Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel Steam Charts & Stats

If the game's not fun, why bother? Does a game need a purpose? Do paintings need purposes? Does anything actually need a purpose or a reason to exist other than that its sheer existence is the purpose? Who knows, I'm not a real philosopher. I'm just a guy with nearly 3k steam games and this is one of them. This game came out in 1989, nearly thirty years ago, but you'd be hard to find anything that actually makes it feel like a near 30 year old game. It's by Cyan who are the masterminds behind Myst, Riven and, more recently, Obduction. It's also the second game they ever made, but you'd also be hard pressed to find anything that makes this game feel like only their second outing in development. In this game you play a handsome, strapping, intergalactic space explorer (yourself) as you navigate the seven worlds via your spaceship, teleporters and even ant tunnels. Your mission is the challenging one yet: Nothing. You have no mission. Cosmic Osmo, like Seinfeld, is about nothing. There is no point. There is no purpose. Things just happen because that's what things do. Your goal is, in a sense, to make your own goal. Maybe that'll be beating the Professor at Robot Blitz. Maybe your goal will be to dial a bananaphone. Maybe you'll invent a reason why you have a bumper sticker in your cockpit that says "I LOVE MY CRAB/CANCER?" Maybe you wont drop all the coffee cups off the table and break them. Maybe you will. For $6 you're getting the Children's Pack which coincidentally are also the first 3 games Cyan ever made. So if you're going into these expecting Myst puzzles and potentially a plot then you're aiming for the wrong game and pack. You want Riven or Myst or Obduciton for that, but if you're looking for a fun time killer just exploring the wild and crazy worlds and you happen to have $6 laying around then this isn't the worst way to kill a few hours. Alternatively you can spend WAY more than $6 on the complete Cyan pack.

I still love Cosmic Osmo for what it is, even all these years later. It's not much of a game, much closer to a "toy", you play with it, but it doesn't really have anything that defines it as a game by modern standards; There is no winning or losing, there are no time limits, there are no objectives. You wander around neat places, interact with silly stuff, play with things you find, et cetera. And, being a Cyan game, Cosmic Osmo shows that they have beautifully detailed and expressive art design, even in straight-up black and white. Damn! Look at those monochomatic pixels, they're great! This is a great game for kids if you need to keep them entertained for a while, also good for grown-up kids who want to unwind to a game with zero expectations and a lot of content/hidden fun for you to discover. Since this game cannot be purchased on its own, I can only tell you whether or not it is a worthwhile addition to the Cyan Collection: [b]Hell yes it is.[/b] (10-years-later edit: you can currently buy this game for a few bucks, I still think it's worth it.)

Cool game, I enjoyed looking for secrets. I just played The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition and now this game, both are awesome games to check out. I'm sure I'll be checking out Spelunx next.

When I hear "Fun for the whole family," I think "Fun for kids, and some adults will pretend to like it, but not really." That said, this actually [i]is[/i] something enjoyable for explorers of all ages. There isn't much to the gameplay, aside from clicking around to different places, exploring little worlds, and watching a bunch of weird things happen. It doesn't sound like a whole lot, but the joy lies in the discovery. You can find so many different secrets and hidden passages, and the game makes them feel really important. Despite being in monochrome, there are some beautiful scenes to behold, too. You likely won't spend hours and hours on a single session, but you might just find yourself going back to it again and again, like I have over the years. As a side note, I've played this on a Macintosh Classic, and this version is a little different. The sound is different in that the quality is higher, which is to be expected, given that this is based on the CD-Rom version. There are also 3 whole new areas, adding up to a total of 7, and they fit right in with the rest of them.

Thumbs up because Cyan has always stretched the limits of technology and that was it but 30 years ago (I think?) Other than that, not sure how relevant this game is nowadays

I LOVED this game when I was a child in the early 90s. We spent hours playing Cosmic Osmo and I was overjoyed when I saw I could re-live those moments and share them with my daughter. The game is a 90s-style exploration game with no real goal or ending. Just enjoy clicking around and watch crazy stuff happen. Cosmic Osmo puts real thought and effort into making a world that is as complete as it is devoid of all context. Everything seems to connect together in a way that can only make sense in whatever universe this game takes place in.

Really cool kids game focused entirely on exploration of strange worlds. As a fan of the B&W Mac look, I think the graphics have aged very well too

To thoroughly enjoy this game you either need to be a child or maintain a sense of childlike discovery. There is no objective, no score, no gameover, no win conditions, no time limits. This isn't even really a game. Cosmic Osmo is a discovery experience that appeals to the humorous light hearted surreal nature of kids and those of us lucky enough to still be kids at heart. It plays much like a point and click adventure game, but without inventory or really plotline, your only driving motivation is to see what you can find next. You are essentially an alien visitor to a very strange and exotic solar system, the home of the titular Cosmic Osmo. You can use a spacecraft to navigate between multiple planets or use a very complex series of tunnels, teleporters, and other surreal means of navigation to traverse around this highly entertaining landscape. While the game certainly looks dated, the black and white cartoony style still maintains a lot of charm and is just as enjoyable today as it was in the early 90s when it was first released. A really fun game to play with your kids or by yourself, you'll be amazed that despite it's age this game contains a huge wealth of interesting and entertaining things to explore, ensuring that you'll discover something new each time you play.

Have this game on hand to entertain young relatives. Kids still love it in 2014. The creators went on after this to create MYST and Riven, and it's a sedate and calming wacky little exploration gem. I could be wrong about this but I believe this is one of the first games to ever ship on a CD-ROM, weighing in at something like 80mb of 1-bit content, plus the soundtrack. Side note, it's baffling that it's been removed from the OSX offerings. It is clearly a port and not a bundled emulator pack. This should have the upside of eliminating legal issues with distributing apple macintosh ROM images, with the unpleasant side effect of creating an inauthentic experience to the original game. (Source for this is based on some of the crossfades having grayscale, which obv didn't exist on 68k macs from 1990 or whenever this came out.) No idea why it isn't available aside from windows.

Still entertains children so many years later. I remember fondly watching my late younger brother playing this game, and it does my heart good to watch my daughter do the same. Hearing her run to me begging me come to see what she found found (an ant tunnel full of ant babiesl) is priceless. It's a non-story point and click adventure by Cyan Studios, who also made Manhole, Spelunx and later the Myst games. The art is simple, but effective, the gameplay is amusing, and it's very good for teaching young children (~3) mouse control. The absurdist comedy really hits home for the young folk, and the focus on cause and effect makes a lasting impression.