The game plays out linearly, requiring input from the player in the form of short minigames which help mimic or reveal Florence's thoughts and actions.
(meta data) TITLE: 'Florence' Game Is a Bittersweet Tale About First Love - Rolling Stone (meta data) PUBLISHER: https://www.facebook.com/RollingStone 5 captures 19 Feb 2018 - 05 Jun 2022 About this capture COLLECTED BY Organization: Internet Archive These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved. Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors. The goal is to fix all broken links on the web. Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. Collection: Wikipedia Near Real Time (from IRC) This is a collection of web page captures from links added to, or changed on, Wikipedia pages. 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The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20180320105545/https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/features/florence-interview-w516887 'Florence' Is a Short, Bittersweet and Relatable Tale About First Love Video Games RS Country RS Hip-Hop Video Games RS Country RS Hip-Hop Long Reads Ram Report Album Reviews 50 Years of Music & Style Movie Reviews American Beauty Live Reviews 50th Anniversary The Photo Issue Rolling Stone Newsletter Glixel Newsletter ##### Varsity Esports Redefines Relationship Between... ##### Nvidia RTX Promises Real-Time Cinematic Rendering in... ##### Ex-'Hitman,' 'The Division' Devs Working on 'Cult... ##### Epic Games is Giving Away $12 Million Worth of 'Paragon'... # 'Florence' Is a Short, Bittersweet and Relatable Tale About First Love It's the first project from 'Monument Valley' designer Ken Wong and his new studio. Credit: Mountains/Annapurna Interactive Stefanie Fogel February 19, 2018 ### More News Varsity Esports Redefines Relationship Between Athletics, Academics Nvidia RTX Promises Real-Time Cinematic Rendering in Video Games Ex-'Hitman,' 'The Division' Devs Working on 'Cult Classic' Game Epic Games is Giving Away $12 Million Worth of 'Paragon' Assets Magic Leap Previews Creator Portal, SDK at GDC All Stories Florence Yeoh is a 25-year-old woman stuck in a familiar routine. She hits the snooze button a few too many times each morning. She works a boring desk job, browses social media, and fields calls from her pushy mother. She eats takeout sushi alone in front of the television at night. Then, one day, she encounters a musician named Krish, and everything changes. ## Related How An Oscar-Winning Film Studio Plans To Invade Games Annapurna Interactive has a plan to succeed where so many have failed: put creators first Last year, film studio Annapurna launched a new game division, Annapurna Interactive. It published three critically-acclaimed indie titles in 2017, the beautiful puzzler Gorogoa, the iOS port of Thatgamecompany's Flower, and "walking sim" What Remains of Edith Finch. Now there's Florence, a visual novel about love and all its messy ups and downs from Monument Valley lead designer Ken Wong and his new independent studio Mountains. It launched on Valentine's Day (naturally) and it's available now on iOS for $2.99. While it looks and feels quite different from his previous work, Wong told Glixel he wanted to create something just as meaningful as Monument Valley for both his team and the audience. "I was always talking to my friends and my family about love and relationships," he said. "We celebrate those stories in books and movies and songs all the time, and games seem to have a bit of a blind spot for this area of the human experience." Told through a series of (very) short chapters, Florence takes players through the major beats of a couple's relationship. They meet in a park, date, move in together, and slowly drift apart. All of this is pretty new to Florence, an introvert and late bloomer who suddenly finds another person has become her whole world. The game draws inspiration from Wong's own past relationships, along with the past experiences of his team, and from movies like (500) Days of Summer and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. "I think what distinguishes Eternal Sunshine is that it portrays ... love as it really is, which is messy and confused and full of misunderstandings and happenstance and ugly moments," Wong said. "But I think that's why it struck a chord with people, is that it felt so honest and raw, and I guess, instinctively, I wanted to tap into that." Mountains/Annapurna Interactive The game has no dialogue or narration. Its story is told visually via its lovely comic book art style and touch-based mini games. It conveys the banality of Florence's pre-Krish life by making the player brush her teeth each day, retweet her friends on social media, and tap on numbers during her dreary accounting job. Once the pair starts to date, puzzles change. One has the player fill in dialogue chat bubbles with jigsaw puzzle pieces. As the couple gets to know each other better, the puzzles get easier until they practically solve themselves. In another chapter, the player helps Krish move into Florence's apartment by deciding what items to display or store. Does Florence put away the bicycle pump to make room for his skateboard? She doesn't need two toasters. Which one should she keep in the kitchen? Displaying a photo of his family along with hers is only fair right? That puzzle makes a bittersweet return in a later chapter, and Wong said it's one of the game's strongest. "So many of the levels or chapters that we designed just didn't work out," he said. "We had ideas, and we tried them, and they just weren't fun or they didn't connect emotionally, and