White Hot Developer : Jenova Chen
Flipping through the March 2006 copy of Game Informer, I stumbled upon a rare gem of a game called Cloud. There was a short description of the game and a screenshot of a boy flying. He looked like an angel soaring through the sky. Curiosity pulled me towards the internet, so I downloaded the game and gave it a whirl. The setup was simple. You played a sick boy who was in the hospital, but had dreams that he could fly. In each stage, you wrangled clouds together and drew them out in different formations. Immediately, I was taken by the freedom I experienced playing the game. The controls seemed quite natural and the gameplay was thoroughly relaxing and engaging. I couldn’t think of many other games that created a similar cocktail of emotions. For the next few months, I would return to Cloud and fly when I needed a bit of relaxation.
A few months later a friend of mine tipped me off to another game called Flow. In Flow the player swims around in a primordial soup, eating everything in sight. Everything you eat evolves the creature you play. This was yet another seemingly simple game that drew me into it’s delicious soup.
Thanks to Destructoid, I have found the ring that binds these two brilliant games; game designer Jenova Chen. He is a visionary in a field that desperately needs him. Chen has a sound philosophy in design, which shows in his ever growing collection of awards. He is currently working on Spore and implementing his games for next-gen systems. So keep your eye on this white hot developer.
Destructoid Interview
Toots
Posted to Video Games on 18 July 2006
Other stuff like this: Cloud, Developer, Flow, Jenova Chen, Spore
