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Play PS3 Title flOw Right Now

The folks at the Tokyo Game show are sending back high resolution screens of titles like Heavenly Sword and Warhawk, but a smaller title that will be on the console is available to play now. Recommended by Tycho in Friday's post to Penny Arcade, the game fl0w has more to offer than just good looks. It's actually a part of a designer's thesis, using the concept of flow theory to make a title more enjoyable for the player. Despite its roots in academia, this beautiful gem may go on to have a fond place in the hearts of console gamers. Joystiq has a hands on with the PS3 version: "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." Download the game, and give it a try.

62 comments

  1. Hmm. by rjstanford · · Score: 4, Informative
    . 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."


    Of course, making it available for free download months in advance may - just may - reduce the number of people lining up to pay for it. But who knows, miracles can happen.
    --
    You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
    1. Re:Hmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I downloaded and completed Fl0w back in April.

      Is this a new version? Can you play as more than just the 'centipede' and 'blob' organisms? If the blurb had said:

      Sony to let you play last spring's free Flash games on your $600 PS3 using the innovative (ripped-off-from-Wii) tilt sensor!
      we could have skipped the trip to Joystiq completely, because it doesn't really say anything else! Too bad we don't yet know if we'll get to buy this free Flash game for our PS3.
    2. Re:Hmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You cannot play fl0w for the PS3 now. You can play a flash demo made by the creator for his thesis. If you look at the screencaps from Tokyo it is clear the new version will be different. If people like the demo and want to play a full version that will mean more customers not less. Granted, the /. article was misleading stating the game was "available to play now."

      http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/puzzle/flow/news.html? sid=6158150
      http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/puzzle/flow/news.html? sid=6158162

    3. Re:Hmm. by NinjaFarmer · · Score: 1

      480p for a bunch of circles? The Wii better be able to render this game about as well as the ps3.

    4. Re:Hmm. by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 1
      No kidding. I posted about this on my blog back on March 19th (sorry for shameless plug, just giving proof of the date). My hope at the time was that this would be developed further into a game with even more evolution, similar (but perhaps not as far-reaching) to Spore. But it looks like it will just be the same game, and they'll try to charge for it, but this is Sony, so no surprise there.

      Although honestly I am a bit curious as to how they intend to give gamers a snowballs chance in hell of completing the end levels without an input device as precise as a mouse. I can't even imagine having a shot at the end level with a thumbstick or D-pad.

      --
      Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
  2. Welcome to Slashdot.PS3 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    At least 4 Sony PS related submissions a day.

    1. Re:Welcome to Slashdot.PS3 by ZakuSage · · Score: 1

      It's called TGS, where the bulk of all the Japanese gaming news for an entire year is released in the span of a few days. By now, you should also have figured out it's pronnounced Nintendot , 24 hour Nintendo bias, all day, everyday.

    2. Re:Welcome to Slashdot.PS3 by johnsmith_12345 · · Score: 1

      Make that 5

  3. Poor Chen by Morphine007 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I was playing this game this morning after reading penny arcade. It's incredibly simplistic... if strangely addictive...

    Not surprisingly, we appear to have killed his server

    1. Re:Poor Chen by the-amazing-blob · · Score: 1

      Penny Arcade was killing it first. If you keep refreshing, it will load, seriously.

    2. Re:Poor Chen by Trillian_1138 · · Score: 1

      Okay, maybe I'm dumb, but how do I play?! I can't figure it out! I'm gonna try booting into Windows to see if it's a wird Linux flash issue, but I can't figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do!
      -Trillian

    3. Re:Poor Chen by Morphine007 · · Score: 1

      Move your mouse; the thing you control follows your mouse cursor (as long as it's in the flash window that is). The left button makes it go faster. You just move it around and eat stuff. The red guys (shown by a red circle 'ping' when they're off the map) make you go down a level, the blue guys make you go up a level.

    4. Re:Poor Chen by SharpFang · · Score: 1

      yes, it's linux flash issue. The game requires flash 8.

      --
      45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  4. Old. Old old old. by Rallion · · Score: 3, Informative

    I played this at least six months ago! It's an intensely simplistic (though cool) game that will take a grand total of about an hour (tops) out of your life. It's been freely available for a long time.

