Player knowledge is an integral part of Thirty Flights of Loving. That means PLAY THROUGH THE GAME FIRST. It takes about 15 minutes to play though. Play it in a quiet environment with no distractions. Check it out. If you are done, read on.

Since the game is so very short, even looking at the screenshots in the community hub can ruin the experience. So don’t do it.

A great many people in the hub are frustrated with Thirty Flights of Loving due to its short and liner nature. No one had this problem with Gravity Bone, but let’s face it. Gravity Bone was free.

Thirty Flights of Loving to me, feels like an experiment to see how much of a story you can fit into a game in how concise of a time frame using no words. To that end, this is a game which achieves its goals. A lot of developers can learn from this. You are never forced to look around the environment like you are in say, the new Tomb Raider game. This is a very important statement that the game is making.

That said, well done Brendan Chung. Now let’s see you use this methodology in an actual GAME.

The big issue here is that there is so little to actually DO in this wonderfully detailed world that we are provided with that it is understandably frustrating to many players. Towards the beginning there is a portion where the player walks through a short hallway with a railing that fences of a long death fall in a cavern. There is an invisible barrier that prevents the player from falling to his death. WHAT? I can’t even KILL MYSELF?

The brevity of the story delivery comes at the cost of interactivity. Because of this, most people in the hub understandably warn new buyers to simply watch a 15 minute let’s play on youtube and save five dollars.

I kind of agree. Unless it goes on sale. I would say its worth 2.50. Not five bucks.

Knocking on a Door in the Hotel Hallway

On the way up the stairwell, don't follow the two NPCs. Instead, go to one of the other hotel room doors and press the E key. The player will knock on the door and be greeted with a leer from another guest hiding behind a chain lock, then have the door abruptly slammed again. This was the only thing in the game I felt was truly there for me to find as opposed to something I was forced to see.

This scene appears in the Teltale game "Poker Night 2".



The Quake II Engine In Action

TFOL is built in the Quake II engine. This rears its head in the overly complex saving system. Does it not seem odd that a 15 minute game with no real way to die is set up to house a hundred mid game saves? I assume this is a limitation of the engine. Then again, Mr. Chung may have just been lazy.

The Assassin from Gravity Bone

The Assassin from Gravity Bone is standing around at the rooftop dinner party. The moment where she shoots the player in Gravity Bone was the greatest moment to come out of Blendo Games. It was a pleasure to see her, unfortunately there is zero interactivity with her. She makes no sound or gesture upon pressing the E key. She ignores you.

Death

In most places, death is prevented by instant respawn. This can be seen in areas where the player would normally fall to his death. There is, however, one place where you can die. The secret door in the beggining of the game can do this. After going through the door, hit the switch to open it again and Citizen Abel is crushed to death on the reverse side.

Film/TV References

The wikipedia page for this game claims the developer is a film buff and included references to:
Three Days of the Condor,
The Conversation,
Delicatessen,
Chungking Express,
As Tears Go By
Koyaanisqatsi,
The Animaniacs,
TailSpin

Edit 6/14/2013 - Added the section on Death and noted the reference in Poker Night 2.
Edit 2/17/2014 - Fixed a typo in the description. Can't believe I never saw that.