In all zones, you move around the level by clicking (or holding) the left mouse button in the opposite direction you wish to move. The player may choose to play a random variation of any level in the game. For each zone there is also several variations with their own challenges. Levels are categorized into three different types, or 'Zones' - the 'Ambient', 'Sentient', and 'Force' zones - each with different styles of play. This is often more difficult than it sounds, as you must avoid all larger motes, gravity projecting 'Attractor' motes, and the particularly hostile 'Sentient' motes, while at the same time competing with them for smaller motes.

You are a 'mote', a single celled organism whose only goal in life is to become the largest in the pool by absorbing other motes, or to absorb a specific particularly delicious looking mote. But how does that translate into their ambient physics-puzzle game? Pretty well in my opinion (and in others ) despite the fact that it isn't anything like the games they are 'used to'. They obviously have the experience to make a great FPS. The others that have worked on Osmos have equally wonderful credentials. The lead developers Eddy Boxerman and Dave Burke have worked as developers on the Splinter Cell (Boxerman), Gears of War, and Unreal Tournament franchises (Burke), and Burke also worked as a developer on the Unreal Engine 3, the engine behind such blockbusters as BioShock, Gears of War, and Army of Two. Osmos was developed and published by Hemisphere Games, a new independent game company with some interesting credentials. This law (as well as conservation of mass) is also the principle behind Osmos, a unique commercial ambient puzzle game where you eject mass and devour other little single-celled organisms to solve a variety of puzzles.

Perhaps the only thing most of us will remember from our middle school physics classes, Newton's third law of motion is apparent in everything on the macro-scale, from the launch of a rocket, to the friction that keeps you from sliding around when you walk down the street.

Osmos game demo