flOw

This game is really, really beautiful. Wow.

great game, absolutly fantastic, not to mention a work of art

thanks for another great game jay

once again, a good game, but its too short. it could be made a lot better if more levels were added.

Great work Jay,
Keep games like these coming please! Also, as a side note, have you found any more games out there liek Samorost2? (I am now obsessed with this game) Well, thanks again,
-imok

Nice game
very relaxing

and btw
left clicking makes you go faster

This game kept crashing on me, has this happened to anyone?

-Mike
try dowloading it here
http://www.filecloud.com/files/file.php?file_id=3034
or click mirror 2 at the top or the page

on another note the up and down arrows can be used to dive deeper and higher

I loved this game... it's very very simple but really really beautiful and not tedious at all.

Anyone know what the maximum evolution looks like? I "died" a few times before I figured out how it was happening so I'm not sure I got all the upgrades.

Sunshine -

The screenshot above with the black background is the final 'boss' battle, and hence fairly close to the final evolution as well

not true- I had more body cavities than the 2 creatures in the picure after the battle was done... and the player doesnt even have the set of wings on all the cavities

but man... this game just makes me feel good while relaxing me and making me really exciting... a beautiful work of art

After eating all of the creatures, I found a rippling ring on the tenth or so level.

Wings, not like the legs? Can you take a screenshot of yours?

Hmm...
Well for my creature thing...

After eating everything I could, including the boss remains, I had more body parts but less legwings in my final creature (screenshot). I know for sure I had the end tail things before the last level I died maybe 3 times but I lost body parts way more than that. I wonder if the final is the same for everyone.

FUN!! But how do you know when you have won? I have gone up and down, can not find any other organisms. Does that mean I won?

sunshine, Mine looks different. How do I do a screen shot to show you?

Try pressing the following keys, for some reason some of them don't seem to work every time though
T=Tracking on/off
S=Zoom in
F=Spawn Food
G=Grow
B=Spawn little defense organisims

Left=Zoom in
Right=Zoom out
Up=Next Level (go deeper)
Down=Prev Level

if you push ' (apostrophe) a thing will come on the bottom, click the x to get cheat mode. push g to grow. You know, in case you wanted to know what full evolved looked like.

Hmmm... Music you say and cheat codes? Well I never heard music or sound of any type. I tried the cheat code to no avail. Guess my Win XP is just acting up.

me - have you tried downloading the game using the link above the game window? The zip file you get has about 30 mp3 files containing music and sound effects used in the game.

Well Jay, after I click on the CLICK that you provide I get a window with a black screen on it and above that screen it states "Current Update 03/11/2006 Offline Version (PC & Mac) 6.4mb Mirror 1 | Mirror 2 Play "flOw" | How to play? | Credits | Comments " So I clicked on the "Play Flow". That worked but something seemed off. I read the advice you gave Mike above and started over and clicked on Mirror 2. The game worked fine - I grew and evolved. I finally ate all the organisms on all the levels and was only left with red and blue ones. Went up and down eating those in case I had to elimenate them too. But I never heard any sound nor zooming effect. The game was fun just the same.

Could it be that you don't have the latest Flash 8 Player installed? You might try reinstalling Flash and see if that clears it up.

I actually had more wings than sunshine...
My Creature

this game was on digg, btw: A tiny flash game with a big design idea behind

This game is an absolute masterpiece. You should probably mention that it isn't finsished yet and that they're hoping to add more sound effects and a final boss. (It says so in the forums).

This is what my guy looked like when I was finished. I called him Stephen, he died when I closed the Flash Player app :(

http://hem.passagen.se/rauz/stephen.jpg

Gee Jay, you sure do like to throw around the word "art".

I just like to give credit where credit is due. ;)

And besides, the project is a capstone for a graduate art degree. =p

hey, jay, first time poster, long-time reader. just wanted to note that i got a "service unavailable" on flow today, and everything was working yesterday. maybe they exceeded their bandwidth? it's on a university account, after all.

while i'm posting, i should say that i absolutely love your site and visit it every day, much to the detriment of my productivity. keep up the good work!

