Day 176, Game 176 - Flow

ThatGameCompany is responsible for one of my favorite games of 2012, Journey. That romp through the mysterious desert, playing as the cloaked, nameless, mute protagonist was awe-inspiring, inspirational and flat-out breathtaking. Truth be told, that was not the first game from ThatGameCompany, but for me, it was. And it was the only one I needed to play to fully understand what they are about as a development company. 

Tonight, I changed that perspective, and tried out their first game that they brought to the PS3 via the PSN, which started out as a Flash game - Flow. 

Flow is a unique game that starts as soon as you push the start button, giving you no menus, no tutorials and no guides. You are simply an organism, floating around, with your only goal being to hunt down and consume smaller, red organisms. You can swim around and consume any of the other floating organisms, and even attack the hostile ones and devouring their particles as they break apart, while also jumping from level to level. 

This game is pretty straight forward, and is as simple as I make it sound, save for one key feature. Flow uses the Sixaxis controls of the PS3 controller perfectly, as your creature swims to the direction the controller is tilted towards. Now that I think about it, I can't remember if I ever even tried to use any other controls (joystick, d-pad, etc.) other than the Sixaxis control scheme, if only because it seemed to work so well. I guess I really didn't do my due-diligence on this assignment, did I?

To be honest, I was just completely immersed in the game, the atmosphere and the mood that the game was setting. It didn't even feel like a game after a while, but rather a glorified art project/science project - which was awesome.

Somehow I even made a few trophies pop, unbeknownst to me on what I did to activate them. Either way, it was a bonus treat to get trophies for such a pleasurable experience. And that's exactly what this "game" is - an experience, and one I thoroughly enjoyed. What a great way to start off a nice, long, hopefully relaxing vacation. 

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