Phyta
Posted by ithamore Sun, 29 Jun 2008 06:55:00 GMT
In Phyta, (Update: Direct Download) from Cambrian Games (Abraham Parangi), you control a dark sun with your mouse to direct the growth of a shadowy plant. Progress is made through its five levels by ensnaring the golden angels in the plant’s branches, which will grow more quickly toward the sun when the left mouse button is pressed.
With its clean, simplic look and play, the first game it made me think of was flOw. And the mellow classical guitar and cello duet music beautifully enhances the hole experience.
Some might find Phyta somber, a few might even consider it to be contrived, and then there are those who might consider this game as another choice example of games as art. I, however, found it to be more than ten minutes of mono no aware. Additionally, I wonder if the lack of ending beyond the abruptness of merely closing the program during the fifth level was based on a developmental or artistic decision.
Speaking of flOw, Little Fish is another game being developed by Cambrian Games with some similarities based on its description. I’m looking forward to seeing how original or imitative it is in comparison to flOw, but I’m also interested in the planet game Parangi has been posting about on his blog.
The game looks interesting but sadly doesn’t seem to be working on Vista. Shame on Abraham. :-P
Works fine on Vista. Played level 5 for ~10 minutes before realizing there wasn’t an ending.
That’s quite possibly the most beautiful music I’ve heard in any video game, ever.
The art style works very well for me, too. I really really like these minimalistic, black-and-white kind of things. I’d like a non-interactive version of that as a screen saver, it’s that beautiful.
Unfortunately gameplay got a bit frustrating especially on level 5, but I guess if there’s no real ending that’s okay…
very nice! that little fish game seems shamelessy copied from fl0w but seems nice too.. the planets one seems a bit like mine, only that my one is in development from more time
It seems like the plants grow faster when the mouse button is clicked, but thinner. So letting go of the button after getting around one of the golden creatures makes the vines thicken up and hold them tighter.
Or maybe it’s just my imagination.
I’d rather not try a hole experience. No matter how nice it may look and sound.
We are the truth, we have our leaves, we have our branches. We have our flowers that we cultivate and bring into our branches, bring them amongst us so that their sweet sweet nectar will be ours. It is a silent song they sing, but our flowers have a greater fate awaiting them.
They will be ours. They will feel the weight that is their true fate.
How does it enhance the hole experience? Is it some kind of lubricant?
Everyone must try this game.
I probably played for 10 min after beating level 5 too. You’ve won when the sun angel stops morphing.
Tell us more Pnx!
It is fated that our flowers will carry bells, this fate is false. They are bells, they are bells that ring to the enlightened sun. But to us their song is mere silence. Thus they shed tears for us. It is a foolish thing for them to shed those tears, the tears taste of enlightenment.
The enlightenment is a dream. The enlightenment is their nectar.
I can’t tell whether or not you’re scaring the bejeezus out of me, Pnx.
A fragrant prologue to the future, woven by the solid passion and ephemeral dream.
Very cool game. I enjoyed it. Great work.
Can’t get it to work on any PC I have an access to :’(. It looks so trippy on the screenie!
Teegee: Don’t worry, all in all, it’s really a very untrippy game (:
I felt like the villain of the piece.
Well - like I wrote before I can’t get it to work either. Neither on Windows Vista nor on Linux. The game simply doesn’t launch - it doesn’t lock up, it doesn’t display any errors, it doesn’t even show up as a process in the Task Manager…
Does it require some additional libraries or something?
Yeah, totally the same thing here. But wait? Aren’t you from Poland, Lim-Dul? If so… then maybe the game just hates Polish people =/.
Yeah! Let’s blame it on that! ^^
Jingoist Nazi game. :-P
It probably has a bit of code like
if (GetSystemDefaultLCID() == 0x0415) { terminate() }
0x0415 is the locale identifier for Polish AFAIR. ;-)
Damn nazis!!! Thinking of it, anything about trapping some poor angels has to be made by nazis!
I recorded and uploaded the music straight from the game, for all who want to listen, and re-listen. You can find it here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=F6VHVJWO
I hope the developer doesn’t mind, I can take it down if so. It’s just very beautiful music.
This is a beautiful game. The music, in particular, is amazing. I recorded and uploaded it for all who wish to listen, and re-listen. You can find it here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=F6VHVJWO
I hope the developer doesn’t mind… It really is beautiful.
If you’ve downloaded and extracted the game, you can also find the song in the data folder. It’s the Guitar+Violin.ogg file.
Update: Abraham Parangi gave his permission to direct link this version of Phyta, so I changed the link at the beginning of the post. He took the original version off the current works page, since he’s going to remake it, but he didn’t delete from the server.