The show even offers an early look at 'Splosion Man developer Twisted Pixel's next game, Comic Jumper.

Plus there's some diving in a cold lake by Keighley and the creators of Trials HD (pictured above, of course). A debut of a multi-touch version of my favorite of these very good games, Osmos. Oh, and full disclosure: Someone who may or may not have written this post appears in this show as a talking head.

The games featured in the show are the nominees for the best indie game category in this Saturday's Spike Video Game Awards, which will be televised tonight. (More disclosure: Kotaku is part of the judging panel.)

The half-hour indie games special, "The Next Great Game Gods," premieres tonight on Spike at midnight. (More info about the show on Spike's site.) Check your listings. Celebrate indie games. And... let me know how I did?

The first few World War II shooters Chen played floored him. We were all floored until the last Great War became such a vanilla setting for shooters. Old hat, and don't we want something new?

With games like Flower and flOW, that's exactly what Chen tries to give players: Something new. And he's giving them that via a new method for console gamers, digital distribution. Each year, video game after video game hits retailers. Few of them we remember; few of them stick with us. The rest sit on our shelves with nothing more lasting than the plastic boxes they came in.

ThatGameCompany doesn't do sex or violence. "I've played a lot of first person shooters as a child," says Chen. "I don't see the need to improve my headshot." More importantly, he doesn't see the need to make games to have other players improve their headshots — not because he's some prude, but because it's been done. A gajillion times.

"I joke that we probably have the highest per-day rate of conversations about ethics and morality when it comes to making video games," says ThatGameCompany president Kellee Santiago. "We take artistic responsibility very seriously, as we believe we owe it to players to always provide them a meaningful experience in exchange for their time and money." Something more meaningful than exploding barrels or ridiculous cleavage. Something neither black nor white, but gray.

For Chen, his earliest emotional connections to entertainment were via gaming. "My parents restricted what I watched on TV and the books I read," he recalls of his childhood in Shanghai, China. "I guess they were worried about content." Instead, his computer engineer dad got him a computer (a PC-286), figuring that it would inspire young Jenova to follow in his old man's footsteps. It instead inspired him to spend an inordinate amount of time gaming. "They thought I was studying," says Chen. "They didn't even know I was playing computer games."

Chen did follow in his father's footsteps — to a point. He got a Bachelor in Computer Science and Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2003. But he wanted to somehow combine his computer science background with his love of art and enrolled at the University of Southern California. "When I came to America, I couldn't believe how green everything was," Chen recalls. "It was such a shock — like the first time I cried." An ocean away from dense, urban Shanghai.

"I met Jenova in 2004, when he took my seminar in critical game studies," recalls associate professor Tracy Fullerton at USC's Interactive Media Division. This was the first time USC offered the grad school study of games at academic level. The students debated and discussed game theory, and, when they were finished with that, they debated it some more.



Students were asked to keep a "design journal." "The idea was to get students to really think about the games they were playing, to analyze them in terms of their mechanics and the types of play they promoted," says Fullerton. All the students did the assignment, but Chen did more of it, turning in a hundred or so pages of analysis of the games he was playing. "It was incredible," says Fullerton, "here was this guy who was pretty quiet in class but it was clear that there was a lot going on in his head."

Everyone has ideas. Everyone has things going on in their heads. It's a matter of getting them out of your head and onto paper — or in this case, into an actual game. 2004 — one year after Jenova had come to America — was a watershed. At that year's GDC, he checked out the indie-slash-student games. "Honestly, I wasn't that impressed."

Chen put his money where his mouth was, and pitched what would become Cloud — what Chen calls "a game that's not a game" — to Game Innovation Lab at USC, which Fullerton directs. It wasn't Chen's first game, as he'd worked on a couple PC titles while an undergrad in Shanghai. This was, however, his biggest. "We would give the team $20,000, a place in the lab and faculty advisement and see if we could make something truly innovative," says Fullerton. "So we chose the idea for Cloud out a bunch of ideas – of all of them, it seemed the most intriguing and definitely risky."

Three months later, the end result was risky. Risky, elegant, beautiful and deceptively simple, where simple is not a euphemism for simplistic. The dreamlike Cloud let players fly through the sky, leaving a fluffy vapor trail behind. While Chen ended up taking an industry job under Will Wright at EA, he and his USC classmate Kellee Santiago were able to parlay Cloud into a three game deal with Sony. To date, ThatGameCompany has turned out two of those titles: fl0w and Flower.

In an industry where first-person-shooters continue to dominate, these titles stick out. They're gentle games about gentle things and are almost poetic in their lack of specific meaning. According to Chen, "The fact that we have funding from Sony to make these crazy games says something." Perhaps it says how far the industry has come — that there is a place for a unique developer like ThatGameCompany.

Sony seems to think so — well, at least at Sony. "New concepts like Flower which really go outside traditional design can sometimes be hard to communicate to consumers and even internally," says Sony Santa Monica's external product development direct Tina Kowalewski, "but at Sony we would like to think we have the foresight to take well-calculated risks which provide us content players cannot find anywhere else and production schedules which make such risks viable."

