I’ve just finished watching a 15 minute movie of Flower. With my mouth open and watery eyes. Even though I do not own a PS3 (and this is the first time I regret it so much) the movie was so beautiful that I could instantly imagine how I would feel like playing it. Even though I did not play it, flower is already the best game experience I have had so far. And all that because of that feeling.

I’ve come to a point where I am realizing what kind of designer I want to be, maybe I should say again. Flower was so strong, so beautiful, that it inspired me to become a game designer that really creates experiences, experiences that can only emerge from the strong feelings games can (apparently) create. And now I can take flower as the example of how that should work out.

So, feeling. How did flower create this feeling for me? And what feeling did it create?

Maybe a good start is to state the obvious: Flower is elegant in style, easy to control and a player has total freedom. The grass and flowers look alive and are animated in a certain dreamy way, not far from realistic. But if I think again, I felt like I was the wind, or actually the flower parts carried by the wind. I felt like I was actually flying myself, and it felt so good going through the grass, hearing all those pieces of grass hitting each other. It was so peacefully… I forgot everything around me for a moment, not even realising that my sister, who was sitting next to me, was laughing at me. I would call that perfect place as the world in flower heaven, if I wouldn’t know better.

The desire to be those flowers, fly through the grass, being taken by the quiet sound of nature, being free… Maybe I’ll try to figure out what makes me feel this way later, I’m so much more in the mood now to play the game first before saying anything else…

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