Flower Intentionally Made Less "Fun"
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
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I must admit, I never quite got around to downloading this game, but I could see its artistic merit from the beginning of its launch. I love searchhing for new gaming and narrative-based experiences in my game, something my brother never quite understood. ("What? Shadow of the Colossus only has 16 baddies? What a silly game! I think I might go and buy another shoot-em-ep, because they're 'always' original...") Obviously, most of the misunderstanding flOwer has garnered is due to the interpretation of what defines a 'game'. It think history speaks for itself.
Take Picasso for instance. Picasso's more famous works offer a frenzied insight into the mind of the artist, presented as a fractured mirror held in the dirty face of society, a juxtaposition of all that is beautiful and ugly in the eyes of a man who sees the world from an abstract point of veiw. Most people would say "But... but its all wrong! The face looks all funny! This isn't art! That's not how real people look at all!"
Now, I want to offer the suggestion that, dare I say it, 'both' answers are, in fact, correct. Either way, it doesn't really subtract from the fact that Picasso's work is unmistakably, unquestionably, without the slightest hint of a doubt, 'art'. Really its just a matter of interpretation and perspective; some people see things as black and white, and others simply want something more emotionally stimulating. Some people want a game that questions every apparent axiom that society throws at them, and others just want to "blow sh*t up".
Is it really too hard to accept that these two concepts can co-exist in peace? I mean, evidently there are "actual people" out there that play this game, as hard as it is for some others to accept, and I hardly think games like flOwer, The Path or And Yet It Moves are going to offer any threat to an industry forking out billions for endless sequels and Halo clones any time soon. There will, strangely enough, always be call for both.
FlOwer isn't a game in the sense that has been defined directly by the 20 or so years of mainstream industry, but hell, if I can watch it on a screen and actively play at role in its proceedings, then its a game to me. If your idea of fun is blowing stuff up, then my idea of fun is making a gust of wind blow petals around a field. Don't like it? Then I hear COD:MW2 is coming out soon. Get that and leave us with our flowers.
Take Picasso for instance. Picasso's more famous works offer a frenzied insight into the mind of the artist, presented as a fractured mirror held in the dirty face of society, a juxtaposition of all that is beautiful and ugly in the eyes of a man who sees the world from an abstract point of veiw. Most people would say "But... but its all wrong! The face looks all funny! This isn't art! That's not how real people look at all!"
Now, I want to offer the suggestion that, dare I say it, 'both' answers are, in fact, correct. Either way, it doesn't really subtract from the fact that Picasso's work is unmistakably, unquestionably, without the slightest hint of a doubt, 'art'. Really its just a matter of interpretation and perspective; some people see things as black and white, and others simply want something more emotionally stimulating. Some people want a game that questions every apparent axiom that society throws at them, and others just want to "blow sh*t up".
Is it really too hard to accept that these two concepts can co-exist in peace? I mean, evidently there are "actual people" out there that play this game, as hard as it is for some others to accept, and I hardly think games like flOwer, The Path or And Yet It Moves are going to offer any threat to an industry forking out billions for endless sequels and Halo clones any time soon. There will, strangely enough, always be call for both.
FlOwer isn't a game in the sense that has been defined directly by the 20 or so years of mainstream industry, but hell, if I can watch it on a screen and actively play at role in its proceedings, then its a game to me. If your idea of fun is blowing stuff up, then my idea of fun is making a gust of wind blow petals around a field. Don't like it? Then I hear COD:MW2 is coming out soon. Get that and leave us with our flowers.
They keep doing that to get more views. It really gets annoying once you start to notice how many people just head to popular topics and repeat the bullshit they think without actually reading what it's about.ElArabDeMagnifico said:
So yeah, the newspeople should start going for a little more discretion in their naming.
Maybe Flower didn't need to be more "fun" but it could really have benefited from, y'know, more actual gameplay. Flower makes an excellent first impression, but the novelty wears off quickly and the yawn-inducing shallowness of the whole experience becomes all too apparent long before you reach the Credits level.
For those that don't understand why Chen would make a game less "fun", please remember that fun is not the same as entertaining. Flower is still very entertaining, it's just not fun int the traditional "video game" use of the word.
