Tag Archives: That Game Company

Reports from a demonstration in London today suggest thatgamecompany’s latest offering, the enigmatic and beautiful Journey, can be clocked in around three hours.

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Thatgamecompany’s Robin Hunicke has said that large publishers could stand to learn from the tiny studio’s development process, in order to create games with “continuity and integrity ” in an “intimate and friendly” fashion.

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With Flower being one of PSN’s stand-out products, Jenova Chen’s That Game Company’s next step has always been one of interest. Dan Boutros went along to see the firm’s next title, Journey, in LA during E3 week.

This is what came back.

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God of War director, David Jaffe, has updated his blog to reveal that That Game Company’s Flower is “one of the most emotional games of all time.”

“You guys know I’m a disappointed cynic when it comes to video games evoking subtle emotions in players,” he said.

“But I’ll tell you what – from what I saw on Friday – these guys/gals at TGC are well on their way to having made one of the most emotional games of all time.”

“I love what I saw,” he went on. “And if the whole game feels like the stuff I saw last week…well wow! Just wow! And the coolest thing to me is, hell, now I’m inspired to step up to the plate and try to do something a bit more meaningful as well. Maybe not with our current title, but one day soon.”

We’re looking forward to Flower too. Still no news regarding a release date as yet though. Oh well.

By Mike Bowden

That Game Company director and co-founder Jenova Chen explained to Kotaku that the theme of Flower is “Life in Balance.”

“As reflected in flOw, That Game Company’s goal is explore what is possible to communicate through video games, from the complex concept of evolution and adaptation to the power found in a simple potted flower,” says the piece.

The article goes on to look at the game more closely, revealing that your petal enters three dream-like states as you play. Or something.

Go for it through the link.

By Mike Bowden

Two new video have emerged showing new footage of That Game Company’s latest title, Flower. They look all floaty and motion-controlly to us. Check them out after the drop.

By Mike Bowden

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Offbeat theories kicked off the sessions at the Independent Games Summit in San Francisco today, as the first keynote was delivered by That Game Company’s Kellee Santiago, Everyday Shooter developer Jon Mak, and academic developer Pekko Koskinen. The three-person presentation focused on provoking thinking about the relationship between games and gamers.

Santiago, the developer of flOw, argued that the personal value of games to players is something that needs to be better quantified if both developers and publishers are to get a better grasp of the importance of the medium. She argued that a focus on longevity and content was to the detriment of games being memorable and therefore valuable to players.

Mak looked at how the attitude of gamers towards a game changes depending on how a game looks, and whether we get to “own” the output we see on the screen, citing Guitar Hero as an example of how remarkably basic systems enthral gamers by producing output in direct response to their actions.

But it was Koskinen who had the most interesting and complex take of the session. He argued that while other media was tied to particular physical formats, games could be made out of anything at all. He cited the fact that chess could be played with physical pieces, on a screen, or even mentally. This, claimed Koskinen, means that games are all about how a player behaves, and his or her behaviour is the medium in which game designers work. Game design “is the art of fictional behaviour”, said Koskinen.

The Finnish developer suggested that game designers could “design players in the same way that we design games”, and that behavioural aspect of games would become a great tool in shaping how people live in the years to come.