There's been a genre for years.

The inventor?

Nifflas. With his indie gem Knytt.

Fuck yeah. Indie games are the shit. Fuck your mainstream gears of halo cock juice.

I saw a commercial for Zenses on DS today where this woman hallucinates being on a beach while she's actually crossing the road in a busy city while playing the game on her DS. That's nice and safe either way. It's almost as horrid an advert as the Animal Crossing Wii one.

Pixeljunk Eden is zen in that you have to be a buddhist monk to not swear at it.

yeah doesnt seem that bullshity to me. it's hard to classify these "calm interactive program" experiences so I guess Zen gaming is as good as anything I could've thought of.

ya diverse, you just stick with that mentality when this site bum-rushes your ass. you just painted a big "fuck me" target on you.

and i really look forward to this game, flow was incredible and i still enjoy playing it.

Aw crap. Now pretentious douche bags are invading game genres now.

We should call it "mellow and 'lax" genre

Actually: http://www.jp.playstation.com/ps3/psn/store_new.html

The genre for flow has always been Zen in Japan. So this isn't actually new.

Interesting.

Awww Sony loves me durr hurr hurrrr

Check's in the mail, right guys?

I watch my aquarium screen saver sometimes = totally Zen as hell

I do believe Electroplankton would also qualify for Zen status. As long as the game is enjoyable I don't care what category you put it in.

Echochrome. :)

if I play this game... will it make me the flowerman?

I played this over the summer at the Wired Nextfest, but it was lacking that time-free engrossing quality that the label zen seems to indicate. It was a nice tech demo, though.

Well obviously the next titles in this genre will be "My Virtual Zen Garden", "Color Coordinate Your House", and don't forget the soon-to-be-classic: "Close your eyes and Breath" (which will have to be censored for Australian audiences.)

This will be the first PSN game I buy.

It depends on how you interpret it. Some people think Zen is being calm and relaxed. I like the view that being calm and relaxed is just a stage, a step in which you reach a zen like state where you are not bound by the past or have an image of the future. You simply exist, almost becoming an observer to your actions/reactions. Freeing yourself from thought and becoming one with your body and mind. In this state they believe you can reach the enlightenment because you realise the true nature of life, existence and the universe.

Or you could buy this game and make pretty flowers hahaha

fl0w, knytt, and pixeljunk eden make me feel this way. I love them all, and look forward to this game too.

Everyday shooter fills a similar void.

As long as it's like $5 I will check it out as it looks kinda cool and games that you can just jump into with nice HD visuals are cool as people will watch and wonder what the hell you are doing.

Atmosperic gaming? Where the point is just to explore the universe (or microcosm) that the game places you in? there are many games out there kinda like this already. fl0w, but you can die (or at least lose progress). echochrome, but you have puzzles to solve. endless ocean, but you *could* progress through a storyline (it doesn't force you to do so). electroplankton might be a better choice, but it's very limited in scope. the endless levels of katamari damacy would also be a good candidate, but you actually have to play through the more structured part of the game to get there. spore's creature creator was enjoyable enough for people to play around with it a lot, even though it had no point.

imagined if you could roll a katamari around in an environment with spore's scope. that would be awesome.