Introduction

Every once in awhile, a developer will come along with a game that makes people question the nature of what is a game.  Indie games and/or games that are available only for download as WiiWare, or the Xbox Arcade, or the PSN store tend to take more risks and expand the boundaries a bit more than games delivered on more traditional media.  The first offering from the folks at thatcamecompany, fløw, was definitely a mold breaker.  Does their second offering, Flower, soar?

Story

Flower is a $10 PSN exclusive title in which you play the wind.  Yes, I said that right.  You control the wind to guide a flower petal through each level, collecting other petals and interacting with the environment as you progress towards each level’s goal.  Whereas in many games your focus is the main character, such as Mario, in Flower the main focus is more on the environment.  Each level starts with a different potted flower on a urban windowsill, and takes you into the dream of that flower.  Each “dream level” has a specific environmental tone and mood, and as you blow through each level (and I don’t mean quickly… you control the wind, remember!), you explore and fly and interact with nature and objects in the level.  

Unlike fløw, there is a bit of a story in Flower.  It’s really an emotional and artistic journey of bringing the beauty of nature to the lifeless city.  The mood starts off rather light, with big open fields that you turn lush and green as you explore and gather petals.  Day turns to dusk, which has it’s own beauty as your petal train can pick up a bluish electric glow that it can spread through the grass.  You move on to more desolate industrial areas, where the mood turns more harsh and frightening as you work your way through power lines and collapsed steel structures, and finally you move on to the city itself.

The audio in the game is almost as important as the visuals.  Each petal has a distinct audio note of a piano, or violin, or guitar.  You can create waves sound by flowing through strings of flowers, that complements the background melodies.  It’s natural and fluid and helps establish the beauty of each level.

Gameplay

The game mechanics are elegant in their simplicity.  You use the SIXAXIS controller’s accelerometer to move your petal train left to right, and up and down, and you press a button or use an analog stick to make the wind blow the petal train.  It’s really as simple as that.  The game was designed to make use of the SIXAXIS motion control as your method of movement, and it works seamlessly.

You move along at your own pace, with the game almost encouraging a relaxed state of mind.  There is no death.  No counters.  No timer.  No failure.  You just move through the levels as you please, and enjoy the visual and audio experience.

You open new areas by collecting all the flowers with a glow to them in each area.  This makes the game more linear than some would probably like, but in my opinion, a little linearity tends to help focus the player towards the ultimate completion of each level.  It also gives the designers an opportunity to pull back the camera and show the players some gorgeous area transformations, which gives you some sense of accomplishment as you are playing along, and make it more of a game than just a pure visual experience.

Extras

There are not many extras per se, although you can transform some areas by exploring off the beaten path.  One level even lets you “paint” the grass in three different colors.  And there are some interesting trophies as well.  I actually got one trophy for playing partway through the game and then not coming back to it for over a week.  Procrastination pays off!  There are also trophies for playing with the environments a bit, such as flying around through the windmills.  And of course you can get trophies for collecting every petal.

Some gamers might be put off by the fact that there is no timed mode or speed mode in the game.  To me, that’s sort of counter-intuitive to the nature of the game.  That’s not at all what the game is about, and if that’s the kind of thing that gets you excited in a game, then Flower isn’t for you.

You can also play through the credits as a level, which is brilliant.  Each name is displayed above a flower, and gathering the petal off of that flower breaks the name apart into letters that float skyward.  One of the most well implemented credits sequences I’ve seen.

Conclusion

So was Flower for me?  Definitely.  It’s a short game, only taking a few hours on first play-through.  I say first because it’s the type of game I know I will go back to.  There is something rather serene about soaring through the levels that is unique to this game.  I also only unlocked 26% of the trophies in the game, so there is plenty of replayability there to entice me back.

One thing my readers can attest to is that I tend to seek out variety in videogames.  I find satisfaction in seeking out and playing all types of games.  It doesn’t matter what style of play a game has.  What matters is that it has style.  Flower is not a challenging game, but it has style.  It’s interactive, visual, thought-provoking.  And it’s worth your time and money to experience.