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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.
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!
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
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
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.
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Mirror plz?
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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.
Crappy frame rate (in a 2-d game!) and kind of interesting for about five minutes. Not quite Geometry Wars, sorry guys.
I'm still not really getting this game, to be honest. Can anyone better explain?
Gamertag: WyleType
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.
Make that 5
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"
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.
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
interesting.
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
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
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.
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
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.
The original comment was not about the PS3.
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
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'
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:
Please note that he's talking about the Flash game. Nothing about the PS3.
You reply:
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):
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:
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.
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.
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.