Haha, great game!!! I like games where you eat stuff, grow bigger, get special parts like zany feelers, so on. I had this GIANORMOUS thing, it was HUGE!!!! And every single part of it was a big glowing dot with feelers. My computer won't let me take screenshots? so i can't show u guys, but it ROCKED!!

Thanks jonmay! =)

I've been playing this one a lot lately and do get the "service unavailable" intermittently. Try reloading the browser and it will likely load for you. I imagine that USC has a threshold for the maximum number of HTTP requests allowed per unit of time.

Thanks Jay. I restarted computer and reloaded Flash and OohLaaLaa the sound is there. Thanks.
Also want to echo jonmay's comments. I ck jayisgames every day and my productivity is nearly nil. I have learned to ck your site only after the work is done - like maybe 11pm. :,)

A creature that is possible with cheats:
Cheat creature

Cheats are enabled with the thing under the tilda (a tilda is ~) on the top left of the keyboard. Copy and paste from neop: T=Tracking on/off S=Zoom in F=Spawn Food G=Grow B=Spawn little defense organisims Left=Zoom in Right=Zoom out Up=Next Level (go deeper) Down=Prev Level

Jenova, one of the creators, posted the following in their forums concerning the service is not available:

"Good news is that everybody want to play flOw. Bad news is my monthly bandwidth is nearlly used up. I moved it to the school's Cloud server temporarily, but that server has a low bandwidth. If you see "Service is not available" just hit refresh T_T"

Whats all this about the keys: f,g,b? when I push them nothing happens, do I have to download something?

Tequito, before you can use the cheats you must enable cheat mode by

pressing the little ` key to the left of the 1 key on most keyboards.

backward apostrophy (under the tilda) turns on the cheats. Then, you can f,g, etc.
If you use the cheats, you can grow the beast so that it has flagella on every segment, then eat enough to light every segment.

wow, this is a great games. it reminds me of the begining of the game spore. (not yet out) i never got to the bottom, but i will try with cheats (hehe).

if your wondering about spore, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8372603330420559198&q=spore

What a wonderful game.

It appears that the little 'wing' things greatly increase your speed -- however, i could only get them from using the cheats. I guess I am not much of a gamer!

When I open this game, it doesn't look like your screenshots at all, i just see a blue screen with little white dots moving in it. And I can't see which is mine!

Iris - the game requires Flash Player 8, I suggest upgrading Flash and try again. =)

it just keeps saying "service unavailable."

I was able to get it to load after just two attempts.

Garrett, if you or anyone else has trouble accessing the flOw site from here, you may download the 11/03/06 version of the game from one of my servers if you wish. The zip file contains the Flash SWF file that will play on either PC or Mac with Flash Player 8 installed, and is exactly as I downloaded it from the USC site on Saturday.

Thanks for the download info, Jay. Wonderful little game - I played for quite some time before I crashed but I think it was me not the server at the time! This is making me anticipate Spore even more.

My life changed on March 11 when you posted this game! It is amazing how obsessed a person can become with something that is practially two dimensional, and really only two colors (at a time).

Interestingly, I have noticed little changes almost every day so I do believe it is still a work in progress, just like the game's protagonist.

Thanks for posting it Jay!

For some reason, I can't let it grow after about 3 dots its just goes away. Someone help me

Got Flash Player 8 now and it works :P
Very cool game, but the creatures are really disgusting. The organism you play with looks like an earwig, very gross :P
Yet, the game is beautiful.

I really enjoy this game. If you eat other creatures strategically, you can wind up with an earwig-centipede-thing just a bit smaller than you can cheat up to.

One thing I can't figure out is how to efficiently eat the final boss thing. I always just end up in a little ouroborous style ball where we're constantly eating eachother, until my size advantage allows me to get him down through attrition/probability.

