GAME CLEAR No. 303 -- Omaze
video games game clear gregory kogos panic playdateOmaze (2022, Playdate)
Developer: Gregory Kogos
Publisher: Panic
Clear Version: Playdate
Clear Platform: Playdate
Clear Date: 7/5/26
| Why should I care? |
|---|
| Omaze is a beautiful abstract action game that is exactly the type of shit I wanted out of this device. |
Omazing
Wow, wow, wow. This is my kinda shit!
Omaze is a beautiful action game that is at once simple and demanding. Your objective is to reach the end of a series of mazes that are made up of a chain of circular nodes (hence the game’s title) on a single screen. You control a smaller circle of your own (it looks more like an eye). Using the crank, you can rotate your little guy around the interior of the circular node you’re currently in. At the tangent points of two nodes, you can press B to hop into the adjacent one.
Things get complicated as obstacles start to appear. Some nodes force you to rotate at all times, but the direction can be toggled with the A button. Others only allow you to hop from one side to the other, so where you enter matters. Others have walls or lasers that can kill you. You get the idea.
What emerges from the combinations of different nodes is a series of fairly challenging gauntlets to run in real time. First, you’ve got to plan a route, but then you’ve got to execute it. This requires a surprising level of focus and dexterity, and it requires you to be sharp with the crank and the buttons at once. It’s an experience that can really only exist on Playdate (or perhaps on a classic spinner input). I love it. It’s difficult to say much more about a game so simple. I can’t be effusive enough in my praise of how good it feels, though.
The game does lack tunes, but it makes up for that with really excellent sound effects. It somehow fits the simple but oppressive vibe of this game.
This game is described on its Playdate webpage in three sentences. “Omaze is a circular puzzle platformer. An ode to circles. A hint to the never ending struggle against the perceived enemy.” I still don’t really know what that last bit means, but I’ll be thinking about it. I think the game’s strange ending may have something to tell me.
Regardless, I definitely gotta try Ooom, which developer Gregory Kobos calls a spiritual successor to Omaze but with rhythm elements. Awesome.