If you still don't get it, it's like if Spielberg said he had to make Schindler's List less fun because the film studio originally wanted him to include a few car chases and a bikini car wash scene.
But I think people just always mention The Path because it's fairly well known.
If you still don't get it, it's like if Spielberg said he had to make Schindler's List less fun because the film studio originally wanted him to include a few car chases and a bikini car wash scene.
Blueberry Garden is already out, and it's amazing.Paladijn said:
But I think people just always mention The Path because it's fairly well known.
Not even that, because there's no one unified ideal of what makes a video game fun. We have countless thousands of video games that have been made since the medium was invented, and what makes any two fun isn't necessarily the same thing. (With some exceptions. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StrictlyFormula]) Especially if the games are of entirely different genres. And "fun" is hardly any more objective than any other measure of how one enjoys a game.boholikeu said:
Would the features he said he left out of Flower actually have made it more fun? I don't know because I've never played it.
He's calling it a game but removing any element of a game from it. Also I don't really call games that get THIS MUCH ATTENTION before release "Indie" games. Games that are already built up and have as much hype as a game about flowers strike me as something more then a first come developer making something great. I haven't played Flower nor will I anytime soon mostly due to it being a PS3 exclusive still if I recall.Jumplion said:
Games are meant to be fun. That is what makes them GAMES. Nobody played a Board Game that was not fun but was still entertaining. Flower is a Movie. A Multimedia Experience. A game where theres some flowers and I'm sure it's cool and neat to look at but is not fun thus is not a game.
The second your "game" crosses the line and is designed to be not fun, you are not making a game anymore. You guys can toot your horns about how Flower is special because it doesn't have guns, boobs and explosions but if thats our market for games then why is he releasing this to that market? How "interactive" is walking in a field of flowers? Is this something you think people will for more then a day? This entire "Game" is just a Artsy cash grab. It would be like if I took Street Fighter Four, Removed the game play and called it an Art Exhibition of the Modern Man. You just float around town as Ken and Ryu strike some poses and you can look but not play anything.
Games have always been designed to be fun. Thats what we judge games based on. Thats why we play them. Thats what makes them games. Flower is nothing new, special, or interesting and month after this game is finally released I won't ever have to hear about it because everyone will have forgotten it because HOW LONG do you think someone can walk around a field of flowers before it gets old.
Exactly. Thats why games are fun and why you don't watch the exact same movie back to back to back for 10 hours but can do that with a game.
He removed elements of the game that he felt were unneccesary and contradicted the game, that's a very common practise in games and in plenty of media (deleted scenes, concept art, deleted levels, ect....) He did not remove any element that made it a game, only elements that made it the game it wasn't supposed to be.SirSchmoopy said:
flOwer came out a LONG time ago, like 6 months old [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_(video_game)], and regardless of attention a game gets, ThatGameCompany is an independant video game company, Sony just funded them.
What hype are you talking about? I never really saw any hype for flOwer before it was released.
This makes absolutely everything you said completely worthless, as well as everything after this completely useless. You are judging a game, saying that it's not "fun", saying that it's not a "game", yet you've never played it?
Survival Horror games aren't exactly meant for you to have "fun", rather they're meant to make you feel helpless and vulnerable. Does that make them any less of a "game"?
....what? You've never played flOwer. How could you possibly say that "it is not fun and thus not a game!" let alone a movie, if you yourself fully admited to never even picking up a controller for it?
He never said that flOwer was designed to not be fun, I partly blame the title of this thread. In fact, Nilcypher himself said "please note, by 'fun' he means 'gears of war type fun'."
Why shouldn't it be released in the market? Surely you don't want guns, boobs, and explosions to be the market of this industry forever, I'd imagine it would get old VERY fast, it's already boring as it is. Do you really want boobs, guns, and explosions to be the market? This is like saying indie film makers shouldn't release their movies because the majority of movies are crappy comedies and cliched stories.
Very, in fact, but you wouldn't know, seeing as you've never played it. Using the SixaxiS motion control to move the wind is quite intuitive and involving.
flOwer was very short, I'll admit, but I personally thought it was worth every cent of the $10 I payed for this little PSN title.
Yeah, sure, what's the problem with that?
