Beauty in Simplicity

Written by Danielle Karthauser

Florence is a short narrative mobile phone game about large adult problems and experiences. The game follows Florence, a 25-year-old living on her own and tired of her tedious day to day routine.

Although the gameplay is oftentimes simplistic in execution (i.e. basic math problems, piecing a puzzle together), it is this simplicity that beautifully establishes character and is used to illustrate beats of the story. The game was developed for people who don’t play a lot of games, and creator Ken Wong says, “I was interested in making non-violent games. I think violent games are great, I grew up with them, but there are enough of those in the world. And I wanted to explore what kind of stories and what kind of dynamics we can get without resorting to violence.”

Made with non-gamers in mind and specifically interested in different methods of gameplay when compared to the majority of games, Florence takes a simple but effective approach to tell it’s story. While the game is about adult life and the trials and tribulations that come with that, the gameplay is far from what is associated with being an adult.

The game requires the player to fit puzzle pieces together, color in objects, place shapes, and more. At its most complex, the player is required to solve simple math problems. These actions are mostly associated with early development learning, spanning from birth to early elementary school. Florence’s story deals heavily with loneliness, relationships, and feelings of insecurity, things which young children will not yet have experienced in the same capacity. The characters go to work, argue, compromise, and do adult activities. Yet this disconnect between adult story and childlike gameplay doesn’t feel disconnected by any means. In fact, it feels very appropriate for the medium.

Florence presents difficult and very true to life experiences and problems and has the player experience them through easy and manageable ways. One example of this is when Florence and Krish have their first conversation, the player has to place pieces of a puzzle together. The pieces start out smaller and it takes longer to put them together. As they get to know each other better, the pieces become larger and easier to place together, illustrating how well they are connecting.

When Florence and Krish argue, the player has to do the same thing but instead the pieces are jagged and it is not as intuitive to fit them together. When the conflict grows more heated and the characters are saying things they may not mean, all the player has to do is drag the speech bubble in the designated area, requiring very little thought or work. After all, it is easy to say something hurtful or something we do not mean in the heat of battle.

After the two have a big argument, the player is supposed to drag ripped up pieces of paper to form a picture. The problem is, the pieces are constantly drifting apart. No matter if the player puts the paper together, like Florence and Krish’s relationship, it will always be moving apart. These small gameplay details are not extraordinary by any stretch of the imagination, yet they do a lot to illustrate what is going on in the story.

Though at first glance Florence may come off as lacking, especially for those who play games regularly, it contains a lot of depth in ways that aren’t always acknowledged in video games. Just because something is simple or small doesn’t automatically make it undeserving. Through its simplistic gameplay, Florence is able to illustrate real problems in quick and manageable ways. In some capacity, the game is putting life into a different perspective, and this can help all of us when tackling our own adult experiences and problems.