GAMES ARE ART
Falling in Love? Sounds Glorious.
Florence
A story about love and life
The 20-song instrumental soundtrack to Florence, an interactive narrative game from the lead designer of Monument Valley, reveals a lot about the young couple at the heart of the story.
Each character is represented by an instrument, so the melodies are integral to the narrative.
The main theme—the first track on the album—begins as a simple piano line. It’s sweet and melancholy, like Florence herself. Before long, a cello enters—just as Florence falls for a cellist named Krish. Development studio Mountains turned to composer Kevin Penkin, known for his work on Deemo and other games, to finesse these characterizations through sound. It was his idea to assign each character an instrument and then build the soundtrack around them.
“Instruments such as flutes, clarinets, violins, and electronics accompany the leading instruments,” he explains, “all to provide context to how they’d interact with each other.” The music tracks the couple’s relationship to the end, moving from song to song with simple titles like “Happy Together,” “Fight,” and “Drifting.”
When their love is in bloom, the instruments rise in harmonious crescendo. But as it withers, plagued by little squabbles that snowball into insurmountable hurdles, Florence’s piano melody begins to step out alone…just as it did before the couple met. The music is so lovely (and catchy) that it holds up in its own right. Check it out on Apple Music.