that level has always worked from the very beginning. It's always been one of our strongest chapters, and I think it's because the metaphor is quite clear. Even though you barely see the characters in it, people understand that game of organizing possessions and sharing a space together, and I think the storytelling emerges from those objects." Wong hopes people who play Florence are moved by its slice-of-life tale. Maybe even see a bit of themselves in it. "I think most people playing this game have been in a relationship of some sort," he said, "and hopefully we're going to be poking at them and saying, 'Hey, you remember what this is like? Remember how this feels?'" ### More News Varsity Esports Redefines Relationship Between Athletics, Academics Nvidia RTX Promises Real-Time Cinematic Rendering in Video Games Ex-'Hitman,' 'The Division' Devs Working on 'Cult Classic' Game Epic Games is Giving Away $12 Million Worth of 'Paragon' Assets Magic Leap Previews Creator Portal, SDK at GDC All Stories ## Glixel ### Varsity Esports Redefines Relationship Between Athletics, Academics ### Nvidia RTX Promises Real-Time Cinematic Rendering in Video Games ### Ex-'Hitman,' 'The Division' Devs Working on 'Cult Classic' Game ### Epic Games is Giving Away $12 Million Worth of 'Paragon' Assets ### Magic Leap Previews Creator Portal, SDK at GDC ## Trending Ranked on a scale from 1 to 10, the trending score reflects the number of users reading a story in real time. What is this? ### Varsity Esports Redefines Relationship... ### Nvidia RTX Promises Real-Time Cinematic... ### Ex-'Hitman,' 'The Division' Devs Working on... ### Epic Games is Giving Away $12 Million Worth... ### Magic Leap Previews Creator Portal, SDK at... ### Twitch is Hosting a 'Mister Rogers' Marathon... (meta data) TITLE: Review: Florence (meta data) AUTHOR: CJ Andriessen (meta data) COPYRIGHT: destructoid # Review: Florence 2018-02-27 12:00:00by CJ Andriessen0 This review is full of spoilers So this is love. Is it? I'm not sure. I'm not familiar with the sensation. Lust I get. Infatuation, longing, desire; I'm an expert in those. But love? No. I'm a chronically single 32-year-old with no prospects whose only relationship was 14 years ago for a whopping two weeks. And that was mostly just movies and car stuff afterward. Outside of a pet or a family member, I don't know love and there's a really good chance I never will. I want to though. At least I did. I wanted it very much but after seeing the highs and lows of Florence, I'm not so sure anymore. [Final warning for massive spoilers:] Florence (iOS [reviewed on an iPad], Android) Developer: Mountains Publisher: Annapurna Interactive Released: February 14, 2018, TBA (Android) MSRP: $2.99 I feel there are two things I should make clear from the outset: I can't give my honest opinion about this game without spoiling nearly everything about it -- so you've been warned -- and, despite Destructoid being primarily a video game website, Florence isn't really a game. Developer Mountains even says so when it refers to it as a 'story' upon completion. Sure, there are micro- and mini-game-like elements in it I use to advance the narrative, but it's not a game. It's an interactive sonnet, a poem, a poesy about people in love, art, artists and the muses that drive us to create. The titular Florence, full name Florence Yeoh, is as relatable a protagonist as I've found in the medium. She's a 25-year-old worker bee at an unnamed company who spends her morning commutes browsing pictures on her smartphone and her evenings eating in front of the television. I'm there to push her through this routine. Everything from brushing her teeth to punching numbers into spreadsheets are simple, touchscreen tasks. These actions aren't meant to challenge me, only to add a level of interactivity to her life. The micro-games, if you'd even call them that, are substitutes for a traditional narrative. Florence has little to no dialog with the only written words found in chapter and location identifiers, as well as in brief conversations with Florence's doting mother. Instead, the 40-minute-or-so story uses expressions, visual cues, and these touchscreen elements to detail this exquisite slice of Florence's life. Honestly, I can't recall a more imaginative presentation of pure storytelling than this. Florence unravels with a mix of comic-book style still imagery and quaint animation. It's incredibly effective. As I drag my finger across the screen, I see stunning snippets of Florence's life play out with the occasional bit of input required from me. This is a truly beautiful product, with an amazing score by Kevin Penkin, but the developers don't want me to dwell on any one moment for too long. No matter how much the ageless art direction captivates me, Florence pushes me onward with subtle cues that beckon me to progress. There's no way to turn these off and I wish there was because, knowing how things turn out, a part of me wants to live in the more joyful moments of Florence's life for as long as I can. But that goes against the point of this story as is made crystal clear in the jaw-droppingly melancholic Chapter 18. Living in the past holds us back. Continually analyzing what could have been means we might miss out on life's calling and that's true for Florence. She's more than just a 9-to-5 pencil pusher. Like me, like all of us, she has dreams. A quick jaunt to the days of her youth reveals a love for art stifled by a mother who'd rather see her daughter study. Like any creator stuck in a career that provides no motivation for weekend explorations of our talent, Florence doesn't pursue