The first of their games is a remake of Chen's award-winning Flash title Flow, with enhanced visuals and sound, added multiplayer modes and compatibility with the PlayStation 3's motion-sensitive controller.

Chen has stated that the company does not plan to produce large, blockbuster titles, due to their belief that the pressure for high sales would stifle innovation.

[3][4] The company soon signed a deal with Sony Computer Entertainment, which had been impressed by Chen's Flash game Flow—a component of his master's thesis at USC.

Thatgamecompany was contracted to produce three games for the upcoming PlayStation Network distribution system and was given startup funding and a location at Sony's offices in Los Angeles.

They felt that it would be easier than Cloud to develop while they built the company; no members of the team had experience with managing a business or with creating a commercial game.

[7] According to Santiago, the Sony producer assigned to the team had anticipated that they would underestimate the game's development length, and was not surprised by the delay.

Thatgamecompany was not involved in the development of either project beyond ensuring that they retained the same design and art direction as the original, as they were busy creating their next title, Flower.

[14] Like Flow, the game was well received when it was released in February 2009, selling in the top ten PlayStation Network titles of the year and garnering several awards.

[16] This team did not include Santiago, who, in order to concentrate on her role as the company's president, was replaced as a producer by Robin Hunicke.

[22][23] Chen attributes the exodus to the end of Thatgamecompany's three-game contract, and to the fact that the company had run out of money, mandating an unpaid hiatus to all employees until the revenue from Journey came in.

[24] Once the money from Journey began to arrive, Thatgamecompany brought back several of the employees affected by the cash flow problems, and some new developers.

[24] The company, with its contract with Sony complete, raised $5.5 million in venture capital funding, which they hope to use to develop future games for multiple platforms without influences by publishers.

According to Santiago, the company creates emotional responses to demonstrate the wide range of possible experiences in video games, which she believes is larger than the few—excitement and fear, for example—that are typically presented.

Chen believes that he is "too young" to make a game with a strong message, and so designs the company's products to avoid overt meanings.

[34] Thatgamecompany's employees are not opposed to making action titles, and, as a break from their regular projects, have internally created "exciting" games that were well received by Sony.

[7] Similarly, Chen does not intend for Thatgamecompany to make "big budget blockbuster games", as he believes that the financial pressure would stifle innovation.

[36] The game's design is based on Chen's research into dynamic difficulty adjustment at the University of Southern California, and on psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theoretical concept of mental immersion or flow.

Approaching flowers may also have side-effects on the game world, such as bringing vibrant color to previously dead fields or activating stationary windmills.

The game features no text or dialogue, forming a narrative arc primarily through visual representation and emotional cues.