Flower Message Board

The Smithsonian are inducting two games into the American Art’s Collection, recognising videogames as “crucial to our understanding of the American story.” They’ve even gone so far as to select two interesting games for the collection: Flower by thatgamecompany and Halo 2600 by Ed Fries. The latter is a de-make of Halo built and released for the Atari 2600 in 2010, though there’s a Flash version also.(more…)

Hello, PlayStation.Blog readers. It has been an exciting two weeks for us since we launched Journey on PlayStation Store. We see the personal connection between our work and the players, which is the most real and priceless reward for us. For that, we thank you so much for your support, for spending time and money to play our game and for spreading the word about Journey to your dear friends and family. Thanks to you, Journey has officially broken PlayStation Network and PlayStation Store sales records, surpassing all first and third-party games to become the fastest-selling game ever released in the SCEA region on the PlayStation Network.

After we released Flower in 2009, players sent hundreds of emails about their experience with the game. They varied from a nine-year-old girl to a 65-year-old man, from a marine serving duty overseas, to a soldier returning from Iraq. There were even stories about a mother’s memory of her two children in the wheat fields, a surreal butterfly fantasy from someone’s grandmother who passed away, and a young man who spoke about his brother who has Down syndrome. Those kinds of letters are what drive us at TGC to keep working.

And now, the reaction to Journey has been even more overwhelming. We have received more letters from fans in the two weeks since Journey’s launch than we did for Flower over the past three years!

We owe a lot to our fans. In fact, idea of forming the thatgamecompany team to create games with Sony Santa Monica originated from several dozen emails that players sent in after playing our first student game, Cloud, from our time at USC. It was the players who told us how moving the game was and how it is important that we keep making these types of games so that more people in the world will realize what video games can be, and can grow to love games through our work. To me, that was a life-changing moment. I knew making games was my life calling.

This art piece expresses our gratitude.

Lastly, a lot of you have seemed to really enjoy the music in the game, which was composed by Austin Wintory. And we’ve received a lot of requests to release the soundtrack of the game. Well, I’m happy to announce that the soundtrack will be hitting the PS Store and iTunes on April 10, and there will be a limited CD release in the near future as well.

Thanks, again, for all your support. We’ll see you online!

No doubt, PlayStation Network is home to some great digital experiences you won't find anywhere else, from Flower to PixelJunk Shooter. But Sony's found trouble generating the same level of attention for its platform as Microsoft, currently in the midst of its fourth Summer of Arcade.

Sony's hoping to move the needle with a $20 million dollar infusion into PSN over several years.

"Our strategy here is simple," explained PSN director of marketing Brandon Stander in a recent email. "We’re doubling down on PlayStation Network exclusive software, and under this investment over the next three years, we anticipate a steady flow of high-quality titles that can’t be found anywhere else."

The money will be spread across multiple avenues designed to bolster PSN's library, including budgets for internal projects and exclusivity from third-parties, some of which goes towards Sony's "Pub Fund," allocating money to small developers in exchange for exclusivity. Okabu, Eufloria and Papo & Yo are three games coming out of Sony's Pub Fund. Papo & Yo generated discussion at E3 for its noteworthy design influence: the designer's alcoholic father.

Sony Online Entertainment's Payday: The Heist directly comes from this investment but not Pub Fund specifically.

Pub Fund isn't an officially publicized branding of Sony's (you won't see a Pub Fund logo on a splash screen--something I think should change), but it's responsible for some great PSN games in the past, including Joe Danger.

When asked how Sony determines which games the company goes after with this sack of cash, Stander outlined three avenues of research.

You probably don't remember PlayStation-edu. I didn't, either, until Stander brought it up. Started in 2008, it's Sony's initiative to supply universities with PlayStation 2 and PSP development kits, encouraging students to become familiar with hardware they may be working on after graduating. Within PlayStation-edu is the SCEA Developer Support program, which works with various universities in the US, Canada and Latin America to connect students with internships and jobs.

It's not hard to imagine how Sony employees would find projects worth investing in while speaking with students.

The other ways Sony sniffs out possible games for PSN are a little more well known, such as recommendations from its already existing developers, communicating with local groups, and attending events focused on independent development, like Culver City's IndieFest, the Independent Games Festival pavilion featured during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

"These things have allowed us to find awesome talent and have given us the opportunity to reach out to more people about the potential for PSN exclusive development," said Stander.

Sony's PlayStation Blog has done a respectable job of increasing awareness of PlayStation content in general, PSN or not, but more could be done. While Xbox Live subscribers may decry the advertisements, it's much harder to avoid alerts to new content on XBL than on PSN. You actually have to boot into the PlayStation Store itself, an additional step in the process.

And no, that weird scrolling bar in the corner doesn't count. When's the last time you actually read that?

What does more than advertisements or scrolling bars, however, is word of mouth, and a hungry playerbase eager for more good games.

"We’re putting a major stake in the ground with this investment to show our dedication to providing PSN users with unique game experiences that can’t be found on any other game platform," said Stander. "Our goal is to work with developers, both established and independent, to bring great games to our users."

$20 million should do well to bring more content to PSN, but Stander denied it's a response to criticisms that PSN is full of interesting experiments, but lacking the bread 'n butter of games like Shadow Complex or Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. Limbo, for example, just hit PSN--a year later.

