Do you enjoy strange, off the wall games that most people might consider ‘odd’ because they don’t follow set conventions for modern gamers? If so, you’re going to love ‘Flow’, a free browser based game. It offers a very pretty game environment, simple but compelling game play, and can be installed as a Chrome App (shortcut) if you should desire to do so.
Flow is one of those strange games that don’t seem to fit into any one category because it’s just too off the wall weird and different, but at the same time it may seem familiar to many players. The basic idea of the game is that you are a little ‘worm guy’ made up of circles and lines and connecting arcs. The idea is to lead your worm guy around and have him grow and evolve until you get the biggest, best result you can.
Beware, however, because not everything in your little microscopic worm guy world is friendly. In fact, some of the other inhabitants are down right aggressive, and can cause you to lose tons of progress in your evolution toward the end goal.
All of this is strange enough, I suppose, but it does put one in mind of the early stages of Spore (a popular game from Electronic Arts) where you have to swim around and get your creature to evolve into a higher form of life. Flow doesn’t move onto the land, and the graphics are supremely simple compared to Spore, but the game play is at least as compelling (if not more so) than EA’s title. This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me (and, in fact, a lot of the stuff on the game page doesn’t make much sense to me because it is in Spanish and I don’t read or speak it very well: thank goodness for Chrome’s translation options) because the game itself is pretty simple. There’s something indefinable about it, however, that makes one want to keep playing and adding more and more bits to your worm guy and see what it might evolve into next or what other inhabitant it might run into. This is accomplished by eating other creatures. Smaller ones than you can be swallowed whole. The ones that are larger, however, you will have to discover how to attack them without getting hurt yourself.
The game runs on a system of color codes, so you don’t have to speak Spanish to understand what’s happening in the game. For example, creatures that your worm guy encounters that are colored or glowing orange are attempting to attack and reduce your worm guy back to a tiny single cell. Creatures that glow blue are quite frightened of you, mighty worm guy, and they will most often run away. By this method, you don’t have to examine anything but the color to determine if it is friend or foe. The simplicity of this idea is what makes me smile, and it works quite well in practice.
The only real downside or con for this game is the fact that the home page for it is in Spanish but you can get all the info you need on it from the Chrome Web Store page so that’s no big deal. Additionally, the fact that the graphics are so simple (flash based) might be considered a downside by some, but it ensures the game runs smoothly and this one really is all about the gameplay itself and not about the eye candy. Flow is one of those compelling games that don’t make a lot of sense but we just can’t seem to stop playing them until someone (usually the S.O.) shouts at you to “get off that darn computer and go to bed, already!” because it’s just so fun and we want to see where it will go next. It won’t take up epic hours of your life the way MMOs can, but it surely will provide you with a great way to have fun and pass time without noticing it. I would suggest this game to anyone that wants to play something simple, different, challenging without being complex. Flow the game entertains me, and I go with the Flow. Until next time, my friends!