    Everybody's acting like it's some big deal. I don't understand why.

    1. Re:Old. Old old old. by ZohoGorganzola · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I was about to say, this has been around for a while. And all it really is, is a proof of concept for the idea of flow in games. Which the designers believe, is the optimal level of challenge versus reward for a game to have to keep the player entertained and happy.

      --
      There are people caught in the freedoms that bind.
    2. Re:Old. Old old old. by Neoncow · · Score: 1
      the optimal level of challenge versus reward for a game to have to keep the player entertained and happy

      Whoa.. that's kinda creepy. Academia is busy reducing us to ratios.
    3. Re:Old. Old old old. by ReverendLoki · · Score: 1

      They're acting like it's a big deal because it's a cool game in a simplistic interface that a lot of people are just finding out about for the first time. Hell, I just saw it for the first time a few days ago myself.

      It's sort of like personal hygiene - even though the concept has been around for a very long time, every time I go to a con it seems like there are plenty of people there who had never heard of it...

      --
      09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  5. Mirror anyone? by SharpFang · · Score: 1


    Server Load:
            151 Users
    Remaining Wait:
            11 Minutes

    Mirror plz?

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    1. Re:Mirror anyone? by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, thats part of the game. It's called bandwith flow. See its using a series of tubes to flow your information to you like water. Posting a mirror would open more flows and be like cheating.

    2. Re:Mirror anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  6. Filecloud Trick by oskard · · Score: 2, Informative

    Two servers appeared in the "Select A Server" combo box.
    Both had a waiting time of 9 minutes
    I select one, begin waiting.
    I become impatient, hit back, select another.
    Viola, the download begins immediately.

    Try it out, hope it works for you :)

    --
    Sigs are for Terrorists.
    1. Re:Filecloud Trick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who is that Viola you keep talking to? Does she look nice?

  7. Yawn by MeanMF · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Crappy frame rate (in a 2-d game!) and kind of interesting for about five minutes. Not quite Geometry Wars, sorry guys.

    1. Re:Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The word "PS3" was not mentioned in that reply, and the game is not yet playable on a PS3. You're an idiot.

    2. Re:Yawn by empaler · · Score: 1

      It poses no framerate problems for my three year old laptop, so I'd say the problem is at your end.

    3. Re:Yawn by MeanMF · · Score: 1

      Re-read my comment as tell me where I even mentioned Sony or the PS3. This game would suck just as hard on a 360 as it does in Flash.

    4. Re:Yawn by MeanMF · · Score: 1

      If you can stay awake long enough, play for a few minutes and see what happens when the big critters appear. Framerate drops drastically and it becomes hard to control.

    5. Re:Yawn by SuperKendall · · Score: 0, Troll

      Re-read my comment where I stated they would probably spruce it up for a console.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  8. Is this actually news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm rather surprised if this is to be a PS3 exclusive - I remember playing it at least a month ago, so it's probably somewhat unfair to claim that this was even remotely 'designed' for the PS3, let alone anything more than an art project.

    1. Re:Is this actually news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DEFINITELY not designed for the ps3. sony's just making a half-assed attempt to buy up the first work of a guy who's gonna be a great game designer. jenova's already on to better things, working with will wright on the spore team. i took a couple classes with him in usc's interactive media division. this guy's definitely got a future.

    2. Re:Is this actually news? by hords · · Score: 1

      Speaking of Spore, the little bit of this flow game I played reminded me of the video footage of Spore. The part when you're a single celled organism and you run around eating things.

  9. Yeah... by GammaKitsune · · Score: 1

    I'm still not really getting this game, to be honest. Can anyone better explain?

    --
    Gamertag: WyleType
    1. Re:Yeah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The creator explains it pretty well at this page. It just happened that despite the simplicity people really liked playing it. Or because of. Who knows. I love it myself!

      "FlOw is created to test player-oriented DDA with choices embedded inside the gameplay. In flOw, the player uses the mouse cursor to navigate an organism through a surreal biosphere where it consumes other organisms, evolves, and advances into the abyss. The gameplay is intentionally designed to be extremely minimal for easily evaluating the efficiency of the player-oriented DDA system."

      http://www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/implementfig .htm

  10. Hot off of the presses! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If that's a "PS3 game", does that make the Weather Channel a Wii game?

