Osmos Rage, part 1: Welcome to Hell

Posted by on Jan 30, 2010 in Osmos, Rage | One Comment

Since we released Osmos in August, we’ve been getting mostly great feedback from players and reviewers alike. Mostly. There is however one complaint that we see regularly, and very vocally: Rage.

“I’m done with Osmos. Done. F3A-3 is no fun.” -RSHabroptilus, Steam forums

“… playing Osmos was like getting knocked out by a sharp kick to the face from an eight year old.” -Ben Barrett, Gaming Daily review

“This is no walk in the park – Osmos is incredibly difficult” -Michael Rose, IndieGames.com review

“What a fun game, until the insane levels start” -soliunasm, xbox360achievements.org forums

” Osmos is without doubt a very entertaining game, but don’t let the ambient feel fool you; this game isn’t going to let you relax all the way through. For £6.99 you’re getting a worthwhile package and there’s a demo for you to see if it’s the right game for you. For most it will be engaging and addicting, if somewhat rage-inducing later on.” -Dominic Sheard, DarkZero review

As of this writing, only 2% of Steam players have completed the game. (ie. gotten the “Graduate of the Osmos” achievement) Looking at some of the other percentages to guess-timate how many people are actually trying to beat the game, I would hope this would be closer to 5-10%.

To remedy the situation, we recently adjusted the difficulty of the hardest few levels of the game. Those last levels are still hard, but I believe the game is balanced more fairly now; and since then, we’ve been seeing as many people defending the game’s difficulty as flogging it.

“I just wanted to give a big thanks to the devs for listening to the community and rolling out the difficulty update. F3C-3 is now the only Force zone I have left to beat…” -jnfenrir, Steam forums

Some are even saying it’s too easy now, though the bonus “forever” zones certainly mitigate that. That said, some of the late levels are still difficult.

This is the first of a four-part series of blog posts to “give back” to our players. This first one is simply this introduction. The second will address our “misleading” marketing materials. The third will answer the question: Why did we make the game so bloody hard – are we sadists? And finally, the fourth will offer some practical advice on how to beat those final levels.

Stay tuned…

1 Comment

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