhost, such that a network media player could read a stream from your laptop, but I suspect that would make absorb/consume/etc effects a bit laggy.

Since I am unlikely to bite off implementing an OpenAL driver myself in the next ten years, I'm also considering a brute-force approach where I redirect all output to my laptop's soundcard onto the Squeezebox. Essentially this is the previous solution or pretty close to it, delivered at the Windows sound system level. It's rumored to be both laggy and unreliable on cheap Windows laptop sound chips. http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/WaveInput_plugin

All of this has very little to do with Osmos, I know. If I had the other pieces in place, I might ask that you offer the ability to open an OpenAL device other than the default. Just take it as a compliment that your game has driven me to consider these Rube Goldberg extremes.

Ben

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Meal Worms
Posts: 624
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Re: Osmos Suggestions, Improvements & Wishlists

Postby Meal Worms » Wed Dec 02, 2009 7:59 pm

Hi goetter,

Thanks for your post! It's true that Osmos will by default select the sound device your OS has labelled as the default. That said, you can manually choose a different sound device by editing the Osmos config file (Config.cfg, in the Osmos directory of your Documents folder). There's a line in the file that reads

soundDevice "-1

Crack open the Osmos log file (Osmos.log, in the same directory) and have a look at the list of devices Osmos supports. Then, change the 'soundDevice' var in Config.cfg to point to that device.

One 'gotcha' here is that the device list in the log is numbered 1,2,3, etc, whereas Osmos expects the device numbers to be 0,1,2. So, set the 'soundDevice' var to be the device number listed in the log, minus one.

Dave

popovich
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2009 6:17 am

Re: Osmos Suggestions, Improvements & Wishlists

Postby popovich » Mon Dec 07, 2009 6:23 am

Osmos is a great game, and I bought it on Steam sale.
If it wasn't for that sale, I'd probably never know about it.
Now that I've completed it and got all achievements, I wonder what's next... :D
I'd love to see more...much more, maybe even Osmos 2 (that I'd buy in a second! ;) ).
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
And thanks for this lovely game. ;)


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