Rather than talk about a commercial game first of all, I've chosen a free flash one that is part of a thesis based on the idea of flow in games. In brief, 'fl0w' centres on the idea of 'Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment' which allows the player to effectively set their own pace and get what they want out of the game.
You play a somewhat ambiguous, snake-like water creature with a mouth and very little else. The snake follows the mouse when you hold the left button and that's all you need to know to control it. The idea is that even a casual, non-gamer can pick it up straight away. Don't be fooled by its simplicity either - fl0w is one of the most addictive games on the planet.
The premise is simple: you start of close to the water's surface and can eat red micro-organisms (see above and below) to go further down into the darkness of the abyss, or eat blue ones to swim up to the next plane.
On each plane there are two basic things you will encounter. There are microbes and other creatures which will disintegrate into microbes when you defeat them. First things first: one of the strokes of genius in fl0w is that your creature grows larger when it eats. Its body gets longer, then it begins to grow fins which make it swim faster. You actually become attached to the thing because you've had to work to evolve it. Combat with other creatures is relatively simple - you just eat the full, glowing segments of their body and they fall apart. This is made tougher by the fact that they can also eat you. The penalty for this is quite light though (so as not to disrupt the game's flow - harsh punishments reduce the enjoyment of the player) and you are merely bumped up a plane. The enemies are another strong point - they vary from other snakes to jellies and rays of all different sizes. There's a cool sense of foreboding when you get to some of the darker, lower levels only to find a creature ten times your size that you're expected to take on.
The game also has a very nice aesthetic - aside from the clean, glowing visual style there is a constant aquatic humming and as you do things, they generate ethereal chiming sounds as if you're making some sort of ambient music as you play. It's another touch that really draws you into the experience as it makes even the smallest occurrences seem somehow more significant. It also makes fl0w superb for winding down with. Even though some of the battles on lower planes can be a little tense (and occasionally frustrating as parts of your beloved creature are slowly eaten away) there is a pervading sense of the serene.
It's actually quite hard to not fall in love with this game straight away - your quest to the bottom of the sea isn't in vain, either - for your troubles you'll be rewarded by returning to the surface but as a jelly which alters the experience and feels quite satisfying after you've already offed scores of the things. Again - it acts to keep the experience flowing (rather than just ending when you reach the bottom) and the fact that you'll return to it again and again is a testament to its success.
As you can probably tell from my gushing, I love fl0w and I consider this to be fairly high praise when I'm normally content shooting zombies in the face. I think the best thing to say about it is that the first few times when I played it in 2006, I was unaware of the idea behind it (I assumed the name 'fl0w' was just meant to sound a bit cool and new-age) and loved it anyway. That's its strength - it was essentially only made to illustrate a concept and yet it achieves this so remarkably that it can stand on its own perfectly well. The proof of this is that a PS3 version was made available to download (with the ability to play as more creatures plus some other goodies).
So, in summation - fl0w can be played here, you can find out more about the PS3 version here and if you so wish (and it is quite interesting if you have the time) you can read the thesis here!
And how many ninjas would I give it? Well, I may have to revise this later when more of us have actually rated things, but if I assume I'd give Half-Life 2 (my personal benchmark of ultimate quality in a game) one ninja and something like F.E.A.R. three ninjas (I assume that's about an average score) then fl0w is deserving of at most two (it feels weird saying 'at most'. It also feels weird using this much parenthesis)!
Anyhow, I've rambled for long enough.
Catch you later!
On each plane there are two basic things you will encounter. There are microbes and other creatures which will disintegrate into microbes when you defeat them. First things first: one of the strokes of genius in fl0w is that your creature grows larger when it eats. Its body gets longer, then it begins to grow fins which make it swim faster. You actually become attached to the thing because you've had to work to evolve it. Combat with other creatures is relatively simple - you just eat the full, glowing segments of their body and they fall apart. This is made tougher by the fact that they can also eat you. The penalty for this is quite light though (so as not to disrupt the game's flow - harsh punishments reduce the enjoyment of the player) and you are merely bumped up a plane. The enemies are another strong point - they vary from other snakes to jellies and rays of all different sizes. There's a cool sense of foreboding when you get to some of the darker, lower levels only to find a creature ten times your size that you're expected to take on.
The game also has a very nice aesthetic - aside from the clean, glowing visual style there is a constant aquatic humming and as you do things, they generate ethereal chiming sounds as if you're making some sort of ambient music as you play. It's another touch that really draws you into the experience as it makes even the smallest occurrences seem somehow more significant. It also makes fl0w superb for winding down with. Even though some of the battles on lower planes can be a little tense (and occasionally frustrating as parts of your beloved creature are slowly eaten away) there is a pervading sense of the serene.
It's actually quite hard to not fall in love with this game straight away - your quest to the bottom of the sea isn't in vain, either - for your troubles you'll be rewarded by returning to the surface but as a jelly which alters the experience and feels quite satisfying after you've already offed scores of the things. Again - it acts to keep the experience flowing (rather than just ending when you reach the bottom) and the fact that you'll return to it again and again is a testament to its success.
As you can probably tell from my gushing, I love fl0w and I consider this to be fairly high praise when I'm normally content shooting zombies in the face. I think the best thing to say about it is that the first few times when I played it in 2006, I was unaware of the idea behind it (I assumed the name 'fl0w' was just meant to sound a bit cool and new-age) and loved it anyway. That's its strength - it was essentially only made to illustrate a concept and yet it achieves this so remarkably that it can stand on its own perfectly well. The proof of this is that a PS3 version was made available to download (with the ability to play as more creatures plus some other goodies).
So, in summation - fl0w can be played here, you can find out more about the PS3 version here and if you so wish (and it is quite interesting if you have the time) you can read the thesis here!
And how many ninjas would I give it? Well, I may have to revise this later when more of us have actually rated things, but if I assume I'd give Half-Life 2 (my personal benchmark of ultimate quality in a game) one ninja and something like F.E.A.R. three ninjas (I assume that's about an average score) then fl0w is deserving of at most two (it feels weird saying 'at most'. It also feels weird using this much parenthesis)!
Anyhow, I've rambled for long enough.
Catch you later!
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