Like Braid, I’m imagine that Flower has been talked to death by the time this goes up, so there really is nothing I need to say about the game that hasn’t been said – including those who think the game is a pretentious, unplayable mess. Of course, I’m in love with the game for the same reasons that everyone else loves it. Following in the footsteps of Rez and Everyday Shooter, Flower is the embodiment of game “synesthesia”, where you add to the music in the game through your own actions. But what will immediately draw people in is just the amazing art design of the first two levels.
That said, I honestly wasn’t impressed with the first three levels. It was charming and pretty and I was quite happy to play the game, but it felt like nothing more than an elaborate tech demo.
Then I played the fourth level and the whole experience changed. It went from just flying around a pretty environment to being a rousing adventure straight out of the typical myth cycle. While I’m sure people will have their own take on the game and ascribing authorial intent to a game that tries its best not to impose a narrative on the player is somewhat problematic, I believe that it is safe to say that the game is a reaction to urbanization from the perspective of a flower.
The jarring move from the gentle turning of windmills on a grassy plain to the black and harsh reality of a world full of power line towers and steel girders is an extremely emotionally jarring moment. The game forces you through a dark trench that imposes a feeling of claustrophobia on you – a feeling that is doubly more oppressive because of the freedom that the game offered you in the first three levels.
In the fifth level, the game completely changes. For the first time the game introduces an element of danger. If you touch a downed, blacked power line – you take damage and lose visibility. The first time that happened, it was so unexpected that I almost felt the shock myself. The payoff for the “boring” unassuming gameplay of the first three levels is that it is able to lull you into a false sense of security. I haven’t seen a better way to invoke the fear that a flower would feel when faced with the cold and harsh reality of a city. I’m sure there are poems and paintings that try to do their best to be moving representations of nature, but actually putting the experience into the hands of the player simply makes the experience that much more personal.
Following the myth cycle, the final level is one of redemption. Having suffered the crushing oppression urbanization, the flower then strikes back. The game gives you a powerful sense of agency and tells you to go forward and destroy the corrupting elements of humanity. It doesn’t condemn humanity or city life. In fact, when you destroy downed power lines and steel girders, new high rises are born out of the ground – just like flowers! – and you see that nature and humanity can coexist. You enliven a city block by restoring colour to the buildings and bringing back life to a small park. You even make flowers bloom as you fly down a highway. This isn’t the hyperbolic YOU’RE KILLING THE EARTH message that you’ll find everywhere else.
And the final moment of the game is the emotional climax that the game builds toward. You explode past a tower of steel and into a scene that reminds you of the window you see at the beginning of the game and the steel tower suddenly transforms itself into a giant tree. It was just an extremely satisfying moment that I haven’t felt since I finished the special “star” ending of Braid.
I really don’t want to make any declarative statements. Games have arrived. Games have evolved. Games are more than just a series of violent actions linked together by cutscenes stolen from film. I’ll let other people try to argue those points about the game, because I'm sure the hyperbole is flowing free without me contributing to it. I’ll just say that I never thought a human made "text", game or otherwise, could ever properly personify a flower – so much so that I felt, as stupid as this sounds, the anxieties and aspirations of a flower. Flow left me a little disappointed, but Jenova Chen is now on my radar and I'm definitely looking forward to "Flowerer" or whatever his next game may be.
What better way to end a post than with a sunset?
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