Something Fantastic

[Ellatrue]

This game:

http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/flowing/core.html



It's actually someone's art school thesis... which I guess explains why it's so pretty- but it's also so much fun...

[Ancient Sim]

Well, I tried it, but I found it somewhat confusing.  Took me a while to work out what the red & blue meant, I thought it was those circle things that keep appearing, but I think it's the creatures.  So what the circles are I have no idea.  Anyway, after I'd eaten a few I ended-up going round & round in circles with no more appearing, so it got a bit boring!  I suppose I was doing it wrong.

[mdrturner]

Loved it. Just wasted 3/4 hour playing it 

[Katze]

Well, I tried it, but I found it somewhat confusing.  Took me a while to work out what the red & blue meant, I thought it was those circle things that keep appearing, but I think it's the creatures.  So what the circles are I have no idea.  Anyway, after I'd eaten a few I ended-up going round & round in circles with no more appearing, so it got a bit boring!  I suppose I was doing it wrong.

Same here.

[tIIsuggas]

My daughter will love that game.

She plays similar ones from here. http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/

[siggylove]

Pretty but like Ancient Sim, I ate everything I could see and then nothing else appeared - perhaps I shouldn't have eaten everything (burp).

[jrd]

This game is cool. I'm now in the circular stage…

If you've eaten everything, look for the red and blue circles. They indicate where the critter with a red or blue centre is. Blue gets you up one level, red gets you down one. The goal is to eat all you see (except red and blue, use those only to skip levels), until you reach the bottom level where the "end boss" appears. If you can defeat him, you go to the next lifestage.
I estimate that after circular stage the manta ray stage comes.

[J. M. Pescado]

Oh, this thing again. Did they add more levels?

[cyperangel]

Im wondering,s ome levels got some mighty big critters in them, big square dudes that seem to chase me around. Any way i can eat them?

[Ancient Sim]

I got as far as having three filled-in circles and two that weren't.  Sometimes there were little + signs and the screen flashed, but I don't know what was happening there.  As for the circles, what are we supposed to do with them?  The creature doesn't go into them and I couldn't get him to either, they weren't accessible, they just flashed on and off.  After a while, nothing happened at all, as I said, so how do we find this 'end Boss' creature? 

IIs there nowhere where there are more detailed instructions?  The ones on the site are extremely sparse, they don't really help at all and I don't really know what Jordi means about skipping levels, because she says not to eat the red & blue things, but she also says use them to skip levels, so I'm still confused!  Oh, and I tried the download version to see if it was any better, but there are three versions in it and they all seem a bit different, so does anyone know if I should I be playing Classic, Widescreen or Official?

[siggylove]

Ah ha thanks Jordi - of course, RTFM helps too!

[jrd]

Ancient: I'm a he  :p

There are three special critters:
-ones with a red core will get you to a lower level,
-blue cores will get you to a higher level,
-ones with an 'x' (or '+') in the centre will upgrade your beast.

Since the goal of the game is to finish a level and then move down, you should avoid the blue and red ones until you've cleared a level. And then you typically eat the red one.
The blue and red circles which appear in the level tell you where blue&red can be found.

cyperangel: look for the 'balls' inside them, and eat these. Avoid their mouths, or they'll eat you, and kick you to a higher level (use a red critter to move down again).

[Ellatrue]

The circles are like little ripples in the water- you can use them to navigate, because swimming towards them will take you towards the red or blue creatures.

You can eat anything, even creatures larger than you, by eating the large, bright dots in their bodies. When you eat all of those, they sort of fall apart into a bunch of different components you can eat to make your organism grow and evolve. So eat things on each level, then eat the red one to go deeper.

At this point I don't really spend that much time at each level, I move to the end faster, because you don't actually have to be stronger/better evolved than the boss to kill it, and it's actually an advantage to go in with less.

Not sure what happens after you beat the second level, because my game froze at that point. I think it was my fault for switching to MSN right when it ate the egg or something because it got all messed up.

[Ancient Sim]

So if you keep going down and down (via the red things), you will eventually encounter this Boss guy and something else will happen?  Trouble with mine is that after a while nothing happens, my creature just hovers there doing nothing for ages, so I get bored and start again.  I don't seem to be able to get to the bottom, wherever that is.  I will try again ...

[TaWanda]

Don't feel bad Ancient, I think I got to the bottom (at least there weren't any more red circles, just blue ones) and I swam around and around and then just sat and waited for about 10 minutes. I never did see anything at that level except the blue thingies. I got bored and gave it up.

[Li'l Brudder]

This is...bizarre to say the least.  I feel like I jsut witnessed the evolution of the food chain or something.

*Weirded out!

[Sleepycat]

seems like abit of a rip off Spore

[moonluck]

I'm pretty sure this was made before Spore's first stage was shown.

[J. M. Pescado]

seems like abit of a rip off Spore

Can't be. "Spore" doesn't exist. It's nothing more than Maxian lies and propaganda. Therefore, this is first.

[kutto]

I can understand not trusting EA, or even Maxis as an entity, but Will Wright?

I considered Spore to be more of Wright's than Maxis'.

[Oddysey]

Will Wright is also nothing more than Maxian lies and propaganda.

[SpaceDoll]

This game is truly beautiful.  I love bioluminescent creatures, they are one of the most amazing facets of Nature.  Thankyou for the link.  (Oh, and the music puts my baby right to sleep--HOORAH!!)

[jsalemi]

Yea, the music reminds me very much of the background music in some of the later Myst games.  Very nice and soothing.

[Ellatrue]

It helps if you go up a level and swim around a bit... you can usually see blurry shapes that show what is happening below you, and then figure out which direction you need to swim after eating the red thing to find them.

[Venusy]

OMGWTFBBQ SPOILER WARNING: (highlight to view)

After you get to the bottom and defeat the "boss", your worm thing is reborn as one of the jellyfish things. Similarly, when you complete the jellyfish stage, you go back to the worm thing stage.

However, there is a common glitch where the "rebirth" never takes place, meaning that you can only swim around aimlessly.