"With PSN, it’s not about filling holes as much as it’s about bringing truly innovative storylines, visual styles and game mechanics to the platform," he said.

I have no problem saying Flower was my favorite game of 2009. That any game was able to make Sixaxis controls fundamentally interesting is remarkable enough, but Flower was something special, a calming experience more therapy than game. It’s why I’ve been acutely interested in thatgamecompany’s next experiment, Journey. At first glance, it looks…traditional.

I say that as though it’s a dirty word, but only because the abstraction in thatgamecompany’s projects are part of the appeal. I knew there was more to this, so when I had the chance to play the first 15 minutes or so of the game and speak with designer Jenova Chen, we immediately dove into Chen’s intentions with Journey--and how he’s kind of sort of messing with you.

Journey, like Flower, is about isolation. You’re piloting an avatar this time around, which grounds the gameplay into constructs basically all players will be immediately familiar with. You can jump, collect power-ups that amplify the power of those abilities over time, and solve simple puzzles required to make progress. When the game opens, as you catch your bearings, you’re in the middle of a massive desert with very few buildings, objects or characters. You’re alone.

Journey reveals its “a-ha” moment when another character appears, one who looks very much like you. They look like you because they are you, they just happen to be another player who could be on the other side of the world or down the block for all you know. There are no nicknames, real names or even an indication the character’s not secretly driven by artificial intelligence. You don’t have to cooperate with them, either. That choice is up to both of you.

Unfortunately, this feature wasn’t working when I sat down the play the game, but I asked Chen to explain why he chose to strip the multiplayer down to its most core components.

“We decided to focus on innovating the feeling between two players in the digital space,” said Chen. “In a world like this, if you see another player, you will feel like you want to get close to him. In a big city, you’re walking [a] downtown street, you don’t care about [people], because they’re everywhere. You care about your cell phone or whatever. But if you go to the mountain, go to the wild, hiking, you’re so small, you don’t feel you know a lot about the world. You’re insecure. Whenever you run into another person, you naturally want to go and say hi to them. Very simple psychology. I wanted to see an online game where we delivered the mountain.”

Chen decided to push back on traditional multiplayer design because he’s plays a bunch of multiplayer games himself, from Left 4 Dead to Street Fighter IV. While a fan of competition, he became tired of competition. Even when cooperation does occur, it’s forced.

“The fact that you have two-player online, the social experience is there, asking for you to explore, but most games, 90% of the time, you’re shooting zombies,” he said. “You only get 10% time to look at each other and usually that’s forced. People kill me before we reach the end; they steal my health pack. I think if we really want to make people feel better towards each other and have a different impression compared to what the general consensus of online play is, you need to design a game differently. “

You can finish Journey without working with another player, but that's your choice. Chen wants that to be your decision. When solving puzzles in Portal 2’s co-op mode, you’re doing so because you booted up co-op. What if someone appeared in the middle of the single-player experience and asked to help? You’d probably turn them down, wouldn’t you? I know I would. And besides Journey intentionally masking names, your Bluetooth headset means nothing; you can't talk.

"When you run into another player [in Journey], you don’t think about ‘oh, this character’s hot, this character has history.’" said Chen. "You think ‘okay, this is another person who’s controlling the same kind of thing and I know that’s a person.’ That interaction happens at the level of a human being. I know someone’s playing a game. I don’t know how old he is, what gender he is or she is, but I can tell he’s a human, I can tell he’s doing things, I can tell he’s trying to communicate with me. I think, at that level, the multiplayer’s the most beautiful. As soon as you have language, you have ‘okay, this guy is clearly a twelve-year-old.’"

I'm not the first and I won't be the last person to draw comparisons to Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. If you were told Journey was a Team ICO project, you wouldn't blink. Chen doesn't have a problem with the comparison, arguing both him and designer Fumito Ueda are actually designing around the same ideas of establishing emotional connections. Even in my brief time spent with Journey, the wide open vistas, flowing sand (by far the most impressive use of Sweet Sand Technology I've seen) and long, quiet moments of running in isolation brings echos of Ueda.

"Ico is trying to use the environment to focus on the connection between the main character and the girl," said Chen. "We are using that same feeling, which is more of a sense of wonder and not knowing, to force the players to be together. It’s kind of interesting that I heard Shadow of the Colossus was supposed to be a multiplayer game. It makes sense. Fortunately, they didn’t do that because of the limitations of PS2. We get to do that here! I don’t feel bad if people say ‘oh, this is kind of like Shadow of the Colossus’ because really we are trying to go for a similar feel in a multiplayer game."

And even though Journey *appears* to look more traditional, the controls are not. You might be tempted to look around the world with the right analog stick but the game won't let you. Tilt the controller around, however, and you've discovered the camera controls. Chen admitted the team has not made a final decision on whether the camera controls will be locked to Sixaxis. We had a lengthy off-the-record discussion about the merits of forcing players into this unorthodox camera method. For my money, I dug the deliberate, methodical approach to looking around. Sixaxis moves slower, and you shouldn't be rushing through Journey. You're meant to slowly take in what's around you. That said, Journey isn't Flower and I can see people upset at limited options.

With thatgamecompany, however, one expects subversion. Journey looks poised to deliver that. We'll see if players decide to engage with Chen's multiplayer experiment later on this year.

