And now for something a little more relaxing…
"Flow" is an indie video game created by Jenova Chen, best known for being the designer behind "Flower" and "Journey". Originally the game was a free Flash game in 2006, to accompany Chen's master's thesis, but was later on reworked into a 2007 PlayStation 3 game by his development studio, Thatgamecompany.
In "Flow", the player navigates a series of 2D planes with an aquatic microorganism that evolves as it continues consuming other microorganisms. The game's design is based on Chen's research into dynamic difficulty adjustment, the process of automatically changing parameters, scenarios, and behaviors in a video game in real-time, based on the player's ability, in order to avoid them from becoming bored or frustrated. The goal of dynamic difficulty balancing is to keep the user interested from the beginning to end and to provide a good level of challenge for the user. It is also based on his research into psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theoretical concept of mental immersion and flow.
Many see Chen's games as forms of arts than games, no instructions are ever really given throughout the game, there are no words, no talking, only movements and colors, with one, very simple goal given from start till end.
Glyphs are mainly used throughout the game to represent these microorganisms, with only the colors white, blue and red being used throughout, the colors aren't really used to distinguish the organisms apart, it is their size and length that shows whether they are aggressive or not, the background does get darker as you descend to lower planes, creating a slightly more intense atmosphere and a belief that more aggressive creatures are about.
Being filled with nothing but geometric shapes, the game uses simple ripples for when notable actions are accomplished, the controlled microorganisms also glows briefly when it has consumed something, or has a part of itself consumed by another, it is especially quite lovely to see the glow that travels down its even growing body when it has successfully caught something, there is even a rather melodious yet gentle tune that would go along with that movement.
I really liked how such simple shapes and lighting (And a very limited color palette) can still synchronize so well with the sound effects and music, though this is probably because the sounds and music used are incredibly soothing and gentle and remain quite constant. It's obviously a different story with more violent and loud noises...
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