Very cool game. I once took a drop of ocean water and put it under my microscope and saw all kinds of funny creatures zooming around. Kinda like the one in this game. Thanks for posting this Jay.

sriad, regarding the final boss- i discovered (entirely by accident, i admit) a technique. essentially, the two creatures will just feed off each others' 'light', passing it back and forth seemingly forever. i backed up a level for a breather, ate an organism, and my creature became full and added another segment to it's body (and also was no longer full of 'light'- can you see where i'm going with this yet?)

when i went back to the boss, i had nothing for him to feed off of, so i was able to get him down to very few 'lights' and he seemed to slow down somewhat after that.

there was also a fair bit of luck involved, of course ;)

oh, and i managed to make this guy without any grow cheats :D

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y37/lldivy/untitled.jpg

this is a very cool game, and i am very excited that it is a work in progress.

You just have to eat the big balls of light that make up creatures, including the final boss. You can speed away from him by left-clicking, so he stops being "hostile" and then divebomb in.

I didn't find him too difficult; the big manta-shaped things which create lots of little nasties gave me some trouble though (apparently you can actually die in this game, I should've been more careful!) - they sent me up a level and then when I went back they were gone.

I found another cheat code

D=the little things that make your mouth bigger

I found the final boss to be easier than the previous creatures.

how do you beat the creatures that are nothing but little circles (they've got a head and a bunch of circles following them around not connected with anything

they just turn blue if you get close so you can't eat them

when i ate the final boss a little yellow organism thing appeared when i ate it i become a different creature and went back to the first level

Indeed, they released an updated version of flow yesterday where you can play as the jellyfish type creature after beating the last boss as the worm type creature, though there aren't any others (yet). There are other minor graphical and audial updates, along with bug fixes as well.

ATTENTION!

When you beat the game, you become the circle creature

WOw...a friend intro'ed me to this site...and it's fantastic!

Wow!
I managed to become the round crature in the orange water after eating an orange organism. Then I went through all the levels eating all I could find.now I have gone all the way up again and I can´t find anything more to eat. Am I finished then? I see nothing to indicate that I have won. Have I missed anything? Anyway...greate game!
Thanks again Jay!

o wow! awsome game! kept em entertained for hours lol the music is calm n the colors soothing, really liked it even though im a hardcore shooter games fan

I only played it for a few minutes now, and all I can say is... wow. This is an amazing game not only in its beautiful graphics, but also in its alluring gameplay. The music is also a good match for the game.

i have turned into a triangle????? with one mouth

its going to be on the ps3!

yeah i read that and i think its a bit wierd to have a game like that on a console i dont think anyone would buy it.

I can relate to Yvonniz. I seem to have completed the prange level with the circular creature and there doesn't seem to be any more challenges...?
Ideas?

Some more cheats:

T = Display stats
A = Change colors of background
z = Go to bottom
H = Go to top
J = Spawn orange enemy
K = Spawn enemy like yourself

After becoming the round guy I've finally cleared all the levels but can't go anywhere. I've played with the cheat codes and am feeding myself lots of food, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere after this...

Well, I got further than the circle creature.

After defeating the final creature on the lowest level I was just floundering about. Eventually I stumbled upon the colored food (green? this time--I forget). I went back to the top as a worm creature again. But this time I'm moving wicked fast. Almost too fast. We're up against the same opponents, but this time their mouths are much larger. I'm going to have to quit some time. I've got to get home and there is no save on this :P

alright. i love this game. its wonderful
and i cant get off.
i`m just wondering why the cheats don`t work
on my computer.
i try but it doesn`t do anything.
help?

I have the same problem with rowbear. I really need to see my worm in cheat mode... but i cant..

i got to the level when you are th swrly thing three teeth.

if you press "p" when you activate cheats lines come out of your creature. I'm not sure what it does.
pressing "C" make a part of your creature come off and your creature shrinks

How you evolve is determined by what you eat and in what order. Click below to see (a lot) more detail. btw, the expanded spoilers are pretty big