"I want to see a genuine choice of two human beings of wanting to be together," he said. "I think the connection between the players after they go through the journey together will be much, much stronger than a forced experience. To me, that’s a big experiment. The game design is very, very challenging. I’m glad that we’re using a more traditional adventure game form. That’s also what I want to do if I get to make an adventure game."

Hi everyone! I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who spun their creative gears and submitted entries to the Flower fan art contest. We here at the Santa Monica Studio and the team at thatgamecompany really enjoyed seeing all the great pieces you submitted. TGC has chosen the five best pieces, which you can check out below. Nice work everyone, and congratulations to the winners! The winners will be receiving their $20 PSN cards soon.

Chris B.
Great contrasting colors! The sky gives off a very cool feeling, and I dig the moon in the background.

Edward L.
Very clean and elegant! It captures a lot of iconic elements in a single piece.

Katherine M.
This looks like it was a ton of work! The piece has a great mood to it, and really shows the flowing nature of the game.

Lydia H.
Great close-up work and detail, there is a lot of great tonal range within the pink. Really an outstanding job with this piece.

Wilmaris S.
A true fan — takes a picture WITH the painting. Great job capturing the freedom that the wind gives the petals and the sway of the grass.

Oh yeah, there’s also this other REALLY cool tid-bit of news. The Flower demo was released on PSN last week! TGC put in the time and effort to really bring a nice demo to you few hold-outs who have yet to get this award-winning game! So don’t wait any further, rush over to the PlayStation Store and pick-up the Flower Demo to see what everyone is talking about. The other great thing is, since this is a trial, all you have to do is purchase the unlock key at the end of the demo, and the whole game is yours for just $9.99!

So thanks again to everyone who contributed , we really appreciate the effort, and congratulations to TGC’s five top picks!

When Jenova Chen and thatgamecompany came to us here in the Santa Monica Studio with the idea for Flower, it was fueled by his appreciation for nature’s beauty, his experiences of coming from China to California, and how the contrasting cities, landscapes, and coastline touched his emotions and creativity. Seeing his passion for the subject, we did everything we could to make sure he and the rest of TGC had what they needed to deliver the most compelling experience possible, and the end result is the award-winning game Flower. With our last contest, it was clear that Flower touched many of you in ways we could not have imagined.

Now, for this second contest, we want to see how Flower impacted you. Create a piece of art that was either inspired by Flower, or has to do with the emotions and/or nature that you think Flower depicts.

You can flex your skills in Photoshop, Illustrator, 3D software, or any other imaging software. You can even make something physical, like a painting, mixed media, or sculpture, and snap a photo of it as your submission. This is your opportunity to be a part of the Flower community. If you didn’t have a story to submit in the previous contest, then take this chance to participate. Express yourself in a way that reflects thatgamecompany’s expression through Flower.

The only requirements are that the submission be 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels tall, that it be your original creation, and that it be related to Flower as described above.

To help inspire you, check out some of the amazing concept art thatgamecompany created in the development of the game.

You have plenty of time to be creative and enter your submission because this contest will run from today, May 12th through May 26th, 2010. Thatgamecompany will judge the submissions and choose five winners, each of who will receive a $20 PSN card.

The official rules are below. We can’t wait to see what creations you all come up with. Good luck!

The following promotion is intended for viewing in the 50 United States and the District of Columbia only and will be construed and evaluated according to United States law. Do not enter this contest if you are not a legal resident of, and located in, the 50 United States or the District of Columbia at the time of entry.

OFFICIAL RULES & RELEASE
Flower Fan Art Contest

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN

Void outside the 50 United States and District of Columbia and where prohibited.

1. Eligibility. The Flower Fan Art Contest (“Promotion”) is open to only legal residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia, who are at least 13 or older at the time of entry. Employees of the Sponsor and its parent, subsidiaries and affiliated companies and their immediate families are not eligible to participate in this Promotion.

2. Sponsor. Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC, 919 E. Hillsdale Blvd, Foster City, CA 94404 (“Sponsor”).

3. Timing. The Promotion begins on May 12, 2010 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (“PST”) and ends on May 26, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. PST (the “Promotion Period”).

4. How to Enter. To enter send an email with your name, date of birth and email address along with a digital image as an attachment to myflowerart@thatgamecompany.com (hereinafter the “Submission”). Entrant must have played the game Flower. The concept of the digital image should be “inspired by the game Flower”.

5. Entry Conditions and Release. Limit one entry per person for the duration of the Promotion Period. Subsequent entries will be disqualified. The Submission must be a digital image which is the original and unpublished creation of the Entrant. Entrant must be the sole owner of the work. The Submission must be a digital image (jpg, png, or bmp format) at 1920 x 1080 resolution. The image can be digitally created with 3D software, painted using imaging or painting software, or created with physical media and then photographed and scanned to fit the 1920 x 1080 resolution requirement. Entrant waives any claims against Sponsor, and its affiliates concerning his/her rights in the Submission submitted under this Agreement. Sponsor reserves the right to reject any entries that it deems, in its sole discretion, to be inappropriate including, but not limited to, foul language, gratuitous depiction of violence or sexual behavior, positive depictions of alcohol or tobacco or any other illegal activity. Entry cannot defame or invade the rights or privacy of any person, living or deceased, or otherwise infringe upon any third party personal or proprietary rights. Sponsor is not responsible for technical, hardware or software failures, malfunctions, lost or unavailable network connections or failed, incomplete, garbled or delayed computer transmissions or unforeseen schedule changes that may limit an Entrant’s ability to participate in the Promotion, even if caused by Sponsor’s negligence. Sponsor has the sole and absolute discretion to modify, cancel or suspend this Promotion should virus, bugs, unauthorized human intervention or other causes beyond Sponsor’s control affect the administration, security or proper play of the Promotion or Sponsor otherwise becomes incapable of running the Promotion as planned. Sponsor is not responsible for changes to Entrant’s contact information. Sponsor has the sole and absolute discretion to disqualify Entrants who violate these Official Rules, tamper with the operation of the Promotion or engage in any conduct that is detrimental or unfair to Sponsor, the Promotion or any other Entrant.