her passion until she meets her muse. Looking like a character from a Diablo Cody movie by way of Quentin Blake, Krish is a charming cellist whose music literally sweeps Florence off her feet. After a meet-cute, the two begin a relationship and the magic of Florence's interactivity begins to shine, perhaps no greater than when Flo and Krish have a conversation. The start of a relationship, the first date, is a tricky ordeal as two people struggle to find a comfort level with one another. Florence presents these introductory conversations as puzzles, and as the two grow closer together, the puzzles become easier to piece together until there is no assembly required. It's a magnificent way to show how familiar the couple becomes with one another and, along with such concepts as the passage of time or making room for someone in your life, how simple mechanics can illustrate thoughts and emotions eloquently without the need for dialog. Emojis also help. Florence and Krish's relationship isn't just young love but young artists in love. Krish's life, at least the parts of it I'm shown, is wrapped in the pursuit of his art. He dreams of filling auditoriums with his music and worldwide fame, and it's his expressive detailing of these fantasies that reignites Florence's interest in her art. As time marches on and they survive their first fight, she finds inspiration in him and he finds support in her. Together, they create wonderful art: him with a cello and her with a sketchpad. But art is a selfish pursuit. If there is any lesson I learned from the 90,000 allegories shoved into mother! it's that. Despite the admiration we show our muses, there eventually comes a time when we no longer need them or their inspiration ceases to have an effect on us. As their romance develops, Florence and Krish's artistic pursuits fail to coexist. Eventually, it is his goals and dreams that become their joint focus. As her passion once again fades into the background of a monotonous life, the demands of his music begin to crack the foundation of their relationship. For lovers of love, Florence doesn't have a happy ending. No matter how cute they look together, she and Krish eventually drift apart and go their separate ways. It's a bit too heavy-handed at first, pulling in some clichés from the genre to present despondent emotions, but it absolutely crushes me when it's time for her to actually let go. As her story continues through this post-Krish era, I wonder what Florence is trying to tell me about love. I've seen enough romantic comedies and episodes of Sex and the City to know that love is messy. I've watched my friends cycle through the emotional merry-go-round in their search for a partner as I spent my prime getting fat and playing video games. Making a relationship work is a struggle, from what I can surmise, and Florence doesn't hold back. It's upsetting to watch this bond deteriorate and see her move on afterward, but as Florence finally reaches her full potential, I'm left unsatisfied. I understand how life can get in the way and how easy it can be to put your wants aside for the sake of those you love. But as Florence jumps through the relationship and finds an enemy in monotony, I almost feel robbed of her struggles. The game does a great job of showing me how her responsibilities supersede creative pursuits, but when she finally finds the time to engage her talents, it all comes too easy for her. I watched for several chapters as Krish struggled with the demands of his musical education and the effect it had on their relationship. It was something I could relate to outside of the whole having a relationship thing. But seeing Florence sashay into stardom with no setbacks, stop signs, or stumbles takes this honest depiction of artistic struggle and wraps it up a little too nicely. It's like La La Land in tha—oh God this game is basically just La La Land. Florence is an imaginative, breathtaking, heartbreaking tale of two artists trying a love they're not quite ready for. It's as honest a look at the subject matter as you'll find in a game -- or so I've been told by others who've been writing about it incessantly since its release. But as much as Florence focuses on love, I'm not quite sure it's a fan of it. Perhaps it's because it doesn't play out as I'd hope or maybe I'm too broken to appreciate its beauty, but I walk away from the experience with a rather pessimistic opinion. Love may be the catalyst in Florence, but it's the narcissistic pursuit of their real passion, art, that wins out in the end. The result is a relationship that is a means to an end, nothing more. I get that's quite the bleak take on the tale, but honestly, it's the only message that resonates with me. [This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.] You are logged out. Login | Sign up Florence reviewed by CJ Andriessen #### GREAT Impressive effort with a few noticeable problems holding it back. Won't astound everyone, but is worth your time and cash. How we score: The destructoid reviews guide ##### CJ AndriessenFeatures Editor gamer profile Just what the internet needs: yet another white guy writing about video games. Also, I backed that Bloodstained game. more + disclosurescreate your own gaming blog ### Also on destructoid:Florence (0) From our database:More related stories Filed under... 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Florence (video game)
Gameplay.
"Florence" is divided into 20 chapters, each featuring a different portion of Florence Yeoh's life. The chapters are separated into six acts, which represent different portions of Florence's growth and change.