Art Style: Orbient (2008)

Developer: Skip Ltd.
Publisher: Nintendo
Platforms: Wii
Genres: Puzzle
Where to get it: Nintendo eShop

The 3D catalog: game boxes on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalog in 3D

The same catalog has a room you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real games from it when you tell them what you feel like playing. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this game is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More games like this

How it feels

A serene celestial puzzle game where you grow a white star by absorbing smaller ones and gathering satellites.

relaxingabstractpuzzleminimalistzencasual

About

In Orbient, players control a white star. The game starts with the white star able to take 5 hits before it is destroyed. To make it grow, the player must collide his/her star with a similar-sized, blue star. Stars smaller than the player's star are gray-colored. Colliding with these stars will not change the white star's size, but if the player positions the white star just right, the gray star will orbit the white and become a satellite. Red stars are bigger than the white. The white star is able to orbit red stars to help travel through space. Whenever the white star grows large enough, the target star glows orange, and is able to be a satellite; as soon as that happens, a small crescent star appears, and having it successfully orbit the white star will give the player bonus points, (and collecting all different crescent stars unlocks new galaxies and are the goal to complete the game 100%). Colliding with the orange star will take away a hit, but having it orbit the white star will clear the round. The player guides the star by pressing the A and B buttons on the Wii Remote to utilize gravity and anti-gravity, respectively, and attract it towards or repel against (also respectively) the gravitational wells of celestial objects. Players must be careful not to crash their star into the red stars or floating objects like asteroids, or be sucked into black holes, which takes away a hit (and in the case of black holes, restart the entire stage).

Screenshots

More games like this

More by Skip Ltd.

This page is from Underplayed Gems, a catalog of older and overlooked games. Not quite it? You can browse by platform and genre, or take this one into the 3D catalog and ask the Catbot for something closer.