6. Winner Selection. Winners will be selected from all eligible entries received during the Promotion Period. Sponsor’s decisions will be final and binding. Winners will be notified by email no later than May 31, 2010. Return of any prize/prize notification as undeliverable will result in disqualification and an alternate winner will be selected based on the stated Judging Criteria. Chosen winners must respond to the prize notification within seventy two (72) hours from when Sponsor sent notification. In the event that a winner does not respond to Sponsor’s notification within the specified time, a new winning entry will be chosen from the remaining entries based on the stated Judging Criteria. Alternate winners will be contacted via email and will have 48 hours to respond from when Sponsor sent the notification, this process will continue until all prize notifications have been responded to. Winners will be announced on or around June 3, 2010.

7. Judging Criteria. All Submissions received will be judged based 90% on creativity and quality and 10% on its relevance to Flower by a panel of judges composed of members of the thatgamecompany development team and SCEA’s Marketing and Product Development staff.

8. Prizes. Five (5) First Prize winners will each receive a PlayStation®Network card worth $20.00 for a combined total of ARV $100.00. Prize fulfillment is based on availability. Sponsor has the sole and absolute discretion to substitute a prize of equal or greater value if a prize is unavailable. If a prize is returned to Sponsor as undeliverable, Sponsor has the sole and absolute discretion to disqualify a winning Entrant and select an alternate winner based on the stated Judging Criteria. Prizes are non-transferable, and Sponsor need not substitute a prize based on winner’s request. Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery of the prize.

9. Release and Grant of Rights. Entrants are solely responsible for their Submission and the consequences of posting or publishing it. In connection with the Submission, Entrant affirms, represents, and warrants that: (i) Entrant owns or has the necessary licenses, rights, consents and permissions to use the Submission in the manner contemplated by the Sponsor; and (ii) Entrant has the written consent, release and permission of each and every identifiable individual person in the Submission to use the name of those persons to enable inclusion and use of the Submission in the manner contemplated by the Sponsor. By submitting the Submission to Sponsor, Entrant hereby grants to Sponsor a perpetual, fully paid, irrevocable, non-exclusive license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, distribute, display, transmit, and permit others to use and perform throughout the universe the Submission, his/her likeness and performance and every identifiable individual person’s likeness and performance in the Submission in any media. Entrant hereby releases Sponsor and its parent and sister companies, and their officers, directors, employees and agents from any and all claims, demands, actions or causes of action of any kind, nature or description, which you or any of your successors, or, assigns, may now, or at any time, have or claim to have any reason of, arising out of, relating to or in any way connected with the rights granted above.

10. General Conditions and Releases. Potential winners are subject to Sponsor’s verification. Sponsor’s decisions are final and binding in all matters related to the Promotion. Potential winners must comply with the Official Rules’ terms and conditions, and receipt of prizes is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements. Sponsor is under no obligation to use the winning submission in any media. Winners agree to the use of their name and/or likenesses for purposes of advertising, trade, or promotion without further compensation, unless prohibited by law. Additionally, winner agrees to release Sponsor and their respective parents, subsidiaries, agencies, divisions, and affiliates from any and all liability, for loss, harm, damage, injury, cost or expense whatsoever including without limitation, property damage, personal injury and/or death which may occur in connection with, preparation for, travel to, or participation in the Promotion, or possession, acceptance and/or use or misuse of prize or participation in any Promotion-related activity and claims based on publicity rights, copyright/trademark infringement, defamation or invasion of privacy and merchandise delivery.

11. Odds of Winning. Odds of winning are determined by the number of eligible entries received.

12. Publicity. By accepting a prize, a winning Entrant agrees to the use of his or her name and likeness for purposes of advertising, trade or promotion without further compensation, unless prohibited by law, and agrees, if required, to sign and return a notarized Affidavit of Eligibility and Release of Liability (the “Affidavit”) within a period that Sponsor specifies.

13. Promotion Results. To obtain a winners’ list by mail, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to “Flower Fan Art Contest”, Attn: Sony Computer Entertainment America Marketing, 919 E. Hillsdale Blvd. 2nd Floor, Foster City, CA 94404. Sponsor will send requested winners’ lists within 4-6 weeks after it awards prizes. Requests for the winner’s list must be received by June 30, 2010.

14. Collection of Information. The information necessary to operate the Promotion was collected by Sponsor at the time of entry, and without limiting Sponsor’s rights under its privacy policies with regards to its use of the information, will be used to contact you specifically for operation of the Promotion. Information collected in connection with the Promotion will otherwise be collected in accordance with Sponsor’s privacy policy, available at http://www.us.playstation.com/Support/PrivacyPolicy. By agreeing to these Official Rules, you are also agreeing to the terms of Sponsor’s privacy policy.

