Week 1: Florence — Apple Design Award Winner Game

Florence tells you romance and relationship of 20-something. It is simple, but unforgettable after a 40- minute experience of emotional ups and downs.

Florence is an interactive story and video game developed by the Australian studio Mountains and published by Annapurna Interactive. ( Platform‎: ‎Android‎; ‎iOS)

It’s a game about holding things together and letting them go. It guides players to dive into the dense complexities of relationships and romance by following the story of 25-year-old Florence Yeoh.

Unlike most video games, which have goals of having high scores or achieving goals of some kind. Instead, I tab my way through Florence Yeoh’s relationship. The game tells Florence’s story through a series of brief chapters and uses basic puzzles to reinforce pieces of Florence’s life as players progress through her story.

Plot and Interaction

The story is simple and not particularly exciting: Florence, a 25-year-old office drone, who is stuck in an uninspiring routine, and under parental pressure over her situation until she meets Krish, a cellist in a park. They start to date and soon move to cohabitation. Florence encourages Krish to chase his dream of going to Musical Academy. They are generally happy together but gradually lose the spark and eventually end the relationship. I admit it is just like another cliche romantic story.

However, the carefully designed interactive tasks(touch-based minigames) add a layer of depth and intimacy to the game. In Chapter 2, I go back to the time when Florence was little and loved drawing, I did the drawing task, which later became a part of Florence’s memory.

In the scene of their first meet, I tap on music notes to guide Florence to Krish with each tap, as the music gets louder, Florence gets closer to Krish. On Florence’s first date, their conversations work as a series of puzzles games, as she talks, the conversation flowing along. At the beginning, the puzzles come with more pieces, then, become lesser, then two and down to one, as Florence and Krish’s conversation grows faster and they gets emotionally closer.

My favorite part is when Krish move in to Florence’s apartment, Florence has to make room for Krish’s stuff, I spent time thinking about things I should put in storage, based on my personal life, which is not about Florence, but about my real life. As the relationship unravels, I had to take Krish’s stuffs back to cardboard box, which I feel real sadness. After all, I’ve been investing my time and emotion in this ‘relationship’, the touching and tabbing on the screen enable me to interact with the characters, and connect my feeling with the characters’ emotion.

Sounds Effect

There is no dialogue in this game, so soundtrack plays a crucial role, which follows the emotional trajectory of their relationship(you can find the Florence original soundtrack on Spotify). And the paper effect reinforces player’s sense of touch. All the elements wrapped up make Florence a simple game tells powerful story!