    1. Re:Hot off of the presses! by QuantumLeaper · · Score: 1

      interesting.

  11. Flow by mr+din · · Score: 0

    I remember reading Flow years ago. It's an excellent book. I can't believe they made a game based around its concepts -- but it makes sense when correlated with the pleasure derived from video gaming. Hopefully this game lives up to its potential.

  12. Yawn by SuperKendall · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Yest another moronic anti-PS3 post, you can practically set your watch by them at this point. Perhaps, just perhaps, they would actually do something a little different or enhanced for the PS3 version? The flash version was written eons ago just to prove a point in a thesis.

    Does hating Sony kill brain cells? It would appear so.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  13. Help needed. by Vo0k · · Score: 1

    I got to the second boss (yellow-brown world, you play as a sphere) but I can't beat it. Never got it below 4 dots, and we've been exchanging attacks for last half a hour or so. Anything beyond the 4th dot (the one with 2 spikes) is easy, but getting anything closer to the head is nearly impossible, results in being bitten and losing any advantage as the enemy regenerates.

    Any solution?

    --
    Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
    1. Re:Help needed. by penguinwhoflew · · Score: 0

      It's really just luck, try pulling back away from the worm and then storming in right behind his head. If you're lucky, his mouth will hit a spot on your body that's already been eaten or won't hit you at all and you can take away another dot off his back.

    2. Re:Help needed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i played flOw a few months ago, but if it is still the same basic game now, you have to "go up" a level and continue strengthening your critter until it is strong enough to beat the boss you are having trouble with. this applies to all bosses in the game. if you are a skilled swimmer, you can take down a boss who is relatively over-powering, but otherwise, just keep eating your wheaties!

    3. Re:Help needed. by Vo0k · · Score: 1

      The problem is "strengthening myself" doesn't help - it increases my survivablity which is more than satisfactory (I spent nearly half a hour in a futile battle and neither of us managed to seriously hurt the other), but doesn't really increase my attack power/speed (instead, it decreases it - it takes longer to refill a spot and take another bite off the boss). For a good while I considered the suicidal strategy of going right from the start to the boss, simply because the beginning "empty" state would make wounding the boss so much faster.

      Maybe if there were clear rules, say, how to improve speed...

      --
      Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
    4. Re:Help needed. by SeekerDarksteel · · Score: 2, Informative

      I had a lot of difficulty beating him. I managed to get him down to 2 dots by charging in from behind, but the last two were tough as hell. Basically I charged in from behind, then released the mouse button so my dots were beyond his head. Then I tried to snag one of the dots and zip out of there before he could eat part of me. It took me a ton of attempts since you have to try to slip part of your outer ring that isn't lit up by his head, but finally managed to do it. The only problem was...I didn't spawn a new creature and go back to the top level like I did the first time through. I don't know if that was intentional, if I glitched out, or if I missed something but I didn't want to search every inch of the previous levels to find out.

      --
      The laws of probability forbid it!
    5. Re:Help needed. by Kennego · · Score: 1

      Yeah, same here, it sounds like. Once I beat the 2nd boss, he just kind of froze there, and didn't explode into lots of goodies. It was truly sad...

      But your strategy is a good one, and is probably the only way of defeating him. When I played the game, I was trying to just charge in and wasn't getting anywhere either, then I tried keeping my dots in an outer ring and it became incredibly simple to beat.

    6. Re:Help needed. by fractalus · · Score: 1

      I had exactly the same problem, and I did search many levels for anything I missed. I think that's as much of the game as was developed, and it just ends there. Pretty sure at that point I was out of the "flOw" and it wasn't fun for me any more.

      --
      People are never as simple as their stereotypes. This applies equally to Christians, Muslims, and Emacs-lovers.
  14. Digtal crack by Broken+scope · · Score: 1

    or maybe im just way to easily entertained. Man, i'm not sure what the point of the game was but damn, that was fun.

    --
    You mad
  15. The game isn't finished yet... by interactive_civilian · · Score: 1
    It seems that the game is a work in progress and (at least, the Flash version) isn't finished yet.