15. Restrictions. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to start off by taking a moment to thank everyone for their contributions to the Flower “Experience” contest we kicked off three weeks ago. During that time, a lot of really great stories were submitted, and we even had a few that raised some eyebrows, but were entertaining to read nonetheless. Here in the Santa Monica Studio, we have enjoyed seeing the amount of support the community has shown for Flower, and we are also very proud and happy to continue supporting the community by providing things like the Flower soundtrack and the Dynamic Theme. It’s also great to see that our enthusiasm for the indie developer community is mirrored by so many gamers!

Kellee Santiago and the busy crew over at thatgamecompany spent several evenings reading through all of the entries, and were able to select the 5 stories they felt were the best of the best. Each of the five authors is going to receive a $20 PSN card. And, to show our appreciation, we decided to throw in a little extra surprise for each of the winners including Flower posters autographed by the team members of thatgamecompany. Congratulations to each of you, and thanks to all those that submitted your stories.

So, without any further delay, below are each of the five stories chosen by thatgamecompany, and the reasoning behind them, as told by Kellee. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

Hi, Kellee from thatgamecompany here. Man, when we asked for stories about playing “Flower“, we really didn’t know what to expect. The responses were so touching, moving, and inspired, it’s truly been one of the most rewarding experiences that any game developer could ever hope to have. We’re all really thankful to everyone that took the time to jot down their experiences, whether they were long, short, funny, sad, or everything rolled into one!

These five were chosen because I think they best represented the collection of experiences that players were describing. Whether it was life altering, or just a really fun tryst, Flower seemed to really touch you, so much so that one of you even created a video inspired by it.

From the team here at thatgamecompany, thanks to everyone for playing “Flower,” and again to everyone who took the time to write in. We hope we can continue to entertain you.

In no particular order, here are the entries from the five winners.

We have a little bundle of love in my family named Lacey, she is my younger sister and she was born with autism. Lacey tries to play video games, but because of her condition she has trouble enjoying them and gets frustrated and throws tantrums. It’s just so heartbreaking for her to not be able to enjoy gaming – that was until the game of Flower came along.

Right from the start Lacey sat near the screen and used her finger to trace the fascinating petals as they moved across the TVs digital landscape. But what really gave my baby sister the most joy was she was actually able to play the game, because there were no boundaries and no complicated button sequences, just the tilt of the PS3 controller and she was on her way. Ask Lacey what her favorite game is? She will say flower, ask her what she wants for her birthday, she will say Flower part 2. This summer my mother and I are going to give her a big surprise for her birthday, we are going to redecorate her room by painting murals of your beautiful game on her walls.

Words alone can’t thank you enough for making this wonderful game. God Bess you all.

–Nivi

In the month of February, after playing “Flower” endlessly, I felt a stirring in my spirit that this game, and from a spiritual standpoint, caused to help express an emotion that I have had buried deep inside me for almost 8 months at the time. The game posed as more a blessing to me and I couldn’t help but think that it came at the right time when I needed something to help me express the way I felt. So, on my YouTube channel that I used to vlog on, I decided to surprise everyone with a video that I had been wanting to do since the death of Michael Jackson. I wanted to express how much I truly loved him and how big a blessing he was in my life. Here is the video my story, “Michael: Soaring In My Emotion.”

Since his death, I had a very hard time finding ways to express what this man meant to me. I have never mentioned my love for Michael Jackson in my videos, only because I didn’t think you all wanted to know about it. But, his death was very hard for me and it wasn’t until this very weekend when I finally found a way to express what Michael and his music meant to me. A month or year never went by when I didn’t listen to or watch a video of Michael. He was very special to me and I thank God every day for putting Michael into my life.

Michael, singing one of his many masterpieces, “Music and Me”, and the help of an extraordinary game called “Flower” developed by thatgamecompany, and the use of my PlayStation 3. This video was also noticed by the very creator of “Flower”, Jenova Chen. He commented and spoke highly of the video and even favorite it as well on his channel.

-Whitney

My best memory of Flower has to be the time I first showed it to my neighbor/soon-to-be girlfriend/now wife.

The game had come out right around the time I met her, actually. We had been living in the same apartment complex for months without our paths ever crossing until April of last year. I had invited her over to my place to watch a movie and hang out. As we sat around talking after the movie was over I was constantly trying to bring up new topics of discussion. My thought process was, as long as we still have things to talk about, she’ll stick around.

Before long I asked, “Have you heard of a new game called Flower?” knowing full well she probably hadn’t – earlier I had learned she hadn’t really touched video games since the 8-bit Nintendo days. She of course hadn’t heard of it and I jumped up and powered on my PS3. The game completely blew her away. She couldn’t stop talking about how beautiful the game was and that she didn’t know video games had progressed so far visually. Then I put the controller in her hands and she drifted off into the dreamscape that is Flower.

We sat there on the couch as she flew around the open fields and grassy knolls for probably two hours or so. Despite the fact that she had work in the morning, there we were enjoying this incredible game together. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Flower is the reason we’re now happily married, but it is certainly one of the sweeter memories we share. A few months later I had to leave for deployment to the Middle East and during that time I asked her to marry me. I returned home in December of 2009 and we got married and one of the first things we did in the few weeks after my return was play Flower! We took turns getting through the levels trying to get all the trophies. I’ll never forget that first night I introduced the game to her, though. If that game hasn’t gotten her to stay with me so long, maybe we wouldn’t be where we are today. For that, I’m eternally grateful. That’s My (or our) Flower Story.