When you eat the normal food organisms it lights up each segment in your body going down, the bigger organisms lighting up more segments (number of dots inside = number of segments it will light) Whilst its going down all the segments wou cant eat anything and you mouth stays a bit closed When the lighting effect reaches the last segment the next thing you eat will make you grow one dot, any extra food dots left over get made into a new food organism which swims off (snarf it again) and all the lights go out (although they actually still count as life in a fight, contrary to someone else's comment. The difference is that the light-up effect doesnt have to go so far so having less lights on makes it easier to win a fight by reducing the waiting time between taking bites out of an enemy) There's another type of food (a plus sign inside a pentagon think) that makes the current lit body segment thats furthest down the body evolve. It starts as a dot, one evolve = life cell with several rings which counts as part of your health, 2 = wing buds - little circles attached to the life cell, and finally a third evolve gives you wings/fins which make you go faster. There is also another type of food which temporarily mutates your mouth to be really big, and the segments lighting up faster when you eat so you can swallow up a whole cloud of food nice and quick but that doesnt have any lasting effects (good thing to eat just before a fight though)

Depending on who you listen to and what type of keyboard you have the key to enter cheat mode is different, but its normally some type of apostrophe ', accent ` or some other punctuation. The there are various keys to press to cheat, most of which I have forgotten. g is grow, then evolve once you're at maximum length, there's keys to spawn food of all the types, to move up/down levels, all kinds of things. In cheat mode you can also see the current fps and your coordinates, relative to the centre of the level (0,0) is the middle and tends to be where the food hangs around most You can use the cheats to go down to the lowest level and avoid everything in between which can be an advantage as you're quicker and more manoeuvrable than your enemy (or a disadvantage because you're so easily eaten, depends how quick you are on the mouse

You eat all the stuff, defeat all the enemies and eventually get down to the final level, almost black, and the final boss - a massive worm like yourself. When you eat him (eat all his life dots) in among the other food organisms that come out should be a little one-dot organism that's yellow. When you eat him the focus goes off your old worm and starts following the yellow guy, it then shoots back up, past all the other levels, to the top. The background changes to violent orange and you turn into a small jellyfish (the ring-like creatures you fought on the way down). Using the grow cheat at this point (whilst your swimming up past all the levels) results in a worm body again, but with the little yellow thing as a head, entirely possible to play with but tends not to grow properly) You then get to play all over again in the new body (see second spoiler for the mechanics of this body) At the bottom of this pond, you meet your worm that you made last time and have to try and eat it (a little harder than before to get the last dots behind his head when your life bar is in a ring around you) When you've done that another yellow thing appears, you eat it again, and play all over again in the worm body again. Then guess who's waiting in the depths - both of your previous incarnations. And repeat

In the jellyfish body (and if you dont know what I'm on about at this point, read the previous spoiler) It works just like before that you grow and evolve based on the food you eat, except now its all in a ring shape with the mouth in the middle, you get a second small dot outside the main ring to show that one dot is helping you go faster, instead of wings, and instead of swimming harder when you're clicking to go fast, your circling cells pull in close and you suddenly go faster (A useful tactic for keeping your life cells close to you when fighting)

Against the worms, large or small, the best scenario is to come up from behind going slightly faster and eat them one segment at at time from tail to head. If you're quite long you may have to wait for the lighting-up process to complete before you can eat another cell, so let off the button intermittently to let your lunch stay ahead. The final worm is a little more intelligent and will weave around to try and eat your, either play his own game and follow him round, or (for those like myself without ninja reflexes) swim away a bit until he stops chasing then surprise him and nab a cell or two before he has time to react. Then repeat until he's all eaten. Against jellyfish, if you can swim around them at a constant distance, eating up all their life cells, then great, otherwise a sneak attack method works well. Kust take care to avoid the mouth in the middle. There are also some "cluster" jellyfish that come in groups of 4 and stay close together, its harder to avoid 4 mouths so try and separate 1 at a time The manta enemies will swim off at speed when you get a dot off them, then circle round and try and take it back by rushing you. If you have enough wings you can follow them and run the down, or you can wait for them to come back around, dodge their rush and take the other dot (or just dodge then attack again at your own leisure) The giant manta enemy has 3 life dot that circle between 3 positions - one on each wing and one behind the mouth. When you eat one the manta zooms off and rushed back at you, and a horde of little orange nasties attack you. Dodge the nasties and the rushing manta and then attack again. Big food reward when you bring him down. As a general thing, you can fight best when digestion times dont slow you down - when your only have a few cells lit up. Final thing - orange enemies think they're winning and are on the attack, blue enemies are losing (you're eating them) and are on the run.