    Apparently not so long ago, it was only one level. Hopefully it won't take long until it is several more levels with more creatures to play against and become.

    --
    "Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
  16. True... also by interactive_civilian · · Score: 1

    The framerate slows to a crawl when you start becoming a big critter yourself and really struggles when you are a big critter trying to eat other big critters. I noticed the most problems while playing as a fairly evolved jellyfish trying to attack other largish jellyfish towards the end of level 2...

    --
    "Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
    1. Re:True... also by theantipop · · Score: 1

      Never had this problem myself on a 2ghz Athlon XP. This was the web version, not the downloaded version however.

  17. Flow "theory"? uh... DUH! by dzfoo · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    According to this new-fangled theory, an activity is only fun while we are engaged in a challenge that we can actually accomplish; and that if it gets too hard, we get anxious, while if it gets too easy, we get bored.

    And they can now prove this with colorful charts and some vague numbers.

    This prompts a very big and loud _DUH!_ for whomever came up with such insight.

    If you need some pseudo-scientific, quasi-psychiatric thesis to understand this, perhaps you shouldn't be designing games -- GAMES!

    You know, games: the epitome of fun; or so I thought.

            -dZ.

    P.S.> By the way, Tycho did not recommend the game. He mentioned it as hearsay, and recommends you follow the link to where the so-called theory is explained, so that you may also be intrigued by its rationale (the one that scientifically proves that a game is only fun while you are not stomping the controller in frustration, or drooling unconscious on the couch out of boredom).

    --
    Carol vs. Ghost
    ...Can you save Christmas?
    1. Re:Flow "theory"? uh... DUH! by Jerf · · Score: 1

      From my reading, the "innovation" is supposed to come in tuning the game's difficulty automatically to the user's performance, not merely the idea that a game should be between "frustrating" and "boring".

      This can be a good idea, but it's worth pointing out it's not new at all. I recently started in on a task that I've had planned for a while working on the same basic idea, only applied to a learning program (can't even call it a "game"): Dynamically deciding which new concepts to introduce when, depending on how well and how quickly the user has mastered the previous concepts. The only odd thing is how few "learning" programs use this idea. It's not a new one.

      In gaming, the idea is older than many Slashdot posters. While I wouldn't be surprised somebody can pull out an Atari 2600 game that uses the same principles, I can name the Intellivision game, Astrosmash as using the same basic idea. As you do better, the game gets more difficult. As you do work, the game gets easier. It very naturally slots into a difficulty level that can suck you in for hours. (It is probably a good thing nobody has really studied how to make an addictive game deliberately, excepting maybe the MMORPG people although I still that that's accidental; it would probably be surprisingly easy to make a truly addictive game if you tried.) I played this just a couple of years ago and it was even in the PS2 era capable of being quite addicting, because the game never ended.

      Follow the link; there is a funny story on the bottom about the accidental combination of some Intellivision features and limitations, a scoring contest for money, and the fact that it's essentially impossible to lose a game of Astrosmash even for a complete novice.

    2. Re:Flow "theory"? uh... DUH! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I completely agree...

      He (she?) studied aspects of game design that have been established for decades and slapped a new label on the "ideal" balance of the resulting gameplay.

    3. Re:Flow "theory"? uh... DUH! by dzfoo · · Score: 1

      But this is precisely the point I was ridiculing: They took an ever-present concept of designing games -- one that I'm sure predates videogames themselves -- and market it as an "innovation", claiming it is an implementation of some two-bit psychology thesis with a fancy-sounding name and a colorful chart.

      But guess what, games have been fun and addictive before, way before, and I'm willing to bet that it was not by accident that game makers ended up finding that sweet-spot between boing and frustrating -- I posit that they seeked this balance on purpose.

              -dZ.

      --
      Carol vs. Ghost
      ...Can you save Christmas?
    4. Re:Flow "theory"? uh... DUH! by ultranova · · Score: 1

      From my reading, the "innovation" is supposed to come in tuning the game's difficulty automatically to the user's performance, not merely the idea that a game should be between "frustrating" and "boring".