–David

I remember buying Flower basically on a lark. I supported the differentness of the idea, and loved the visuals. I figured I’d play it for a bit and move on. I certainly wasn’t impressed by the fact that it had six-axis controls, which had been implemented so poorly in past games. And then I played it. Instantly, I was able to control the pedal so effortlessly that I simply *became* the pedal. After getting through the first level, I was greatly looking forward to several more. I figured they would be different variations on the same basic gameplay, like the different levels in an old-school platforming game–skinned differently but ultimately the same. Again, I was proven wrong by this gem of a game. Instead of replaying the same level with different skins, I was given one of the most moving story arcs I’d experienced in ages. When I beat the game the first time, and that final rush of color engulfed the screen, I really felt like not only had I won, but I had overcome the darkness of the mechanized world!

I’m a full time college student at Los Angeles City College. I live very far from the school and have to take a myriad of busses and trains to get there. Every day the world that flower is against, is what I have to travel through. And it gets to me. You have no idea how much it gets to me. I get so stressed out in Los Angeles. It’s such a dirty, desolate place. But flower has helped me cope with it, because while I’m playing it, I have the power to change it–to add beauty back into the world.

I keep telling people: flower is the cheapest and most effective therapy you could ever purchase. It’s probably added years back to my life :)

–Ernest

There are many memories for me when coming to playing Flower. My fondest is when a friend had a “video game party,” if you will. There were about 15 of us all over in his basement with a nice 52 inch, 1080p television. Some friends brought their PS2s for music rhythm games and other casual games, but I brought the mother of all systems, the PS3 for our entertainment. I had shooters, fighters, sport games, and more. I was showing off my collection and someone asked what Flower was. I explained and my friend, Nate, said “Oh my god, we are so playing that tonight!”

We had the PS3 hooked up to the nice HDTV and PS2s were on smaller TVs. After playing music and shooter games since about 5:00pm, we were sick of the games. That was at 12:00am. For a few more hours, we popped in a Blu-ray into the PS3 to watch, but after the movie we were clueless on what to do. Too late to go outside and do things, we looked through my games since I had the only variety. At about 2:00am we stumbled upon Flower once again.

Instead of using that TV, we wanted to up the ante before watching/playing this game, so we set up my friend’s projector in his garage which made the screen a good 15×10 feet. Now we started to play Flower, all 15 of us arguing over the controller because we all wanted a crack at this unusually, but fun game. Being about 3:00am, we started to be more amazed by this pretty game with just a flower and petals floating around on the screen. Such a beautiful game and a relaxing one too. We kept playing through the game determined to finish it. The lightning scared us being so late when we got that far into the game. But the best part was when we finally completed the game. Flower got all colorful and even more beautiful and just as that was happening with the credits, the sun started to rise outside the garage windows. That is my most memorable time playing Flower; it was amazing to see 15 guys fighting over the controller to play this game.

–Jacob

Thanks again to everyone who participated, and congratulations to those that won!

Be sure to keep your eyes peeled on the PlayStation.Blog for some more Flower goodies coming in the very near future!

Hmm… I wonder what that could mean? :)

Hello, PS Blog readers. If you follow the blog much, you already know that Flower had its 1-year anniversary a few months ago, and we just released a Flower dynamic theme, plus the soundtrack from the game, to help commemorate it.

Flower is widely recognized by fans and critics alike for being a game unlike any other game we’ve played before. People experience and enjoy the game in different ways. Some people ponder about the deeper message behind Flower’s “story,” while others might use it as a way to relax and unwind, or even share the unique gaming experience with their non-gaming friends and loved ones. We each experience and react to Flower in a different way, and that’s part of what makes Flower so great and so unique. And that was part of the goal thatgamecompany set out to achieve with Flower.

And we want to hear about your story, your experience with Flower. Send us your most touching, most personal, or most memorable story about your experience with Flower. We’ll be working with the developers at thatgamecompany to sort through all of the entries and pick our favorite five to receive a $20 PSN card each, and to be featured in a future blog post.

Here’s what you do: type up your essay about your Flower experience in 2000 words or less, and email it to myflowerstory@thatgamecompany.com before 9 AM (PST) on April 28. You just have to be 13 years old or older, and a legal resident of the United States or District of Columbia. In your email, be sure to include your name and date of birth.

We can’t wait to read your entries! Good luck!

Rules:

The following promotion is intended for viewing in the 50 United States and the District of Columbia only and will be construed and evaluated according to United States law. Do not enter this contest if you are not a legal resident of, and located in, the 50 United States or the District of Columbia at the time of entry.

OFFICIAL RULES & RELEASE
Flower Experience Contest

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN
Void outside the 50 United States and District of Columbia and where prohibited.

1. Eligibility. The Flower Experience Contest (“Promotion”) is open to only legal residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia, who are at least 13 or older at the time of entry. Employees of the Sponsor and its parent, subsidiaries and affiliated companies and their immediate families are not eligible to participate in this Promotion.

2. Sponsor. Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC, 919 E. Hillsdale Blvd, Foster City, CA 94404 (“Sponsor”).

