Joystiq hands-on: flOw (PS3)

by Ross Miller { Sep 22nd 2006 at 10:25PM }

FlOw was originally created by Jenova Chen to highlight his master's thesis on dynamic difficulty adjustment; the game is still available online as a free download for PC and Mac users. If you play the original, you know exactly what to expect: it's a glorified version of Snake, where the player moves through various levels and eats what it cans, causing your avatar to expand and elongate. Devouring your opposition is as simple as gliding over illuminated weak points on the foe.

Moving back and forth between levels is as simple as gliding over colored amoebas (red to go down a level, navy blue to go up). The best aspect of the game is its controls, which use only the PS3 controller's tilt sensor. We had trouble at first with the accuracy, but within a few minutes we were commanding our avatar effortlessly.

The game was designed so that you can set the difficulty. If you are stuck on a level, simply go back a few tiers, level up, and return. We can't imagine any reason to play this competitively, but we could see relaxing to flOw after a stressful day.

FlOw was running at 525p (480p) -- the graphics were akin to what we've seen the Nintendo Wii produce. We aren't sure if the title will available brick-and-mortar or as a download (or even packaged in the console's hard drive). If priced correctly, flOw could end up an essential title similar to what Geometry Wars represents for the Xbox 360 -- a small, casual game with mass appeal sold for pure profit.

See Also:
Joystiq interview: Jenova Chen

[Update 1: Decided to clarify Geometry Wars reference and defend my point on "essential title" in one fell swoop. Booyakasha!]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Sub @ Sep 22nd 2006 10:30PM

"If priced correctly, flOw could end up an essential casual title similar to what Geometry Wars represents for the Xbox 360."

No, it couldn't. The game is free on the PC and besides that, it's not that fun to play.

Eric Von Shpeel @ Sep 22nd 2006 10:35PM

Geometry Wars isnt a casual title, if anything it is a hardcore title full of crazy neon lights, fast paced action and skill. flOw is the kind of game you would expect on Wii; slow paced, calming, gentle and with soothing audio. Its the ultimate casual game.

Devwar @ Sep 22nd 2006 10:37PM

This game lost it for me after about... I don't know... 5 minutes. But it was pretty cool while it lasted.

Einhanderkiller @ Sep 22nd 2006 10:48PM

Shouldn't this game be running at 1080p since it's all vector based?

Seroth @ Sep 22nd 2006 11:03PM

Wow...I didn't know this was gonna be a PS3 title...such a simple game on the PS3? I'd expect it to come to the Wii instead...hmm...Is that Cloud game coming to a console as well?

RazorElite @ Sep 22nd 2006 11:11PM

Wow, are you serious? You compared this to Geometry Wars? Geometry Wars is fun, this isn't. This is definitely worth nothing more than free.

Silver @ Sep 22nd 2006 11:27PM

I'd pay a dollar to be able to play it without booting my computer, getting on the net, finding it and downloading it.

It better be a longer game on the PS3 though. I got to the bottom of the PC version, and ate everything on all the other levels, pretty fast, and once that's done, there's nothing left.

I hope you weren't implying with...
"The game was designed so that you can set the difficulty. If you are stuck on a level, simply go back a few tiers, level up, and return."
...that that's a new concept.

So yea, I'd pay a dollar for it.

MetaHuman @ Sep 22nd 2006 11:37PM

WHAT IF...

Because the Wii Opera Browser supports Flash, can we ALREADY play it on Wii as soon as it comes out?!?

:O :O :O

Anyways, Flow is fun. Gets a tad repetitive, but it's incredible for being just a mouse-single-button game.

Jecrell @ Sep 22nd 2006 11:55PM

Flow?
No.

KingOfGods @ Sep 22nd 2006 11:56PM

Here is the game...try it

http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/flowing/core.html

Francois @ Sep 23rd 2006 12:07AM

After delving deeper into the game (pun intended) and really getting its objective, I agree that this is quite ingenious. It's nothing worth buying a PlayStation 3 for, though. I wonder if the PS3 controller will really be as responsive as a mouse... maybe as others have pointed the Wii Remote would be better suited to a console version of this game.

Lynx @ Sep 23rd 2006 12:08AM

This will obviously be a downloadable game, rather than a pack-in. It's not a very deep game, they'll probably add a few bells and whistles, but other than that you couldn't sell it on store shelves.

I actually enjoyed this game, it's a fun little toy and alright for maybe 30 minutes or so, but then you ran out of things to eat, and then that was it - unless they flesh it out with more levels/areas, it'll just be an idle distraction.

It's no geometry wars, but with a fair bit of work, it could still be a hit. It's sort of like the beginning mode of Spore, but without a point to it.

