Multiplayer "Tournaments"

[eddybox]

Hey everyone,

Welcome to our new multiplayer forum! I'm going to blog a bit more about this very soon, but in the meantime I'm creating this topic to try to organize some expert-level Osmos multiplayer games. Strong players out there have noticed (and mentioned to us) that it's uncommon to get paired up with another high-calibre player; but when it happens, it's a lot of fun!

While we'd love to have EVO-style (ie. Street Fighter in Las Vegas) tournaments every year... we'll start a little smaller. Let's pick some time(s) each week where we all look for games via Game Center random matchmaking (ie. "play now" in the Game Center blade in Osmos). If enough of us do it, there should be plenty of worthy opponents to connect with for some exciting games. A few of the devs will participate as well (including Meal Worms and myself, eddybox), and we like to think we're pretty good.

For starters, how about a weekend-afternoon/evening session in North America? Say... Sunday, November 11th at 8pm EST (east coast) / 5pm PST (west coast).

Please let us know if this is something that interests you. Alternate/additional suggestions for days/times that work well for you are also welcome. And feel free to use these forums to connect up, share aliases for Game Center invitations, and make some new friendly foes!

Let's see if we can build some momentum and get some regular, fun Osmos competition going!

Thanks,
Eddy

[Meal Worms]

3.5 hrs to go... can't wait to play! =D

[eddybox]

Well, Dave (Meal Worms) and I spent about 1.5 hours searching for games this evening. We played a few noobs, but also some really strong players! HIGHLY enlightening. I for one played a Grand Master named Ararhythm (I wish I had gotten a screenshot of his # of wins) who showed me how Anti Impasse is really played! I also played someone with the alias "functor", who only had a few wins under his belt according to the stats, but we had some great Warped Chaos and Anti Impasse games. He clearly won the latter type! screenshot attached.

Anyways, it was fun, and we'll do it again next week! Same bat-time, same bat-channel: Sunday, November 18th at 8pm EST (east coast) / 5pm PST (west coast).

ps. we're not sure how many people were on there "randomly" as opposed to people who had read about the plan here or on our facebook page. So if you're here, speak up -- we'd love to hear from you! It'd also motivate us to put some work into "official" score-keeping/ranking systems.

[Ararhythm]

I'm usually on at nights PST. Always down for some fierce competition!!

Btw - Great job on Osmos!!! Here are a few suggestions I would love to see:

1. Overall rankings for all players. I want to know who really dominates Osmos.
2. Multiplayer for android so the iOS players can play against them too.
3. More Achievments!!
4. Multiplayer with three or more players...
5. Multiplayer w/ Feraxes, nemocytes, repulsors, etc.

That's all for now. I'll follow up with any new ideas that come to mind.

Thanks again for all the hard work into making this game!

Cheers,
Ararhythm

[eddybox]

Thanks for chiming in, Ararhythm -- and thanks for the suggestions!

In fact, I've spent the last couple of weeks head-down on a system that will allow us to track multiplayer game sessions, with an eye towards building a ratings/rankings database which our players can check out. But I've also been asking myself on a daily basis whether anyone actually *wants* something like this! (It's been quiet on this multiplayer forum, though we hope that will change.) Anyways, your response goes a long way in helping me find motivation to continue with this effort.

We're also working with Apportable to bring multiplayer to Android. We're looking into making it cross-compatible so iOS and Android owners can play each other, but it'd only be for local games. (Google Play doesn't have the infrastructure yet, and even when it does I doubt it'll interoperate with Game Center!) Would you (or other folks out there) use something like this?

More achievements: we're thinking about this and may add a couple more. For instance, it seems like we may need another rank! I met a player this Sunday eve with the alias "play me maybe" (who kicked my butt in the Solar arena) who had something like 8500 wins!!!

Multiplayer with three or more players. I agree this could be fun, though it may be hard to get online games like this going due to the way Game Center is designed and the number of players looking for a game at a given time. Would this be of interest for local games only?

Multiplayer w AIs. We tried this, but it added more chaos/luck into the mix and reduced player interaction, so we decided to keep multiplayer "pure". Always happy to hear arguments/feelings on why you'd like to see this though.

Cheers!

[eddybox]

Just wanted to follow up by saying we had fun this past Sunday (my personal highlight being the games with "play me maybe"), and we'll continue with our regular pro-play sessions -- every Sunday night at 8pm EST (east coast) / 5pm PST (west coast).

See you in the arenas!

[pangcp]

Hello,

First of all, congratulation on the excellent work on Osmos. Now, I am sort of addicted to the multi player game.

We really need a system to match strong player together. I have a few good player as my friend in game center but I never played with them through invite because I don't know when they are available.

So how do I catch up with you guys? My time zone here is +8 GMT

James Pang

[Meal Worms]

Hey James!

Many thanks for your post! Delighted to hear that you're enjoying the multiplayer -- haha, sorry about the addiction

+8 GMT, hey? Yeah, I guess playsessions in the evenings for GMT -5 would be tough to attend =D You raise a good point: it's unfortunate that Game Center doesn't have any way of showing "Who has been online recently?" so that you know who to invite. We're trying to find a good way around this; possibilities include having more fixed pro playtimes, so that folks playing the game in different parts of the world can find local players. We're working on an Osmos update which will include a news service, so that we can announce upcoming plans for multiplayer tournaments. We're also adding the ability for Osmos and Osmos HD players to play against each other (so that iPhones and iPads can play against each other in Game Center -- this will effectively double the player base).

Proper ranked matchmaking is a bit of a tough problem. Fundamentally: if you're a strong player, it may be that no other strong players happen to be on at this time, at which point the matchmaking system might as well give you a random connection. It's possible in Game Center to create separate 'rooms' for players -- so for example we can have a 'pro room' and an 'everybody ' room -- in this way, if you're looking for a high-level game, you can go to the pro room and wait for awhile, and if no match shows up, switch over to the 'everybody' room. The question is: as a player, how long are you willing to wait to find a 'good' match? 30 seconds? 1 minute?

It's a tricky problem...
Dave

[pangcp]

Hi Dave,

For good match, I can wait for 5 minutes And for Osmos vs Osmos HD, Osmos will definitely at a huge disadvantage because they cannot view the big picture. When they zoom out, it becomes too small.

I want to point out a disturbing scenario when the opponent do some very quick movement (left, right, left, up, down, etc.) when they are tiny. When this happens, our screen area will move slightly towards different directions according to opponent movement, sort of shaking. This will affect our play.

James Pang

[Cybxplorer]

I love your game and have been playing it for years. I was excited by the multiplayer feature and really enjoyed it for a while, but it seemed to me that there were only a few games in each type. We kept getting repeat setups. If multiplayer games began with a random configuration, it would hold more interest I think. Thanks again for a GREAT game!

J Travis