Osmos’ Multiplayer Now Reached iOS

‘Osmos’ Multiplayer Now Reached iOS
We received the news roughly a month ago that Hemisphere Games was bringing the multiplayer features of Osmos over to the iOS.

over to the iOS. Should you have heard of the news previously, you might have spent your time absorbing Nemocytes and Ferax, honing your skills against human minds. Your practice is probably over now, since the real arena has finally reached your iDevices.

The new multiplayer portion of Osmos features six arenas: Ambient, Warped Chaos, Impasse, Solar, Epicycles, and Antimatter Impasse. While the objective of the game largely remains the same throughout (which is absorbing the other player), each arena plays out in a different environment, employing different gameplay tactics as well as atmosphere. Standing out among the arenas is Antimatter Impasse (uniquely for multiplayer), in which two players employ different motes to grow, as one would see the other as anti-matter. The Time Wrap feature (which allows you to control the flow of time) is also removed for consistency between the two players. The rest of the game utilizes the same mechanic and techniques, and any skills you have acquired in single player mode will definitely serve you well. Following signature traits of Osmos , all arenas — regardless of type — are procedurally generated, providing a completely different experience for each play.

So far, I have been having quite a lot of fun with Osmos . Finding an opponent isn’t an issue at the moment, because there are plenty of newcomers. And connection problems are luckily few and far between. While most players seemed to have been frustrated easily after constantly being absorbed and quit the match, looking for another didn’t take that much time. As Osmos should be, plenty of unpredictable things occur in a match. Often, someone crashes into a larger mote, and the other player simply wins for treading more carefully. Other times, a huge green mote (the new appearance denoting the other player) flies out of nowhere and ends your short life. Matches are short and fast, and frustration never lasts long no matter how much you lose. In any case, it also should be noted that a handicap system is present to help out less capable players.

Fifteen additional multiplayer-specific achievements were also added, but most of them are simply win-counters without any interesting twist. As a fan of the single player Sentient mode , and despite understanding well the challenges of implementing such games, I was quite sad to not see the chaos of an eight player free-for-all dogfight for survival.

Much more joy and value has been added into Osmos with this new update. If Osmos is already on your device, you have a good reason to visit the App Store and go back to the game now. If you haven’t bought it, Osmos has just become much more worthy of mere three bucks. If you’re on Android, unfortunately, you would need some more patience, though considering how great things are right now on iOS, it probably won’t be that long.

For more information, visit the Hemisphere Games website. Osmos is available on iOS App Store for $2.99 (iPhone)/ $4.99 (iPad). Multiplayer is not yet available on the Android version.