What is your process like, at thatgamecompany? From concepts, do you then do prototyping?

JC: Yeah, this is technically the first original IP for thatgamecompany, because when we first started working on flOw, the game was already there, you know? Like the Flash game, the design, the artistic style, it's all there. So the first project we did was more like, we needed to learn how to use PS3, and we need to buff up the look and the sound to make it look like a PS3 game.

So Flower is the first game where we start from nothing. So I started the concept from several concept drawings I did. We always start a game based on a feel that we want to accomplish; that we want the player to feel a certain way. But if I can't tell what that feel is, and if we are not going to that feel, it's like, "Oh, I just missed my progress," right?

In fact, the feel has changed in its nuance. In the beginning I had a very vague direction: "This is the feel that we want to achieve." Then as we develop more and more, we realize certain specific feelings are impossible because of the limitations. But then, the rest of them are still possible. So the game itself kind of grows.

That's the fun part of video games. It's not just art. It's not like a movie, where if you have a script, everything is set. But video games, you have your team with you, and then you have the technology you are developing. What if the technology suddenly does not support what you originally envisioned in the design? Then you have to change your design.

So the game is evolving on its own right now, so we kind of just guide it where it's necessary, but it moves by itself. But, in general, it's like we are driving a car to the East Coast, but are we [going via] Kansas? Are we taking the northern side? We don't know. We are kind of in the middle up there.