3. Timing. The Promotion begins on April 15, 2010 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (“PST”) and ends on April 28, 2010 at 9:00 a.m. PST (the “Promotion Period”).

4. How to Enter. To enter send an email to myflowerstory@thatgamecompany.com and include the essay entry in the body of the email or attach a text document. Be sure to provide your name, date of birth and email address (hereinafter the “Submission”). Entrant must have played the game Flower. The Submission must describe the Entrant’s most memorable experience with the game Flower.

5. Entry Conditions and Release. Limit one entry per person for the duration of the Promotion Period. Subsequent entries will be disqualified. The Submission must be text only and the original and unpublished creation of the Entrant. Entrant must be the sole owner of the work. The Submission must be no longer than 2000 words in length. Entrant waives any claims against Sponsor, and its affiliates concerning his/her rights in the Submission submitted under this Agreement. Sponsor reserves the right to reject any entries that it deems, in its sole discretion, to be inappropriate including, but not limited to, foul language, gratuitous depiction of violence or sexual behavior, positive depictions of alcohol or tobacco or any other illegal activity. Entry cannot defame or invade the rights or privacy of any person, living or deceased, or otherwise infringe upon any third party personal or proprietary rights. Sponsor is not responsible for technical, hardware or software failures, malfunctions, lost or unavailable network connections or failed, incomplete, garbled or delayed computer transmissions or unforeseen schedule changes that may limit an Entrant’s ability to participate in the Promotion, even if caused by Sponsor’s negligence. Sponsor has the sole and absolute discretion to modify, cancel or suspend this Promotion should virus, bugs, unauthorized human intervention or other causes beyond Sponsor’s control affect the administration, security or proper play of the Promotion or Sponsor otherwise becomes incapable of running the Promotion as planned. Sponsor is not responsible for changes to Entrant’s contact information. Sponsor has the sole and absolute discretion to disqualify Entrants who violate these Official Rules, tamper with the operation of the Promotion or engage in any conduct that is detrimental or unfair to Sponsor, the Promotion or any other Entrant.

6. Winner Selection. Winners will be selected from all eligible entries received during the Promotion Period. Sponsor’s decisions will be final and binding. Winners will be notified by email no later than May 12, 2010. Return of any prize/prize notification as undeliverable will result in disqualification and an alternate winner will be selected based on the stated Judging Criteria. Chosen winners must respond to the prize notification within seventy two (72) hours from when Sponsor sent notification. In the event that a winner does not respond to Sponsor’s notification within the specified time, a new winning entry will be chosen from the remaining entries based on the stated Judging Criteria. Alternate winners will be contacted via email and will have 48 hours to respond from when Sponsor sent the notification, this process will continue until all prize notifications have been responded to. Winners will be announced on or around May 3, 2010.

7. Judging Criteria. All entries received will be judged based 50% on how inspirational the story is and 50% on how touching the story is by a panel of judges composed of members of the thatgamecompany development team and SCEA’s Marketing and Product Development staff.

8. Prizes. Five (5) First Prize winners will each receive a PlayStation®Network card worth $20.00 for a combined total of ARV $100.00. Prize fulfillment is based on availability. Sponsor has the sole and absolute discretion to substitute a prize of equal or greater value if a prize is unavailable. If a prize is returned to Sponsor as undeliverable, Sponsor has the sole and absolute discretion to disqualify a winning Entrant and select an alternate winner based on the stated Judging Criteria. Prizes are non-transferable, and Sponsor need not substitute a prize based on winner’s request. Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery of the prize.

9. Release and Grant of Rights. Entrants are solely responsible for their Submission and the consequences of posting or publishing it. In connection with the Submission, Entrant affirms, represents, and warrants that: (i) Entrant owns or has the necessary licenses, rights, consents and permissions to use the Submission in the manner contemplated by the Sponsor; and (ii) Entrant has the written consent, release and permission of each and every identifiable individual person in the Submission to use the name of those persons to enable inclusion and use of the Submission in the manner contemplated by the Sponsor. By submitting the Submission to Sponsor, Entrant hereby grants to Sponsor a perpetual, fully paid, irrevocable, non-exclusive license to reproduce, prepare derivative works of, distribute, display, transmit, and permit others to use and perform throughout the universe the Submission, his/her likeness and performance and every identifiable individual person’s likeness and performance in the Submission in any media. Entrant hereby releases Sponsor and its parent and sister companies, and their officers, directors, employees and agents from any and all claims, demands, actions or causes of action of any kind, nature or description, which you or any of your successors, or, assigns, may now, or at any time, have or claim to have any reason of, arising out of, relating to or in any way connected with the rights granted above.

10. General Conditions and Releases. Potential winners are subject to Sponsor’s verification. Sponsor’s decisions are final and binding in all matters related to the Promotion. Potential winners must comply with the Official Rules’ terms and conditions, and receipt of prizes is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements. Sponsor is under no obligation to use the winning submission in any media. Winners agree to the use of their name and/or likenesses for purposes of advertising, trade, or promotion without further compensation, unless prohibited by law. Additionally, winner agrees to release Sponsor and their respective parents, subsidiaries, agencies, divisions, and affiliates from any and all liability, for loss, harm, damage, injury, cost or expense whatsoever including without limitation, property damage, personal injury and/or death which may occur in connection with, preparation for, travel to, or participation in the Promotion, or possession, acceptance and/or use or misuse of prize or participation in any Promotion-related activity and claims based on publicity rights, copyright/trademark infringement, defamation or invasion of privacy and merchandise delivery.