J.Goodwin @ Sep 23rd 2006 1:23AM

Once you get to the bottom tier, you return to the top tier as a different higher level organism. Did you hang around long enough to continue, or did you just quit?

canebi @ Sep 23rd 2006 1:34AM

The game isn't worth hanging around long enough, it's just a theory that's been around for ages, only it was never implemented because of obvious constraints to how a player goes through a story.

He mentioned in his "interview" that he couldn't beat a certain collosus and wanted to move on to another one. Firstly, Shadow of the collosus isn't a very hard game, it requires some puzzle solving, but it was epic the way it was laid out. It was laid out like that for a reason, each collosus was chosen to follow the other on purpose. If you were able to skip ahead it would have thrown off the way the gamer precieved the world and story.

His theory has been around for ages, and was ignored for obvious reasons, I've worked in the industry for a while now, it's not like this is some new information no one knew about.

Inspector71 @ Sep 23rd 2006 1:36AM

I enjoyed it, but it's the kind of academic. Maybe with some neato multiplayer it would be cooler. A massively multiplayer primordial soup. THAT would be fun.

fraxyl @ Sep 23rd 2006 3:30AM

I had a lot of fun playing this game and thought it would be a perfect addition to the DS library, it would work well on the Wii also, but what it really needs is maybe some sort of score counter and randomly generated tiers... plus maybe randomly spawning enemies... which wouldn't matter if you could just keep diving deeper, but it's pretty relaxing to play... until some squishy thing starts eating all your bits!

I definitely would buy this if it were on the virtual console or had some form of WiFi play on the DS.

Jay @ Sep 23rd 2006 3:40AM

Flow wasn't fun to play. It was novelty, like playing Electroplankton but without half the depth and a vague attempt at recycled gameplay.

bm @ Sep 23rd 2006 10:36AM

"WHAT IF...

Because the Wii Opera Browser supports Flash, can we ALREADY play it on Wii as soon as it comes out?!?

:O :O :O"

Well, while that's certainly true, Flash fucking sucks. It really isn't for games, only for simple web interfaces or short, simple cartoons.

You'll notice this when, on the later levels after gaining a new organism, Flow starts chugging along at 2 FPS even when set to low quality. And this is on a PC that's probably twice as powerful as the Wii.

I mean, it's retarded really, if properly programmed the N64 or PS1 (which possess like 1% of the power of a modern PC) could handle this game at proper speeds! But no, this is Flash.

nick @ Sep 23rd 2006 10:52AM

Not even close to Geometry Wars. At least that was fun to play. Flow is, well, boring after a while.

Revo @ Sep 23rd 2006 2:19PM

"18. Well, while that's certainly true, Flash fucking sucks. It really isn't for games, only for simple web interfaces or short, simple cartoons."

It may not be meant for games, but good games do exist in Flash. Take Metanet Software's "N", one of my all-time favorite games, for example:

http://www.harveycartel.org/metanet/downloads.html

bm @ Sep 23rd 2006 2:55PM

I've played "N". While it's a great game, its graphics and movement are so tiny it doesn't tax even the bloated molasses that is Flash, so it doesn't really help the argument.

Iscariot @ Sep 23rd 2006 10:55PM

All of Halo 2's interfaces were originally created in flash actually. To say nothing of games like Alien Hominid, or N.

Flash doesn't suck...it's just easy to make something that sucks in flash :)

Vector @ Sep 24th 2006 3:26AM

"Well, while that's certainly true, Flash fucking sucks. It really isn't for games, only for simple web interfaces or short, simple cartoons.

You'll notice this when, on the later levels after gaining a new organism, Flow starts chugging along at 2 FPS even when set to low quality. And this is on a PC that's probably twice as powerful as the Wii.

I mean, it's retarded really, if properly programmed the N64 or PS1 (which possess like 1% of the power of a modern PC) could handle this game at proper speeds! But no, this is Flash."

This statement is very uneducated.

The Flash rendering engine is based on vector graphics, ie the objects are made up of a set of points and bezier handles to determine the curvature. This results in "infinite quality depth" because of the fact that you can zoom in and the points will still be point A and point B, and the line between those points can still be represented to an infinite depth (for example, you can calculate any 100 x-y co-ordinates on the curve y=x between 1 and 100 or 1 and 1.01). As opposed to raster images, which are made up of pixels. You can't zoom in on pixels - raster images are like "graphs" in the sense that they have set coordinates, and each point has a fixed value.

The tradeoff for the infinite quality in the current operating systems is processing power. Windows XP is a raster-based operating system, and as the Flash engine needs to render all of it's content as raster images internally, it can consume a large quantity of resources. This may change with Vista. Things like vector gradients and flash "filters" tend to cause more trouble because they involve translucent gradients, which need to be calculated and then rasterised.

Flash is an excellent tool for creating games and the like, the only downfall is the processing power required to render such things. I can imagine as 64 bit computing becomes more popular and if Vista supports vector-based processes natively, Flash will excel as a gaming platform (especially seeing the recent advances in the actionscript platform).