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Flower (PSN)
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bigdaddygamebot
Member
nny said:That's a sign for you to dump her
The game is not for casuals. It's not that strange that "girlfriends and wives" aren't gushing orgasmically over it.
Yes it's lovely.
Yes it's got flowers in it.
Girls like lovely things and flowers right?
Great game but the casual market is not gonna dig it.
Skittleguy
Ring a Bell for me
I feel all fuzzy after this.
It's nice that there can be games like this. It's a breath of fresh air.
It's nice that there can be games like this. It's a breath of fresh air.
DeceitDecide
Member
So, I've gotten all of the secret flowers in the game. Amazing, amazing game. But i haven't gotten the trophy for level 3, and I guess I don't really understand the description. It says to ride the wind 7 times. Does that mean I have to play through the level 7 times? That's kind of monotonous...
pelicansurf
Needs a Holiday on Gallifrey
DeceitDecide said:
You just go through like the propeller fans seven times, or the way I did it, at the end of the level when you're going through the canyon, just keep cutting through the cave and going down the canyon multiple times until it pops up. Hopefully you get what I'm saying.
Barkley's Justice
Member
no dialogue whatsoever, and by far the best game i have played this year that conveys story and emotion. amazing.
Haunted
Member
Oy, don't make me look shallow here. :lolbigdaddygamebot said:
The biggest problems she had were the controls and that there was no clear "goal" and story to the game beyond collecting petals and awakening the withered parts of nature. After handing me the controller again and watching me play for a bit, she did say that it looked pretty, at least.
Coincidentally, that's the exact same reaction she had to PixelJunk Eden.
DeceitDecide
Member
So, basically, use the cave and go through the wind-tunnel portion of the level seven times. Got it. I'll have to give that a shot.
Barkley's Justice
Member
the female loco roco player in the house passed right through the room when observing flower. -1 for casual players over here.
bigdaddygamebot
Member
RoboPlato said:
There's no losing, agreed. Everybody wins doesn't equate to being great for the casual market.
The wife had friends staying over for the weekend. Five different ladies and my wife's mom.
They wanted to play some Rock Band or try out the Wii but I encouraged them to try Flower first. Some of them play games like Peggle and whatnot so they're not completely inexperienced and my wife's mom loves her DS. Anywho...
They all do fine with Wii-motes but put the controller in their hands and telling them that all they need to do is tilt the controller and the petal(s) will turn left/right/up/down etc and to "go" all they needed to do was press a button. Any button.
What a fuckin' mess. They struggled with NOT using the control stick/d-pad.
Eventually a few of them got the hang of it but none of them were all that enamoured with it. My wife; whose brain has been sufficiently poisoned by yours truly can speak to some of the things I find appealing about that game but I don't particularly count her as a "casual" simply because of my influence on her gaming choices.
They all agreed that it was very pretty and the music was very nice and two of them liked the fact that it wasn't "violent or combative" but those two were also the quickest to cry foul when they saw levels 3, 4 and 5 as the style of the game becomes less about meandering about and collecting flowers and forces to player to focus more.
I was surprised. I really thought that it would be this epiphanic moment for some of them but it was really underwhelming. The whole experiment ending when my wife told me to put something on "more fun". There were questions of "what else do you do?" and "is that it?"
So yeah.
I haven't been that shattered since trying to get friends and family to play BioShock when it first came out.
I'm thinking; and this is only my own opinion on what happened; but I'm thinking that Flower is more of an "experience" type of game and less of a "fun" sortof game. I think most casuals want to play "fun" games and Flower can be a bit too subtle. The enthusiast crowd will lose their minds over Flower in general because they're the guys in the art musem of gaming; all of them oohing and aahhing and discussing their own interpretations of the game. It completely caters to that demographic. Much of what Flower is; is lost on the casuals.
Beyond being "pretty with nice sounds".
It could very well have been the group dynamic of the women and the fact that they were all amped to have fun so maybe my "test group" was spoiled to begin with...
bigdaddygamebot
Member
Haunted said:
Yeah, same here. My wife really likes the music of PJE and when we have it pumping though the sound system, she digs it. She has absolutely zero tolerance for the gameplay or even the concepts involved in PJE though.
Every fuckin' week she asks me if Peggle is out yet on XBox Live though...
I can definitely see this. Although I still think that, in general, the sit back and relax atmosphere of Flower could still appeal to casuals. It seems like the people you showed it to were just looking for something that was quick fun, instead of something relaxing.bigdaddygamebot said:
bigdaddygamebot
Member
RoboPlato said:
They all agreed that they enjoyed it more when I was playing it and they could sit back and just watch it.