"Games need different hues of color," says Chen."Novels and films has many different genres. Games are mostly action. Most focus on primal feelings. And the industry is constantly produc[ing] Hollywood summer blockbusters." They are summer blockbusters not only in the non-stop action, but in their bloated budgets and endless sequels.

While titles like Flower clock in at a couple of hours, that does not mean they are casual. "Casual games," says Chen, "are too shallow." What they are is easy to get into. ThatGameCompany wanted to make a new, yet totally accessible experience. In Flower, for example, Chen's small team removed everything that made test-players utter the word "fuck" in frustration.

"Having a player play a sequel or grinding through to boost game play time is a crime," says the iconoclastic Chen. "And if we did a sequel, it would have to be something new. That's why it's easier just to do a totally new game." Chen and ThatGameCompany are moving on to their next challenge: a new project that they've just began. "This new game is slightly larger and more of a challenge," says Chen. "The game concept is big. It's risky." Riskier than games about clouds and flowers? "Yes."

Photos

Flower [Game People]

Utilizing the PlayStation 3's tilt-sensing Sixaxis controller, Flower casts you as a flower petal cast into the wind, traveling multi-colored, abstract fields, colliding with other flowers in order to achieve various goals, such as returning color to a desaturated world. It's a very simple premise that gets more complicated the closer you look at it, much like a flower itself.

Is the answer blowing in the wind, or does Flower simply blow? The game critic community sews the seeds.

Eurogamer
In the words of developer thatgamecompany, Flower is a "videogame version of a poem, exploiting the tension between urban bustle and natural serenity", and while the brief, sensuous journey through the game's six levels is worthily conceived and executed, inviting interpretation, its high-minded origins also have the potential to derail it, albeit not in the eyes of "the audience of pretentious fawning fops that have turned the PS3 into the equivalent of a f***ing beatnik poetry bar", as one of our readers put it when we previewed the game in January. However, the result is pleasantly innocent and uplifting, and perhaps unexpectedly its best qualities are those of a very good videogame.

GameZone
The game is not overly complex and yet tantalizes with a rich palette of colors that the player controls. Each level is an environment and the player is the wind. You pick up petals from blossoming flowers and, using the motion-control of the SIXAXIS controller, push and steer the petals throughout the environment, over other flowers that have auras around them (in some levels there are not flowers and you decorate with glowing bits of light). As you complete the circuits you bring lift to the environments; grasses will change colors and trees will blossom.

TotalPlayStation
That I'm even hesitant to talk about the game in terms of "levels" or "objectives," yet feel entirely comfortable speaking in terms of emotions — which are both powerful and absolutely tangible — should hopefully speak volumes about the kind of experience that's provided for your $10. There was also a reason why thatgamecompany and Sony were so careful not to show off anything beyond the first three levels, for it's in the latter half of the game that things get a lot more story-like and become a bit more of a game than the early bits which are just about slowly swimming through the air and restoring life to areas. As you move more toward an overall enemy (or at the very least what serves as an antagonist in this world), things race toward a conclusion that's as satisfying as any game I've downloaded on the PSN.

Game Chronicles
Controls are some of the best SIXAXIS ever implemented. Flying becomes second nature in a matter of seconds. The entire game manual is amusingly summed up by three symbols before the game even starts. Anyone from 5 to 105 years old can experience Flower. Puzzles are more about discovery and thorough examination of the world. One white flower left untouched will keep the secret green flowers from sprouting and there are all sorts of unique elements to explore in each chapter.

GamePro
While its gameplay is uncomplicated and enjoyable, its Flower's presentation — which works in perfect harmony with the game's simple controls — that sets it apart from other downloadable titles. Visually the game is stunning, with picturesque environments and more colors than Van Gogh and Davinci's palettes combined. But even more dynamic is the music in Flower. Overall, the mood of the game is meditative — even uplifting — but depending on the level the melodic sounds of a guitar, piano and even wind and rain will leave gamers feeling tense, scared and excited — all in the span of a few seconds.

Kotaku
Granted, Flower will not be for everyone. These "artsy" PlayStation Network titles never are. But if you've had a rough day at work and really need to unwind – and perhaps even have your mind tugged at, ever-so-slightly – there's currently no better way to do so on the PS3 than with Flower.

Sounds like this Flower is definitely worth picking.

And like flOw, Flower is sure to again divide critics and gamers alike. While the basic structure of a game is present - you, uh, progress through levels towards a conclusion, and stuff – it only takes a few seconds of playing before you realise that, basic structure or not, this is something more (or less, depending on your tastes) than a "game".

Flower sees you taking control of the wind. You begin each level with a single flower petal, and must blow the wind around like a Katamari ball, each flower the petal touches blooming to release another petal, which adds to the size of your windy, flowery mass.

And…that's it. You do that a few hundred times each level until the game ends. Sounds boring! But it's everything that happens in between that makes this game so special.

