All the fun of watching amoebas swim!

Play it: Free flash version – USC

Platforms: PSN/PSP/PS3/PC (Flash)

Developer: ThatGameCompany, SuperVillain Studios (PSP)

Sometimes I’d love to sit in on some of the pitching meetings for these games. I rather imagine the one for flOw going like this:

Bright Young Thing: We’ve got a great idea for a game for your Playstation Network.

Sony Exec: Really? What kind of game is it?

BYT: Well….it’s kind of like….an amoeba simulator.

Sony Exec: Right.

BYT: You swim around munching things and getting bigger and bigger until you can munch larger things.

Sony Exec: Then what happens?

BYT: Then you can become the cell form of those larger things and you start the whole thing again.

Sony Exec: Munching things?

BYT: Yep.

Sony Exec: Is there a plot?

BYT: You don’t need a plot. It’s the plot of life!

Sony Exec: Do you get upgrades?

BYT: Not really. The more you eat, the bigger you get and the more hits you can take. Is that what you mean?

Sony Exec: Not really. Are there bosses? Tyrannosaurs of the sea?

BYT: Erm, there are some big fish. Will that do?

Sony Exec: So it’s basically like that old mobile phone game Snake?

BYT: Not really. You can be a jellyfish or a manta ray too.

Sony Exec: So it’s basically just the first level out of Spore then?

BYT: No. There’s absoutely no depth at all to this gameplay.

Sony Exec: Are there multiple ways to defeat things?

BYT: Not really. Each of the organisms you can play as have a sort of special move like a speed burst, or paralysis, but that’s about it.

Sony Exec: So what you’re asking us to do in effect then, is market a game that could alternatively be titled Who Ate All The Pies: Amoeba Edition?

BYT: Sort of. But we have stylised graphics and soothing atmospheric mood music.

Sony Exec: Mood music?

BYT: It’ll send you to sleep. And that’s a guarantee!

Sony Exec: You had me at ‘atmospheric’!

flOw is an odd little game. There is so little to it that it feels weird calling it a game. You start off as a water snake thingy, you swim around munching little orby plankton, and you grow to munch upon larger orby fish things and other water snakes. Then you do the same thing as a jellyfish, a manta ray, another snake with a little hood thing and finally a bigger snake with fins or wings or something. There is an add-on pack for the PS3 version which allows you to play as a puffer fish too. The creatures all have little special moves but these are all pretty rubbish to be honest and just serve to make an easy game even easier. You don’t die as such, when vanquished you are reborn again a level before, surrounded by tiny little plankton to get your health back up again. You swim. You munch orbs. You get bigger. And that’s about it.

So the question you’re probably asking is ‘Why the fuck would I want to spend money on a pile of crap like this?’. There a several answers:

1. Don’t. Go play the Flash game.

2. Prettiness.

3. Boredom.

Right. The first one is pretty self explanatory. But to be honest the mouse controls are inaccurate at best and screen-punchingly irritating at worst. The second reason is that flOw is less of a game and more of an experience, in the same way that walking on a treadmill and walking ’round a beautiful forest are not quite the same thing. Whether it’s the strange ambient music, the shrill echoing wails of the defeated organisms you encounter, the fluidity of the motion (controlled by the analogue stick on the PSP and by tilting the SixAxis on the PS3), or the angular microscopic visual design, the entire feel of this game sucks you in so that before you notice, an hour has already gone past. The game supports THX and is surround sound compatible; the effect is complete aural immersion. It’s wonderful. The creatures of levels come swim about in the blur of the background, creating a hypnotic effect behind all of your amoeba chomping and making the entire atmosphere of the game about as close to contented sleepy comfort as you can get without surrounding yourself with cushions, boobs, inflatables, sheep and other soft things and fashioning yourself a cocoon.

But if that still doesn’t really justify spending 3-4 quid on it for you, then consider this scenario: You’re bored. You have 5 minutes to spare before a meeting. Or maybe you’re waiting for your girlfriend/boyfriend to get out of the shower because you’re already suited up for your dinner date. Maybe the dirty dishes are calling you but you’ve run out of things to distract you. Maybe you just want to procrastinate but there are people in the house so you can’t just crack one out….whatever the reason, this is where flOw really comes in handy. More than any other game I’ve played in a long time, this little exercise in consumption truly encapsulates at least one of the Platonic functions of casual gaming: pick up and playability. You can play it for 3 minutes just as easily as you can play it for 3 hours. The PS3 version adds in 4-way multiplayer which makes very little sense but proves to be hideously entertaining for a while. The developers have successfully distilled the essence of the afternoon nap, a beautiful little tradition that is both relaxing and completely unproductive , into a video game. The result is a game that you absolutely cannot hate.

Don’t get me wrong, the positives that make it an excellent game for a few minutes of distraction ruin it as a choice for serious gamers looking for sweeping epics – but there are other games for that. flOw does one thing only, but it does it excellently. No, it’s not as deep as Spore (the first level of which is pretty damn similar), but then it doesn’t pretend to be, something that Spore actually struggled with – beyond the first and last levels of the game, it was pretty much repetition after repetition. It feels like an extended demo, and it basically is, but you’ll keep coming back to it. There’s no replayability in the traditional sense, you won’t try to do things differently or look for new things you might have missed, but the basic playing of the game, its experience, is just something that you’ll keep coming back for whether it’s for 30 seconds or 30 minutes. Giving flOw a rating is hard, because it sucks as a conventional game, but for the most casual of casual gamers, for those of you who often find yourselves with a few moments to spare but not enough to do anything meaningful, or for those of you who require some thearapeutic stress relief (the PSP version is perfect for post-work commuter train journeys), this is a little gem that you would do well to check out. The PS3 version boasts multiplayer and 1080p visuals, but is let down slightly by the SixAxis controls. Personally I found the PSP version to be better and more natural for the type of game, although the surround sound experience available is a big draw to the larger platform. Either way, check out the basic Flash version. It’s free, and its a good way to burn an hour or so.

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