It's pretty much been a perpetual crunch since then! IGN: People are inevitably going to make comparisons to flOw. I continued on it for another few seasons at a casual pace, and then my friend Dave hopped on board before the 2nd IGF submission. Then there was a crunch for the first IGF deadline, which my friends Andy and Kun helped with (no nominations that time). And I think that helped somehow - there's no substitute for design-by-gestation. In my defense, it did start as a solo, hobbyist project, with breaks between iterations. IGN: How long have you been working on Osmos? Boxerman : Almost three years.? I need to go to Cactus-school apparently. I'm so appreciative of all the great feedback it's received. In fact I've always been drawn to designing and creating games, and this has somehow become a natural step in that process. Osmos wasn't part of a grand plan though - the game just asked to be made. What took you from there to making an IGF award-winning indie game? Boxerman : I learned a lot at Ubisoft, and connected with some awesome and talented people during my time there. IGN: You come from working on the Splinter Cell games at Ubisoft Montreal. The only thing I'd add is this: the early levels are meant to be easy and gentle, but the game can get very challenging later on.

Two minutes of playing will give you a much better idea than any amount of explanation on my part. All that said, I find it as difficult to describe Osmos in words as it is to describe a song or a painting. visually, musically and physically it's about strategy and sometimes patience is your best friend. It's about balanced physical gameplay it's about a lush, Zen experience. You're a mote, and your object is to grow by absorbing smaller motes, and to avoid being absorbed by larger ones. Essentially, it's an ambient physics game. Whenever a new write-up about Osmos appears on the web, I check to see if the author has found that 'magic phrase' that sweetly sums it up, but I have yet to see it. We caught up with Hemisphere's Eddy Boxerman, who runs the show over there, to get to the bottom of what Osmos is all about: IGN: How do you describe Osmos to people? Eddy Boxerman, Hemisphere Games: It's surprisingly difficult. Collide with a larger microbe and it will be all too happy to make you a snack.Ĭheck out this video of Osmos.

You're trying to become the big fish in the pond, but propelling yourself to the next victim always comes with a little sacrifice. A major difference, though, is that in order to move you must expel matter, which decreases your size. Much like thatgamecompany's effort, Osmos puts players in control of a microbe floating in some sort of fluid, asks nothing more of them than to eat other organisms and get bigger, and sets the experience to relaxing, chilled-out electronica. At first glance it's likely to remind you of flOw on the PlayStation 3. It deserves it, as this is one beautiful, absorbing game. I’ll gladly add the other two stars once there’s a solution for those of us that need to use Guided Access.Osmos Developer: Hemisphere Games Genre: ambient Released: AugCost: $9.95 At this year's Independent Games Festival, Osmos won the Direct2Drive Vision award. We need to be able to just leave the iPads plugged in on their bases and open for use, and know that they aren’t being used for anything else. Guided Access is a big deal to us because we have these iPads set up as dedicated learning stations that are out of our sight. While this would have an effect on required iPad resources, it should be fine since this is the only thing these iPads are used for. a single app that includes all of the Osmo games). The fundamental flaw is that there isn’t a version of this app that is compatible with Guided Access (i.e. I’ll add a star once this bug has been corrected. And for what it’s worth, this launcher opens the Numbers Toybox correctly (Osmo’s other paid app). I should mention that the Word Explorers app open correctly from it’s own icon, so the problem is definitely this launcher app. It keeps directing me to buy the Genius Kit, which I already have installed, and my son has played at length. The bug is that it won’t open the Word Explorers app (the paid app, not the one that came with the Genius Kit).

This umbrella “launcher” app works pretty well for how it was designed, but it has a bug and a fundamental flaw.

Play osmos online