LOVED

Exhale – In Flower, you are a breeze blowing flowers through tall blades of green grass. To the accompaniment of a soothing orchestral score or sparse guitar strings. Every flower you open makes a short chiming sound, so the more adventurous can attempt to plot a synaesthetic course through the levels, arranging their own soundtrack. There are no time limits. There is no difficulty. Death is only present, briefly, in one level. Video games just do not get any more relaxing than this.

This Is Not LAIR– Flower uses the X button to control the speed of the wind. And that's the only time you press a button. The rest of the game, from menu selection to in-game flight, is controlled by the Sixaxis, and shockingly, it works. Control is fluid and responsive, and the lack of mashing or memorising control schemes only adds to the soothing, low-key vibe of the game.

Game Design 101– It's amazing that a title that so many will allude to as "art" or as some tool for relaxation can also get so many things right on the game design front. Sign-posting is a masterclass in subtlety. You'll experience tutorials that you don't realise were tutorials until you're done. They even sneak a few "boss battles" in there while you weren't looking, and the way the final level leads up to such a confrontation is the most breath-taking moment I've yet to experience on the PS3.

Granted, Flower will not be for everyone. These "artsy" PlayStation Network titles never are. But if you've had a rough day at work and really need to unwind – and perhaps even have your mind tugged at, ever-so-slightly – there's currently no better way to do so on the PS3 than with Flower.

Flower was developed by thatgamecompany and published by Sony Computer Entertainment America for the PlayStation 3 (PlayStation Network). It is due for release on February 12, and will retail for $10. Played game to completion.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

President and co-founder of thatgamecompany Kellee Santiago announced a February 12th release date for the game that has managed to impress us on more than one occasion, and then struggles to describe it, calling in members of the development team to help her out, with mixed results.

Flower, shower, power tower,
First class, string bass, grass en masse,
Sun, fun, nearly done,
Petal, metal, lightning gun?

Well that certainly clears that up. Check out the new video below for a slightly less poetic look at Flower.

Singled out for praise in a feature titled "If Jackson Pollock Were a Gamer" are De Blob, World of Goo, Echochrome and Flower, coming out soon on PSN.

"Independent, low-budget movies changed Hollywood. Niche cable shows revolutionized television. Digital music toppled record labels. But for decades, console video games have remained overwhelmingly corporate," New York mag writes. The drop in development costs and the opportunities presented by digital distribution have given rise to art houses "unshackled from the blockbuster-or-bust mentality of the big corporations," and free to deliver "a new golden age of smart, beautiful, and really weird games."

High praise indeed. Chalk down another one for the serious discussion of video games as an art form.

The New Art Form: If Jackson Pollock Were a Gamer [New York Magazine]

That's according to a preview on IGN UK, at any rate, so the US release may differ. But then, when was the last time the European PSN got something before the US store?

Flower Preview [IGN]

I couldn’t wait to finally get my hands on this game after hearing nothing but glowing impressions from E3. What intrigued me the most going in was the thought of not having to worry about shooting enemies, dying, or even having to learn complicated controls beforehand. After playing the first three levels, though, it made me realize something.

This game is unlike anything I’ve ever played or seen before.

If you’ve been following this game at all, you’ll know the detractors have been out in full force. “This is not a game,” they’ll say, or maybe even going as far as calling it a "controllable screensaver" or *shock* a “non-game.” That’s ok. I’m not going to claim that Flower is anything more than what it really is.

At its core, it’s fairly simple. You need to fly around large grassy fields (as the wind) and collect petals from flowers before moving on to previously closed sections. That’s about it. Now, here are two reasons why you should remain interested.

For the most part, I can’t stand Sixaxis motion controls. They’re either tacked on or implemented poorly. But for Flower, the motion controls actually make the game better and feel more intuitive, so much so that I think using a stick to move would take away from the experience. Besides tilting the controller, the only other button you use is either one of the top 4 trigger buttons to make you go forward.

Screenshots or videos don’t do this game justice at all. You need to see this game in motion to fully understand and appreciate why it looks so damn good. When you zoom down through the grass and it sways back and fourth as you then fly up into the sky, it's all quite exhilarating.

While there wasn’t a great deal of variety between the levels, the Sony PR rep there said there would be more “environmental” adversaries and challenges to make the game a bit more difficult than the opening levels (and emphasized "a bit"). What concerns me the most about Flower is the price and the amount of content. It looks like there may only be six or seven levels total, so hopefully the game isn’t too short. There will be trophy support, too, but I wasn’t told what kind in terms of challenges.

With all the shooter and gun games coming out, it’s nice to finally just play a game and not have to feel so tense or alarmed. I’ll be interested to see how the mainstream audience responds to this.

The whole thing promises to grounded in emotion, giving players "possible interactions for playing as the wind." Don't worry, I'm sure she'll be talking about the game's weapon set at a future date and how online deathmatch works not long after that.

MIGS: First Details On flOwer [Gamasutra]