Flow (video game)

Flow (video game)

Flow is an independent video game created by Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark. In Flow, the player navigates a series of two-dimensional planes with an aquatic microorganism that evolves by consuming other microorganisms. The game’s design is based on Chen’s research into dynamic difficulty adjustment at the University of Southern California’s Interactive Media Division. The Flash version of Flow received 100,000 downloads within its first two weeks of release, and had been played over 3.5 million times by 2008.

About Flow (video game) in brief

Summary Flow (video game)Flow is an independent video game created by Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark. In Flow, the player navigates a series of two-dimensional planes with an aquatic microorganism that evolves by consuming other microorganisms. The game’s design is based on Chen’s research into dynamic difficulty adjustment at the University of Southern California’s Interactive Media Division, and on psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theoretical concept of mental immersion or flow. The Flash version of Flow received 100,000 downloads within its first two weeks of release, and had been played over 3.5 million times by 2008. Its PlayStation 3 re-release was the most downloaded game on the PlayStation Network in 2007 and won the Best Downloadable Game award at the 2008 Game Developers Choice Awards. It was nominated for awards by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. The PlayStation 3 version features a multiplayer mode for up to four players; a game in progress can be joined at any time, and players may play different creatures if they desire so. On November 20, 2007, the PlayStation 3 version received an add-on pack that allows players joining a multiplayer game to select their creatures, and a playable creature with a shield ability.

The pack also includes new enemies, and new food types, and it also includes an option of eating or not eating any of the creatures in the game. Flow was originally developed as part of Chen’s master’s thesis for the Interactive Program at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. Chen described the game as simple; he allowed players to change the game’s difficulty by causing the player to react subconsciously to a situation in a way that he felt was best for the player. The player may decide to rush downwards to grow stronger before attacking any powerful opponents, or to dive between planes and dive at the option of attacking or not attacking any of them at all. In the Flash version, the players can replay the game with a jellyfish-like organism by defeating an aggressive creature on the bottom plane. If the player reaches the bottom again, the creature there is their original worm-like creature, and defeating it starts the game over as that organism. The PS3 version features enhanced visuals and three additional playable organisms: one that can move with a short burst of speed, oneThat can paralyze other creatures, one that lunges toward its prey’s weak point, and one that creates a vortex to attract small creatures.