Grad-School Thesis Becomes PS3 Game

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes, "USC student Jenova Chen's Flash game, 'flOw,' attracted interest from Sony, which commissioned an enhanced version that will be sold through its PlayStation Network, WSJ.com reports. From the article: 'Gameplay is incredibly smooth, particularly for a Flash game. But it's the design touches that set flOw apart. Players will notice faint outlines of the creatures lurking at lower depths, a foreboding sign that vicious manta- and squid-like enemies await. The water darkens as the creature advances to deeper levels. The game's ambient sound is somewhat hypnotic. The intuitive controls and design simplicity are among Mr. Chen's mandate: build immersive games for people who don't consider themselves gamers. 'My parents and grandparents don't play games. My girlfriend, she doesn't play either,' he says. 'I want to make games that those people can appreciate.'"

Dupe-a-riffic

[Anonymous Coward]

DUPE [slashdot.org]

You must have missed it.

[Tokerat]

Katamari Damacy [wikipedia.org]

Get it here

[TubeSteak]

The link to the website only seems /.'ed
The direct links are still alive
Try the Coralized links first

Offline Version
ftp://intihuatani.usc.edu.nyud.net:8090/Cloud/flow _04142006.zip [nyud.net]
http://intihuatani.usc.edu.nyud.net:8090/Cloud/flo wing/flow_04142006.zip [nyud.net]
The SWF
http://intihuatani.usc.edu.nyud.net:8090/cloud/flo wing/core.swf [nyud.net]

-ftp://intihuatani.usc.edu/Cloud/flow_04142006.zip
-http://intihuatani.usc.edu/Cloud/flowing/flow_041 42006.zip
-http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/flowing/core.swf

Re:Good

[Osty]

It's about time someone decides to make a game that doesn't depend on the bleeding edge graphics, but focuses more on gameplay and fun factor.

Yeah, like Microsoft and Geometry Wars [wikipedia.org].

Sigh, I miss the lucas arts adventure games days. Crap graphics, damn good fun.

Way to rewrite history, there. LucasArts adventure games had quite good graphics at the time. Certainly better than their competition from Sierra. They're not that great now, but one of the draws of LucasArts games was their excellent graphics direction (not necessarily the best graphics, but consistent and appropriate to the game). Sure shoots a hole in your theory, eh?

Why can't you have both gameplay and graphics? For example, Zelda: Twilight Princess is fun (even though we've all played the game before several times), but it would be better with better graphics. Gears of War has great gameplay and graphics. Yes, some companies do focus on graphics to the detriment of gameplay (*cough*EA*cough*), but that's not everybody.

Re:Good

[flimflammer]

I work at Sony Computer Entertainment America in their FPQA division (I'm a game tester)

While I really cannot legally spill any details about any of the current projects that are in this department, I will say if you enjoyed the original flash game, the enhanced version will be a treat.

Rest assured, the idea was not raped.

Re:Good

[pla]

I'm sorry, but I think all the hype about this game is ridiculous. Everyone I know who's actually played the game did so for maximum half an hour never to play it again after.

I'd have to agree with you, and I will admit that I did enjoy it for that half-hour.

As the biggest problem I see with turning it into a "real" game, it lacked any conceptual hooks whereby you could flesh it out into something that would take significantly longer than that half hour to finish.

I suppose they could add bigger, meaner enemies (though by the lowest depths, the enemies had already gotten absurdly complex - More than once, I found myself chasing a fast enemy in tight circles, slowly wearing it down by eating 10 of its energy pellets for every 9 it nabbed from me). They could stick in artificial "quests" such as the old standby of find-the-keys and save-the-princess-slash-hostage. They could break it into more expansive worlds for each depth (though then how do you prevent the player from killing 27,416,318 bunnies at the first level by locking the controller in a tight turn for a week, then breezing through the rest?), but just about anything you tack onto it would detract from the original intuitive UI design.


Oh well, good luck to Sony with that. Perhaps they will make something good out of it - I suppose, with a lot of artificiality tacked on, they could manage something as playable as E.V.O. for the SNES. And in five years, when the PS3 goes for $50 and its games for $10 on the used market, I might even pick it up and give it a try.

Re:Good

[DrXym]

I've played Flow all the way to the bottom and onto the next level and I sort of agree with what you are.

Part of the problem with the game is there are no obvious instructions as what you're meant to do. It turns out you eat everything in site (except the blues & reds that move you up and down). You even eat the humongous creatures by going for the spots in their body. Once you get all the spots the creature (without it eating you in turn), it will dissolve into bits that you eat.

But it is a trippy experience and I can see that the game could be fleshed out in interesting ways, or even make a cool screensaver. BTW, Want to know what happens when you get to the bottom? You start again in an orange ocean as a different creature.

Next level you become circle monster

[spineboy]

You start out on a yellow screen as a circle monster, after finishing off the centipede looking creature on the bottom of the first set of blue levels. The centipede drops a yellow dot, you eat it and evolve into a circle monster creature. I keep eating stuff and made my way to the bottom using the red "go deeper" dots and eventually fought a long snake creature, like I was on the first level. After deafeating him, I worked my way UP to the top and was able to kill off the large orange paramecium type creatures, that before I had to run away from. After I got back to the top - no more levels to do.