Flower

Software designers, thatgamecompany (TGC), have released a downloadable PlayStation 3 game known as Flower, which was featured today on Slate.

The mission of TGC "is to make commercial video games that communicate different emotional experiences the current video game market is not offering." In addition to Flower, they have a game known as flOw and one called Cloud

Flower is set in a gray world. The player starts inside a gray room where a single yellow flower is the only color. The player can use the motion sensitive controller to control gusts of wind and the soar of a single petal. As the petal moves through the environment, color follows and more petals gather.

Flower breaks the traditional video game format: there are no points, time limits or deaths. There are levels, in the form of simple challenges, but the point of this video game is not to achieve and finish, but to communicate an emotion.

TGC describes it as a "video game version of a poem" and Slate writer Chris Suellentrop says "it is the only game I've played that made me feel relaxed, peaceful, and happy."