Florence is so much more than a love story

Florence is a new and inventive visual novel for smartphones, and it's the latest game from Ken Wong, the lead designer on the original Monument Valley. It's out now on iOS for £2.99 and is coming soon to Android.

Please note: This article contains extensive spoilers for the plot of Florence.

Florence has fallen in love. Hasn't she? She must have. There has been the distant glimpse, the first encounter - painful, dizzying and memorable. There have been dates and tentative conversations and the first kiss and now she is moving in with her new boyfriend. It is time to place two people's shoes on the shoe rack, to combine kitchen clutter and toiletries and books and doodads and keepsakes. What a wonderful thing! And yet the Tetris, the human Tetris - it will not quite work. There is never quite enough space to make everything fit, to allow both people to be their complete selves. No. If people are truly their things - and in the shorthand of a game so driven by ingenious mechanical contrivances, people must often be their things here - there must be a way, right? This is a story about a blossoming relationship, isn't it? And so this must be a puzzle. How do we make it all fit?

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