I was like...their art-bitch.
They were drinking and chit-chatting with the odd coo of approval when colour splashed across the screen. It was all a bit strange.
So, this is just a heads up. If any of you have girlfriends or wives having a party and they need someone to sit there and play games on a sexy television while they do their thing.
Send me a pm...
As for the "relaxing" comment you made. I just don't think it's that relaxing. Not on the later levels atleast. It's not Resident Evil or Call of Duty action but I think flOw is far more of a relaxing game.
bigdaddygamebot
Member
Haunted said:
I'm gonna let my wife use my Gamertag when it finally does come out on XBL. It's ridiculous how good she is at Peggle.
great post. I agree that casuals might have a hard time adapting to the six axis controls because it's identical to the dual shock. And trying to re-write how one uses an input device is rather hard. But the greater point is that while it might ostensibly look casual, this game is very subtle and Subtility in anything is hard to grasp from a casual stand point. If someone were to show me a fantastic boxing match where a boxer used incredibly slick feints and flawless footwork; 1) I wouldn't see it without notice 2) I would probably not be able to properly identify a feint from a re-positioning or some other motion that could seem superficially similar.bigdaddygamebot said:
The fact that there are hardly any instructions doesn't help ease you into a comfortable position of control either. There is only one screen showing you, without text, which axises that will affect the flightpath. There is no predefined goal given to you, you have to assume that your goal is to bloom all the flowers or collect enough pedals to pass a undisclosed limit to progress or complete the level. The cut-scenes and ultimately the narrative is abstract as vomit on canvas and you probably can't make anything of it until you've hit a level where you start
wrecking shit (feel like anything about this is still spoiler-tag worthy, sorry for being over cautious )
I'm going to try to get my mother to play it next time she drops by, and I hope that she has a good chance of grasping it better since she's always held video-games in very poor esteem and never touched a controller, so moving a button filled controller probably won't prove too difficult. Plus I'll be there to explain the stuff that is implied and fill in the holes where previous knowledge is assumed. I still expect to get a "it looks nice and at least you aren't doing something violent." -line.
I like the game, but I hate that I have no idea how I got some of the trophies. The descriptions are stupid cryptic. Could look in this thread, though.
Speaking of that, don't read too much about this game. Just play it, and only read stuff about it when you have exhausted yourself trying to figure out why something happened.
Lastly, yeah, I have to say that "casuals" don't really give a shit about this game. It's still hardcore, I guess, in that you collect a bunch of shit. It's fun collecting overall, but collecting nonetheless, in a Pacman sort of way.
Speaking of that, don't read too much about this game. Just play it, and only read stuff about it when you have exhausted yourself trying to figure out why something happened.
Lastly, yeah, I have to say that "casuals" don't really give a shit about this game. It's still hardcore, I guess, in that you collect a bunch of shit. It's fun collecting overall, but collecting nonetheless, in a Pacman sort of way.
timetokill
Banned
bigdaddygamebot said:
I think the big mistake everyone makes with casual games is the idea that casual gamers hate losing or dislike challenge. It's not true in the slightest. Just because they don't like Call of Duty or think that games are "too complicated" doesn't mean they dislike challenge.
A fundamental part of good gameplay is overcoming challenges and making interesting choices. And casual gamers actually do like gameplay, though elitists will tell you they don't like good games. It's simply not true.
But Flower is pretty shallow in the gameplay department. It's pretty and has great audio design but the gameplay doesn't challenge the player, and since there is no penalty for anything the risk-reward structure is broken. To these players, it's often a question of "why not just watch a video of this? Why not look at pretty pictures or videos I can find elsewhere?" The only thing that could really be construed as "challenges" are the Trophies, and casual gamers often don't care about them, largely because they're not explicit and often feel arbitrary.
Popular casual games like Tetris, Bejeweled, Peggle, Wii Sports, etc. etc. all have a solid gameplay structure that they are built upon, and their structure is incredibly obvious to the player.
Flower is obviously far more vague about what the "objectives" of the game are and what the challenges you face are. Supposedly you can "define your own goals, or have none." Nintendo tried that with Wii Music and has had a difficult time communicating the game to the new market, unlike some of their other titles. There's a connection there.
RadioHeadAche
Member
What a beautiful game! Even on a standard definition television it looks great. The whole time I was playing, I felt like I was watching a Pixar short film. Not only does it look beautiful, but it controls very well. I had no idea it mainly uses motion control with the exception of pressing X to control the wind. I wasn't sure how I would feel about it, but it ended up blowing me away.
