Relax with Flower

I'm always on the lookout for ways to unwind and relax.  Normally I go out and garden or take the dogs for a long walk.  But lately, we've been experiencing temps in the 90's and I don't find gardening and sweating at all relaxing. I do sometimes find gaming relaxing, but usually nothing involving First-Person shoot-outs or exploding aliens with green blood smeared all over the screen.  Now if you ask my husband, those are the very things that he would find relaxiong and that's why about 95% of the video games we own are First-Person Shooters. The other 5% are games that I generally play.  One of those is Flower, a new-to-me game for the Playstation 3.  It costs $9.99 and you can buy it through the Playstation Store with your PS3.

Flower is nothing if not relaxing. There are six main levels to play and each level starts off with a flower in a pot on a windowsill in a city apartment.  When you select a flower to "play", the player is taken into a world where one single petal floats through the air.  You can change the way the petal floats by tilting the PS3 controller.  You can also press any button which blows the wind harder and causes the petal to move faster.

When you start off in the level, you are one single petal and in front of you are trails of flowers laid out inall sorts of patterns and lines.  When your petal approachs these flowers, they bloom and a new petal is added as a trail of petals behind the original starter petal.  There are also certain groups of flowers that when moved over, can change the game -- causing new areas to open or transforming dead grassy areas to fields of green. The more flower petals you accumulate in a trail behind the lead petal, the faster the petals move. The best part is that it is impossible to lose!  There are no guns, no enemies, no time limits and no stress.  The music is soothing and dynamically adjusts as changes are made to the playing world.

If you don't have a PS3, the creators of Flower, also make FlOw and Cloud, which are available for PC and while different from premise of Flower, they are equally as calming and hypnotic.

Check out the video below for real gameplay of Flower.