Florence

The team at Mountains told me last fall to expect Florence to be more like 500 Days of Summer , not When Harry Met Sally . By this, designer Ken Wong (best known for Monument Valley ) meant that the game doesn’t end in a big hug and a make-out sesh. In fact, Florence isn’t really about a relationship at all. It’s more of a window into a moment in a person’s life — an important and life-changing one, yet also a fleeting one.

– Polygon

Available for $2.99: iOS App Store | Google Play Store

Florence is a game I didn’t hear much about on release, but kept seeing as people created their top games of the decades lists. Naturally, I was curious, and it only being a dollar on the Google Play Store at the time made it a no-brainer for me.

Needless to say, it was a really touching game for me. The soundtrack was great, especially with how Florence’s leitmotif evolved over the course of the game. The touch controls and the way the subtly sped up or slowed down your inputs during particular moments really helped me feel more in Florence’s shoes. The juxtaposition of when these occured, especially, helped create a sense of tension even though you know where things are going.

Narratively, and I am echoing from Allegra’s review on Polygon, I really enjoyed the framing of this as just one particular snapshot in Florence’s life, and how even though it was short lived it did help her to discover something within herself that she continues to nurture going forward. The story is one of heartbreak, but also takes the time and care to show the aftermath and the acts of putting the pieces back together, which really spoke to me as someone who greatly enjoys character driven media.

Man I gotta get around to playing Florence. I own it and have it installed on my phone, just haven’t opened it. About how long is it? And does it have to be played in one sitting, or can you quick exit out (and not lose progress) if you need to?

I think it took me around 2ish hours!

It doesn’t have to be played in one sitting! There’s 20 chapters, all of which are just about 5-10 minutes long. The game does autosave when you finish a chapter, though I’m not sure if it saves your progress if you quick exit in the middle of a chapter. I’ll try and let ya know.

I’d been eyeballing this game for a while, so after seeing this thread I finally took the plunge and bought it. Today I finally got around to playing this while I killed time before and after my jazz theory class. Some of it hit real close to home, and I may have cried a little.

I wonder: When you’re packing up that last box at the end, is it possible to leave the picture behind? I took it, because I’m a hopeless romantic, but I am curious.

Looks like Florence is coming to the Nintendo Switch on February 13th (so next Thursday).

Steam and GOG as well. Here’s the Steam store page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1102130/Florence/

Not sure if there’s been word on pricing yet.

Polygon reported $5.99 for the ports. I’m curious if they’ll make Florence handheld mode only on Switch given how big the touch controls are.

That’s a reasonable price. Lower even than I was expecting.

I’m not sure there are any games that are handheld only though. There are definitely ones that benefit from handheld mode, feature-wise – Sushi Strikers comes to mind – but none with a hard limit, I don’t think. I imagine they could replicate some of the touch features by mapping the sticks to a cursor, but then, I still haven’t played the game, so I’m not sure how that would work for it. It seems likely though given that that’s probably what they will do for the PC port (expect using the mouse instead of a joystick).

Most days I forget the Switch has a touch screen tbh.