IAmtheFMan
Member
So I played this probably 5 or 6 months ago when Wired was touring cities to show off future technology stuff. To be honest, it didn't quite grab me but that probably was because the game was just left on, and I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing aside from going around the opening area where the flowers already had been opened, and being in a loud convention area where some guy 20 feet from me was hammering on kevlar.
I decided to buy it today, and I'm really enjoying it in a proper environment (i.e. on my couch, with the music adding to it.) I think it's a very nice, peaceful experience. This probably goes second on my list of "relax-chill" games behind Endless Ocean.
I want more games like this.
I decided to buy it today, and I'm really enjoying it in a proper environment (i.e. on my couch, with the music adding to it.) I think it's a very nice, peaceful experience. This probably goes second on my list of "relax-chill" games behind Endless Ocean.
I want more games like this.
Mike Works
Member
just got the last secret flower that i needed 
ps: really wish there was a Flower PS3 theme of the table with the 6 flowers after you unlock all of the secret flowers (with music playing)
that would be awesome
ps: really wish there was a Flower PS3 theme of the table with the 6 flowers after you unlock all of the secret flowers (with music playing)
that would be awesome
Valkyr Junkie
Member
FtsH said:
"The Downfall of Modern Society or: Your Life is a Miserable, Meaningless Existence"
Mike Works
Member
flowers are nice and grass is pretty... ooh industrialism is dark and bad... but wait! FLOWERS!FtsH said:
Pristine_Condition
Member
Haunted said:Oy, don't make me look shallow here. :lol
The biggest problems she had were the controls and that there was no clear "goal" and story to the game beyond collecting petals and awakening the withered parts of nature. After handing me the controller again and watching me play for a bit, she did say that it looked pretty, at least.
Coincidentally, that's the exact same reaction she had to PixelJunk Eden.
You should break up. :lol
My girlfriend LOVED Eden. She even earned me 85% of the trophies BEFORE the "make it easy" patch.
Watching her play Eden is insane. She FLIES that Grimp around levels. Better than I could ever hope to. She hasn't even touched Flower yet, but she's intrigued. I don't think she liked FlOw as much as I did though, so who knows if she'll like Flower as much as I have so far.
I really see no correlation between Eden and Flower though, honestly. Eden is a pretty hardcore, almost-oldschool platformer, and if you suck, you WILL fail spectacularly with "FAILURE" splashed right across the screen. And the goals are crystal-clear. Flower is nothing like Eden for many many reasons.
Haunted
Member
SOMEONE LISTEN TO THIS MANMike Works said:just got the last secret flower that i needed
ps: really wish there was a Flower PS3 theme of the table with the 6 flowers after you unlock all of the secret flowers (with music playing)
that would be awesome
eh, I think it really might have to do with the "gaming as experience" vs "gaming for fun" concept bigdaddygamebot touched upon earlier.Pristine_Condition said:
Generalisations are sketchy at best, though - tastes are different, it might click with some but not with others - just like any other game.
Valkyr Junkie said:
Mike Works said:
I think that's a simplification of it. It seems more like even if we try to abandon or control nature, we will ultimately fail. However, nature doesn't hold a grudge, and is willing to live peacefully with technology.
The above only applies if you accept the flower petals as the personification of nature, though.
gutter_trash
Banned
I finally got 100% trophies!
I had an awesome experience, I will return to Flower for replays whenver I got overly frustrated in other games
I had an awesome experience, I will return to Flower for replays whenver I got overly frustrated in other games
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
Ridiculously amazing game - just finished it, it will sound trivial but I felt like I was on that damned wind, crushing through those nasty structures. Then I started playing first level again for good half an hour, just flying around opening every flower I could see, and enjoying it even more.
Other times I thought - Wouldn't it be interesting if existence after the death would be like this. You are nothing and wind carries you around but you see everything. Yes, the game brings all kinds of thoughts.
How the hell they made that grass look and move that good.
In fact, I think the power of this game is that it makes you feel better than you felt like a child lying in the meadow by grandma's house, while the wind blew around you, because it visualizes that child's dream of flying over that meadow on the wind. It's kinda crazy that someone not only woke up one day deciding to spend next few years making something like this, but actually pulled it off with such panache and meticulousness.
I like how they switch things around and keep you surprised, even nervous sometimes. Loved the way things worked in the Level 4, how depressing and then intense Level 5 turned out to be. in fact I think the game wouldn't be nearly as good if it wasn't for what happens in the 2nd half. All in all, this game now has my absolute and undying love, much like Ico when I completed it, and it's one of those things where I absolutely don't care what other people think about.