And that's about all you need to know about flOw
(impressed?)

The art and music in this were wonderful. But to be perfectly honest, I found the gameplay to be yawn-inducing. Jay, I adore your site but wish that you could add a pros/cons bit of information to your reviews. It seems every single game gets a great review (all pros and no cons), and quite a few of them clearly don't deserve it. This is not one of them, btw. This is an excellent game, just a bit boring toward the end.

Yeah, Matt, I just recently noticed that too, the part about

having to go up against your previous protagonists. An interesting touch, but a little unsettling when it dawns on you that your character in each level is on a quest to DINE ON ITS ANCESTORS.

buhm buhm BUUHHHM

where is this mythical green ball

Well - I played it all the way through in the worm body, then yet again in the jellyfish body. But then it seams to end - when I beat the worm as the jellyfish, the worm kind of bursts - and I'm hanging there in the dark. What am I doing wrong? (tried 2 times, both with the same ending)

At least, I found a working strategy for eating creatures when I'm the jellyfish:

I keep my life cells to one side of the body, so that one half of the round is dead (or undeveloped). Then I try to keep the dead cells where the mouth of the creature to eat is - thus, I can eat the creature's cells, while the creature only reaches my dead (or undeveloped) cells.

hey I think I'm at the end I don't see anymore red dots to progress?

Wow, this game is fantastic!
But a little warning:
Using cheats totally ruins this game. I enjoyed it way more without them.

flOw has been updated! now, once you reach the deepest level, a yellow creature appears. if you eat it, you zoom back to level one and the pool that you float in turns yellow. you turn into one of the "bad guy" type creatures with the round, toothy mouths! try it!

I've been told that you can become the manta ray creature after being the jellyfish, but none of the three types of the game I downloaded from this page, nor the main, apparently constantly updated, game will allow me to do that. I just go back and forth between the straight fish and jellyfish. Anyone know how to get the 3rd and 4th (apparently a mix of all creatures) creature types?

GREAT GAME!!!

i am stuck as the jellyfish, i think i still have to kill the two wormy guys, but every time i get to their level i can NOT find them. would the "tracking" cheat help with this? how does it work? i pressed T and i didnt get anything. the only thing that seems to be of use is when i press P and get the lines, but what are those indicative of? thanks, folks!

playin at 2am doesnt let me appreciate this game i dnt think. i think the organism looks awesome but the game is too hard for me when im half dead. iv got to leave the game now too hard for me.

It's a good game and all but it's to hard

Cool, I saw this game on the Playstation3 store.
I might buy the download on my ps3, the flash game is fun!

That was the most frustrating time of my life. The game is awesome. The concept is the best, the graphics are great, and I love the music. But my internet connection is so slow, the guy jumps around the screen like mad. I got to level 2 through pure luck, and had to give up, cause every time I ate part of a guy, he got one of my pieces, and then one more, because I couldn't move properly. If this game could be downloaded fully for free, I would do that and play it all the time. As it is, I can't play with this sucky internet connection. It's a real shame.

the link isn't working for me

FF and IE keep returning the "Page Not Found" error =/

servers down?

Yeah, I think the situation is only temporary. Try the game again a little later.

Well, I guess it wasn't my internet connection, because I could play the game pretty well on my new laptop, with the same connection. I guess it's just my computer. The game is pretty fun, but once I got to the second phase, I lost interest for it, partially because control is more challenging, and partly because it felt like starting over. Pretty good game though, I heard it was compared to the beginning stages of upcoming game Spore, by Will Wright.

On a side note, anyone know if it's possible to get a video card greater than 256 MB that runs on a 160 watt power supply, and would fit a HP Slimline computer? Cause if it can't be done, then I will have to buy a new computer to play new games, which sucks. Apologies if this is too out of context for the game.