      This can be a good idea,

      It isn't. When I learn the game, I want to be able to breeze past the levels I previously had to struggle through, and take on new levels. I don't want the enemies to mysteriously develop resistance to bullets.

      A game that automatically adapts the difficulty level to the player risks negating any rewards from learning.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  18. Don't play World of Warcraft by voxel · · Score: 1

    Talk about digital crack, if this game was crack to you, then WoW just may actually _kill_ you.

    --
    Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
    1. Re:Don't play World of Warcraft by Broken+scope · · Score: 1

      Um. thats way way way to late. I already play it.

      --
      You mad
  19. Color by gracefool · · Score: 1

    Needlessly difficult in places for people like me who are a bit color-blind - the red radar is impossible to see on some levels, as are some enemies. And that bit on the second level against the long enemy is so "difficult" as to be broken. It's not fun difficult, just annoying.

    1. Re:Color by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Guess it sucks to be disabled. Those of us who aren't broken can enjoy the game just fine.

  20. gah by LKM · · Score: 1

    The original comment was not about the PS3.

  21. THATS IT! by xtracto · · Score: 1

    Enough!

    We will sue this guy until his pants drop down, we got all the patents for anything related to the Spore game and it seems this game is balantly infringing our patents and the author hasn't paid royalties.

    Sincerely,

    EA

    p.s. Mmmm. we may better wait until the game makes some cash and then go for him.

    --
    Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
  22. Gargh! by SuperKendall · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Nor was my reply, entirey. Aside from one dig at you for being overly supportive of the 360. Put that aside and my comment was neutral as well, it would apply equally if Flow were being put out on Live. You seem to miss the basic fact that the online game is very, very old and a proof of concept, not a finished product.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  23. ARGLSHMARGL! by LKM · · Score: 1
    Nor was my reply, entirey. Aside from one dig at you for being overly supportive of the 360.

    Uhm... What the hell are you talking about? The entry you just replied to was the first thing I've said in this thread.

    Let's go through this thread:

    MeanMF says: "Crappy frame rate (in a 2-d game!) and kind of interesting for about five minutes. Not quite Geometry Wars, sorry guys."

    Please note that he's talking about the Flash game. Nothing about the PS3.

    You reply:

    Yest another moronic anti-PS3 post (...) Does hating Sony kill brain cells? It would appear so.

    MeanMF then writes that he did not say anything about the PS3, and that the game would "suck just as much" on the 360. Hence, he's pointing out that his post wasn't in fact a "moronic anti-PS3 post," as you so nicely put it.

    To that, you reply (and I'm not making this up):

    Re-read my comment where I stated they would probably spruce it up for a console.

    This makes absolutely no sense. MeanMF did not say anything about the console version of the game. He did not say that the game would suck on the PS3. He simply said that the Flash version sucked. I pointed this out: The original post wasn't about the PS3 (or about anything to do with consoles at all). Then you wrote:

    Nor was my reply, entirey. Aside from one dig at you for being overly supportive of the 360. Put that aside and my comment was neutral as well, it would apply equally if Flow were being put out on Live. You seem to miss the basic fact that the online game is very, very old and a proof of concept, not a finished product.

    I can't see how the original commenter (who, again, was not me) was "overly supportive of the 360." He simply pointed out that the Flash game was crappy (which it is) and that it wasn't as good as Geometry Wars (which it isn't). He probably mentioned Geometry Wars because people compared the game to it. Maybe the finished version will be as good as Geometry wars (I wouldn't know, I don't own a 360 and have never played the game). Nobody is "missing any basic facts." In fact, it's absurd to claim that we miss the "basic fact" that the game is old - since that is exactly what everyone has been saying all along.

    MeanMF probably isn't a 360 fanboy (I wouldn't know from these two posts), but you sure as hell sound like a moronic Sony fanboy jumping at everything you think could be interpreted as criticism of the PS3.

    Long post. Sorry, but I'm bored.

  24. ugh by vethia · · Score: 1

    I beat the yellow-brown final boss, but didn't get the key needed to move on to the next level. I even went back all the way to beginning and all the way down again to make sure I'd killed and eaten every single thing, and no luck. Finally I gave up in disgust. What this game lacks is communication. I didn't even know I was supposed to fight the other creatures until my second try.