There is plenty of gameplay in flOwer, but you wouldn't know, You have never played flOwer in the first place. flOwer is more than just a petal with solar glare, but you still have yet to give me a single reason to say that flOwer is not a game, mostly because you have never played it.
Not survival horror games, at least I don't think.
I like to think that every aspect of a game is equal and has to stand it's own.
Show me another game where you play as the wind and guide a petal to collect flowers inside a flower's dream. Once again, I will have to push this into your head, YOU. HAVE. NEVER. PLAYED. flOwer. AT. ALL. AND. YOU. CAN. How can you possibly judge a game that you have never played a single second of, and say that it isn't a game? How can you possibly say that flOwer isn't a game just because it's not a traditional game, and when you have not played one microsecond of it? You can't. flOwer is as much of a game as Tetris, Okami, ICO, Gears of War, Killzone 2, Metal Gear Solid, Halo, Mario, or any other game.
Do you even realize that flOwer has been out for a while now? Or that it's not a full release game and that it's just a smallish PSN game you download like any other PSN/XBLA/freeware game?
DOMINATED!Jumplion said:
Holy crap that was an epic post \o/
Gotta admit, the headline was rather misleading to the actual story, but if his choice changed the game in a direction which he thought was better, what's the problem? Either it makes money or it doesn't. From the sounds of it making people's GotY and being a top seller on PSN I'd say that it probably hasn't lost him any money and if it lets him express himself creatively...well good on him.
That implies that the audience knows what they want. 90% of the time they have no goddamn idea what they really want.Abedeus said:
It was a lot bigger before, though. My computer completely crapped out on me RIGHT BEFORE I was about to hit the post button, but because I was using FireFox, it randomly froze on me (for some reason, FireFox completely freezes my computer from time to time). I retyped whatever I could remember, but I still yelled in rage when it happened (FF freezing it happened more then once...)Amnestic said:
Nice to see you posting again, though, how you been?
A better way to word it:
We wanted to keep the game simple to focus on a single emotional experience, so we didn't include more variated gameplay mechanics.
Sounds much better than "We made it less 'fun' (even though I get what they want to say) now doesn't it?
We wanted to keep the game simple to focus on a single emotional experience, so we didn't include more variated gameplay mechanics.
Sounds much better than "We made it less 'fun' (even though I get what they want to say) now doesn't it?
Indigo Dingo?Onmi said:
Ahhh, that's a wee bit too obscure for me. Still sounds like something Indigo would've said, he wasn't the most friendly type, especially in a thread like this one (PS3 focused).Onmi said:
I think it is admirable to advocate a lightweight ephemeral experience even at the cost of removing traditional risk-reward-challenge-catharsis dynamics just as long as those marketing the product recognizes that it isn't going to be played for hours on end and keep it very cheap, quick diversion.
No but good gameplay is always better.Casual Shinji said:
People aren't demanding bullshit in their games they are demanding gameplay.
That's why all these interviews are so over my head. Nobody is saying that your flower game needs huge breasted women hurling fireballs. We just ask that it displays itself honestly and plays to the best potential it can.
Which I think that flower game did. It was artful and interesting and was sort of zen like. I had quite a bit of fun in it.
Course I also like fireball hurling large breasted women...but each has a proper place and time...which oddly ends up being my bedroom anytime.
cavsfan69 said:
I disagree just because fun is not a singular emotional experience. I consider chess and sex to both be fun but each has a different series of reasons behind why it is fun. They don't both set off the same series of emotions or actions but yet when someone asks me "Do you think these things are fun" I say "Hell yes."Jumplion said:
But all fun things are not equally better together. Sex + Chess COULD be awesome but it would most likely end horribly.
From a psychological stand point I would consider anything appetitive to be fun and anything aversive to be unfun. Now! This essentially means that fun is subjective which is still the point but it makes it much easier to define and makes it a little more clinical and less ranty forum banter.
This reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus. I mean the game wasn't completely action crazy and a lot of it was running around looking for the Colossi and that experience in itself was entirely breathtaking and it didn't feel the need to have me running around killing things willy nilly.
It seems like a game that's destined to fail anyways, so i guess if he's going to be a prestigious douche about it the 3 people who buy the game won't hate him for it too much.