Wandering around on the intertubes the other day, both Dan and I independently came across this cool Zero-gravity experiments video. A guy makes a sphere of water in (held together in zero-g by a loop of wire) and does neat things like injecting air bubbles into it and making waves. Worth a watch!

It reminded us of a cool game called Osmos. There’s a trailer you can watch of the game here for comparison.

Osmos has, like Cortex Command, has won an IGF award too! It really is a lot of fun and is a very new and unique game mechanic. Check out the demo here.

Speaking of other games, have any of you checked out Minecraft?

There’s a few servers running in our forums — if you aren’t active already, join up and get talking! You can see all of our other-game threads here.

Q: In Skirmish play, will there be any goals implemented in it soon? Examples: Survive for X minutes, obtain X kills, collect X% gold, etc? – FrogFreak
A: There’s going to be two major game modes: Metagame/Campaign and the Scenarios/Skirmish (we’re still deciding on the final names..). The Scenarios basically offer any compatible combo of a Scene and an Activity (usually Lua script-driven). We’re working on having the Activities have a special Lua function that can test if a Scene has the required and properly named Areas and other placements needed for that Activity. That way each Scene can be re-used for many different types of Activities. For example, think of home base Areas and flag placements needed for a CTF Activity. As long as they’re in a Scene, that scene supports CTF games. – Data

Q: Will making money ever be anything more than collecting gold? – Garrett
A: Yup! There will be precious stones and artifacts buried in the ground. They have to dug out and brought up to the surface, tossed into a landing craft, and flown off the top of the screen for a big payoff. Also, we are working on animal fossils that have to be ‘revealed’ (but not dug out or destroyed) from the unexplored areas of every Scene, with an x-ray type tool. The fossil science data rewards are then given to teh team who first claimed that new site. – Data

Q: Can I have a dollar? – Jesse
A: You can have many dollars – if you earn them first! – Data

Q: How much micromanaging will there be in the metagame? Will it be like the total war series where structures can be bought in certain cities or bunkers? Or where generals could develop, fight battles and increase statistics? – The Pub
A: Once a site on the planet has been claimed by one of the teams, it can be built upon. It will be an important part of the game to invest resources into your money-making bases, so they can be defended against attack. You’ll have to place all bunker modules, defensive installations and personnel before an attack happens, or it’ll be that much harder to defend when the enemies start landing! – Data