11. Odds of Winning. Odds of winning are determined by the number of eligible entries received.

12. Publicity. By accepting a prize, a winning Entrant agrees to the use of his or her name and likeness for purposes of advertising, trade or promotion without further compensation, unless prohibited by law, and agrees, if required, to sign and return a notarized Affidavit of Eligibility and Release of Liability (the “Affidavit”) within a period that Sponsor specifies.

13. Promotion Results. To obtain a winners’ list by mail, send a stamped, self- addressed envelope to “Flower Experience Contest,” Attn: Sony Computer Entertainment America Marketing, 919 E. Hillsdale Blvd. 2nd Floor, Foster City, CA 94404. Sponsor will send requested winners’ lists within 4-6 weeks after it awards prizes. Requests for the winner’s list must be received by May 31, 2010.

14. Collection of Information. The information necessary to operate the Promotion was collected by Sponsor at the time of entry, and without limiting Sponsor’s rights under its privacy policies with regards to its use of the information, will be used to contact you specifically for operation of the Promotion. Information collected in connection with the Promotion will otherwise be collected in accordance with Sponsor’s privacy policy, available at http://www.us.playstation.com/Support/PrivacyPolicy. By agreeing to these Official Rules, you are also agreeing to the terms of Sponsor’s privacy policy.

15. Restrictions. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.

Hey, everyone. I’m excited to be back to talk more about the Flower soundtrack originally teased on February 12, the one-year anniversary of the game’s release.

The soundtrack will be coming out this Thursday on PSN, and features eight tracks from the game and over an hour’s worth of music, all for $2.99. So be sure to pick it up when it comes out. I also have a very special treat for you. I spoke with Vincent Diamante, the award-winning music composer and audio designer behind Flower’s wonderful soundtrack, and he graciously agreed to putting together some thoughts on creating the soundtrack. Enjoy!

Looking back, a year-plus removed from working on Flower, it’s hard for me to remember anything but wonderful times with Sony and thatgamecompany. Then I think a bit harder and remember: the fights. Not fights amongst us developers, no. Besides, that comes part and parcel in the process of game development. Rather, the fights happened within the music. All-out brawls between themes, lines, instruments, harmonies as the music struggled to find identity when Flower was just this bud of a game.

Ostensibly, I was the one in control, penning each note in my music synthesizer as environment after environment demanded score. Not just any score, though; an ambitious score where the number of instruments present in the music ultimately dictated a different perspective on the game. From that simple directive, I codified a way of writing the music that would result in the interactive score I dreamt of.

In the beginning, however, there was nothing but fights. Instruments weren’t just masking or overshadowing their orchestral mates, they were outright demolishing them. French horns knocking bassoons to the floor, violins contorting cello lines, trumpets trampling over pianos. When I first started working on the music for Flower, I saw myself as being much like a conductor, gently urging sections of the orchestra into the space needed to fit the game. Instead, I felt like I had brought a conductor’s baton to a knife fight.

And then I started playing the game. And playing it. And playing it some more. I believe there were a few days in that year of working on Flower when I drove over to thatgamecompany and “worked” by playing the game for eight hours straight. Yes, I was having fun with the game, but I was also meditating, internalizing the rhythm, shape, and color of the world.

And somewhere in the process, I started writing Flower. There was no real struggle; just, suddenly, it didn’t feel like work to pen line after line of music. Each instrument in the score seemed to love each other, raising each other up even as they were added to the increasingly complex mix. Looking back on it, I can see exactly what changed in my approach to the music.

At the time, though, it all just felt magical.

It’s nice, now, playing Flower as just another player, reliving those bits of magic. That amazing exhale when you leave the canyon in the wind level. The drive that pushes you through a darkened city. The serenity of night that accompanies the post-game credits.

And while those magical parts were carefully composed and scripted for effect, the parts where the computer dictates the order of notes for a flower’s melody continue to floor me.

I remember one time, while playing the color level, a series of flowers set before the beginning of the third section of music played a melody so full of longing that I had to drop the controller to catch my breath.

When people speak of game development, they often describe it as a process of discovery. Though I’ve worked on video game scores before Flower, working closely with Sony and thatgamecompany was probably the best experience I ever had writing music. The music, ostensibly coming from me, seemed to keep on revealing itself to us from everywhere in the development. From level design, art, and mechanics to little things like the time needed to load a level and even the heft of the Dualshock 3; all of these had such an impact on the music composition that I couldn’t help but feel joy that the music was springing up from some space beyond myself.

And here I am, a little more than a year later thinking: I can’t wait to take part in that experience once again.

Watch for the Flower official soundtrack, coming this Thursday to the PlayStation Store for $2.99. And if you missed it, check out the Flower dynamic theme as well, also only $2.99.

Flower This year had a number of terrific downloadable games (this list is a testament to that), however no game -- retail or digital -- connected with me like Flower. Jenova Chen's flOw was an interesting experiment, but Flower is an actual game. In fact, Flower is one of the few experiences I can think of that show the true potential of games as a unique storytelling medium. No other non-interactive art form will ever be able to replicate what thatgamecompany has managed to create.