I was sifting through my daily websites yesterday, when I happened on a new game that launched over on the PS3 called flOw. So I found out it came from a PC game created by this master's student named Jenova Chen from USC (who is currently working at EA on SPORE).
Let me try to explain to you via text and see if it does come out to what the game is like.
The game is like goo. It sucks you in at the start cause of how it looks. I like the blue - but what really hooked me in is just these basic shapes that swim around in 2D. Very ethereal, when I look at it. The shapes have a soft hue around them that gives them the feeling of life.
Oh I forgot, this is a flash 8 game. Run's on the website, small footprint. Okay back to the game.
You've seen spore right, little viruses/bacterias that move around in the primodial gunk eating like pac-man. At its fundemental its a meat and potatoes eat the pellet game, but instead, we're eating little tadpoles. The more we eat, the bigger we grow, and evolve into cooler looking tadpoles.
No instructions are given, you just learn the game as you go. Slowly, things will start to make sense. I will be finding out how many iterations this game has gone through but it was designed quite well. Graphically, its charming and surreal in a way. And the music, wow, its just right.
Let's start with the graphics - its simple vector based characters floating in the water. When you do get to eat larger 'beings' they will split into smaller parts that you can devour. When you devour this, you get bigger and evolve. So for example, there is one part that looks like a hexagon with a mouth moving in between, eat this, and you will get a bigger mouth. Good art design - simple yet effective.
Sound design, ethereal music - with nice sound cues for evolution and consumption. I like.
So try it out guys - go to the site at http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/flowing/
Jenova Chen - you rock!
