Sep 29, 2009
GOODBYE DOMAIN
finctank becomes a figment of imagination
Well, that's it folks. The domain name expired. Easyspace tried all they could to stop it from happening. They even emailed me to ask me for money. Nominet got all worried and started sending me little messages to make sure I was ok. Even the army got involved (not really).
In the end, the love you make is equal to the love you take. Unfortunately, no-one loved the finctank domain name enough. If anyone wants to contribute £5.97 the finctank dream can be reborn as a .org.uk for two whole years. Who knows, by then we might have joined the euro, witnessed man walking on Mars, and see Facebook replace the Queen's head on banknotes. Anything is possible. Except the renewal of finctank.co.uk. That's not.
Aug
26, 2009
OSMOS: ABSORBING
Simplicity is complexity in disguise
Osmos is a new game by Hemisphere Games. The
premise is simple enough: navigate your mote, a little blob of light
and energy, around a field littered with other motes. You can absorb
smaller motes, and be absorbed by motes bigger than you. The twist
is that as you propel your mote around you give up a little bit
of your mass, so the more you move the more you shrink.
This means that what you thought was
a tasty lunch could turn out to be your demise, if you lose too
much mass trying to get over to it.
The graphics are executed in a very smooth, clean
style that is simply stunning to look at. One attempt at explaining
it is by saying Osmos could have taken its visual cues from those
stunning photos the Hubble telescope sent back of the Horsehead
nebula, reflecting in a super macro shot of a human eye, all floating
in a pulsating, glowing plasma that makes you feel a little bit
sad inside.
The visual design is well thought out - for example
motes change from red to blue as they become smaller than you, with
very subtle colouring on the edges of a mote if it is almost an
identical size to you. It is extremely satisfying to see a large
red mote you have been avoiding suddenly turn blue as you become
larger than it. Your biggest enemy can suddenly become your biggest
aquistion.
This can work in the opposite direction too,
as the bigger you become the more mass you have to expel to move
around. You can quickly become a very small fish in a big pond full
of big red motes.
There are different challenges
to face and new, exotic motes with unique properties to discover,
or you can simply zone out with ambient levels of motes to absorb.
The soundtrack of sparse, ambient music adds to the relaxing experience.
You can choose the pace of the game; either rely
on an element of luck and play it like Asteroids, or slow things
right down and plan your next move in detail. The game
lends itself well to contemplation, relaxing and thinking about
what to do next.
This is most unexpected for a computer game.
After all, they are usually designed to give the player a sense
of achievement. But what if that sense of achievement could come,
not from the goal of winning, but from taking part?
We live in a goal-driven Western culture, and
it follows that computer games are goal-oriented. Osmos
does have goals, but the appeal of this game is not the end result.
The experience of playing this game is the goal. Just stopping and
thinking, slowing your pace, considering the challenge before you,
will take you to a contemplative and calm place that not many other
computer games can achieve.
This contemplative, moment-to-moment experience
is more like Eastern philosophy. This is what makes Osmos so important
- it challenges your expectations of what a game can be, but essentially
it remains a useful experience that is much more than the sum of
its parts.
Osmos is made by Hemisphere
Games and can be purchased through Steam
right now. |
