flOw

flOw is a flash game that has simple graphics but a very nice concept.

http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/flowing/

The FLOW project is a compendium of gaming ideas compiled by the University of Southern California's flagship game design team, ThatGameCompany.

What is flow in videogames?

Flow refers to how a game plays.

Normally, in games such as Iji, Cave Story, La Mulana, and Spelunky, you get 1 difficulty level. Players who think the game is too easy will not be happy, and neither will players who think the game is too hard.

Flow will adjust difficulty and plotline until the game fits the player. In other words, the player creates the game. The game doesn't make anything out of the player.

Now, somebody wrote an entire university thesis just about Flow in videogames. Then he and a team of developers created flOw, the game that implements Flow in games.

The question is: how will you make your games flow?

 

The question is: how will you make your games flow?

Apparently like Spore without the evolution

 

Flow's website and main idea - started 2006.
Spore the Game of Life and Evolution - released 2008.

Owned. So hard. Ha ha ha ha.

 

flOw...

Spoiler

(plays it for a hour and then finds out after the second time, you killed everything, so you're stuck alone...... ;_; )
Despite how I might not love it anymore, I do remember being quite excited the first time I played it, years ago...
I played through it completely this time since I don't think I ever played to the very end... was hoping for something to happen...

Wonder how the PS3 version compares?


As for how would I make my games flow?

It all depends on the game... In general I don't want a computer making it easy for me if I'm sucking, or making it hard if I'm just trying to enjoy myself. Chooseable difficulty levels are still a must for games that want vastly varying levels.

I wouldn't mind having intelligent AI that pushes harder under certain circumstances... (Like a training exercise. The NPCs can help you get better, push you to better yourself, without outright killing you. But when you're on the battlefield, I wouldn't want performance tailored AI, besides situational action/reaction.)

Also, if you take turns playing with someone else, I wonder how messed up it might be?


Though information based on performance could be used for many things...
Predicting the player's actions, realtime music generation, having the friendly AI comment on your performance, etc

In the end, your game should achieve whatever you are aiming to accomplish. If a performance based difficulty will do that, then I have nothing against it.

...I would however, like a code that allows me to replicate or share that exact experience with another.

 

Generating different music based on how the player handles the dungeons and puzzles of any particular game would be really cool.

 

Actually the Indie Games for Good marathon had the musician from That Game Company [Cloud, Flower, etc] on their livestream for an interview...
I believe he brought up realtime music generation and its untapped potential. He also mentioned some game in which this was explored, where classical music was randomly generated in realtime; and he commented that it was really sounded good. Though this was a while ago, and it used MIDI, so it was dismissed by most people in favor of games using recorded tracks on CD.

Don't know if the interview is up anywhere D: Didn't see it in google...

 

Heh, I was JUST writing about this game this morning. Had to write about the company that produced it. Awesome game.

 

Owned. So hard. Ha ha ha ha.

say that to my face not online fucker see what happens!