Other times I thought - Wouldn't it be interesting if existence after the death would be like this. You are nothing and wind carries you around but you see everything. Yes, the game brings all kinds of thoughts.
How the hell they made that grass look and move that good.
In fact, I think the power of this game is that it makes you feel better than you felt like a child lying in the meadow by grandma's house, while the wind blew around you, because it visualizes that child's dream of flying over that meadow on the wind. It's kinda crazy that someone not only woke up one day deciding to spend next few years making something like this, but actually pulled it off with such panache and meticulousness.
I like how they switch things around and keep you surprised, even nervous sometimes. Loved the way things worked in the Level 4, how depressing and then intense Level 5 turned out to be. in fact I think the game wouldn't be nearly as good if it wasn't for what happens in the 2nd half. All in all, this game now has my absolute and undying love, much like Ico when I completed it, and it's one of those things where I absolutely don't care what other people think about.
That, i believe, is part of the story. At least the way I see it,anddo0 said:
the old and scared flower could only squeeze through to save his life, but the young flower that continued in his steps was actually able to change to world and was simply unstoppable. As we age, our impression (and actual ability) of being able to effortlessly change the world fades away, and is somewhat replaced by fear of death and stronger focus on self preservation.
This is true - I particularly wish Ueda's next game does the same thing as LiS did. It's a very good way to handle that kind of thing. On the other hand, once you win those few trophies, the trophy message won't be showing up during normal gameplay unless you're hunting for a particular trophy, so it's not that bad in this case. I'm trying to think of how would trophies even work in something like SotC. The big point of the game was that you feel ambiguous by killing those colossi, and imagine just *bam* - you win a Trophy for killing one of them.BobsRevenge said:
Actually, the last level perhaps hints that only hardcore industrialism is bad (which anyone who lives near Detroit and has to breathe the garbage air can tell you is very true) because.Mike Works said:
Remember that in the last level you repair the city buildings after all, making it look nice and bright.
Flower was the reason my gf wanted a PS3 over a Wii.bigdaddygamebot said:
I think this whole Flower appeal debate is a classic example of people taking anecdotal evidence and seeing whatever it is they want to see in it.
But for what's worth, I'd sooner compare Flower appeal to something like Endless ocean then freaking puzzlers or WiiSports.
bigdaddygamebot
Member
TheMissingLink said:
Could we not start claiming GOTY 2009 in February '09?
Is it possible that there will be other games released in the remaining ten months of the year that is better than Flower?
bigdaddygamebot
Member
Pristine_Condition said:
I think the correlation between Eden and Flower is that generally and please note the word generally the people that are going to appreciate and enjoy the unique experience that Eden and Flower can provide are enthusiasts.
bigdaddygamebot
Member
stuburns said:
That's crazy talk. You're crazy. You have crazy things tumbling out of your crazy mouth. You're crazy.
However; to each his own.
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
I think what he was saying is that to be able to complete Eden, you pretty much have to be very hardcore. It requires a lot of skill to just get to the point to see a bit of every level, much less see every stage of every level (by collecting successive spectras). Flower on the other hand, I think really anyone can play to completion with relative ease, and enjoy without facing any insurmountable obstacles.bigdaddygamebot said:
bigdaddygamebot
Member
Lord Error said:
True. We're just coming at it from different angles. I wasn't really speaking to "difficulty". I really don't think "ease of play" plays that much of a role in whether or not a game can be considered causal. As long as the difficulty ramps up at a reasonable rate, I don't believe it to be a detterent to being accepted/played/enjoyed by the casual crowd.
I was more speaking to the similarities both games display in how they have stepped outside of the status quo regarding graphic, audio and gameplay presentation.
I really think people are missing the point when they say that Flower is about "Industrialization is bad". Why would the wind turbines be on the "happy" levels, and why would opening the flowers underneath the power lines make them send electricity to the city? Sure, the wreckage can temporarily block your path, but it is not a constant enemy.
I don't think Flower's message is simply a one-sided view of industrialization. In fact, I view it as a rather refreshing view of industrialization that advocates harmony between nature and technology.
I don't think Flower's message is simply a one-sided view of industrialization. In fact, I view it as a rather refreshing view of industrialization that advocates harmony between nature and technology.
bigdaddygamebot
Member
ianp622 said:
Wind turbines definitely do not count as "industrialization". They're placed quite firmly in the category of "alternative energy". They're kindof the antithesis of coal burning and nuclear reactors which in turn, some people might say are the very center of "industrialization".