Thirty Flights of Loving and Environmental Storytelling

On Narrative Architecture

Environmental storytelling is a powerful tool that video games can use to create powerful experiences that draw the player into the game. In reality, we naturally pick up information from the details in the spaces around us, and use them to make deductions about other people and our surroundings, and it is natural that good narrative design takes this element and implements it in the virtual space of the game. Jenkins (2004) states in his article Game Design as Narrative Architecture:
        Environmental storytelling creates the preconditions

        for an immersive narrative experience in at least one of

        four ways: spatial stories can evoke pre-existing

        narrative associations; they can provide a staging

        ground where narrative events are enacted; they may

        embed narrative information within their mise-en-scene;

        or they provide resources for emergent narratives. (p. 123)

These principles are essential to the designing of narrative, and many of them are prevalent in Thirty Flights of Loving.

Regarding Thirty Flights of Loving

Thirty Flights of Loving is more of a story or experience than a game; though there are mechanics present they serve to add more towards the narrative than the gameplay that is present. Regardless, it still uses the principles described above and it is easy to claim these core elements make up the entirety of the experience.

The only principle not used is regarding the creation of emergent narratives; Thirty Flights is intended as a guided experience, and gameplay is minimal which restricts the possibility for emergent stories crafted by the player's individual experience.

Pre-existing Narrative Associations

Immediately after being dropped into the game, the player's environment and its details call upon some presumed associations in the mind of the player to help establish the overarching mood. The newspapers report of unrest and prohibition, and it is quickly learned by the player that they are a large part in some rather underground activities. The environmental touches, in both the action-packed scenes and the somber, melancholic apartment segments evoke the ideas of crime dramas and noir detective stories.

Staging Ground

It is difficult to divorce this principle from spacial narratives, since it is difficult to thing of events taking place without any form of stage. Thirty Flights only uses a small amount of locations, but hints that these environments are much larger than what is initially seen, and everything from passports to looking out at a quiet city suggests that there is a real and breathing world outside of the player's guided experience.

Embedded Narrative Information

Most of the details of this experience that truly make it special are in its details. The bottles at the bar clearly specify its drinks are non-alcoholic and a sign affixed near the entrance states the government's policy in regards to what is stocked. In hidden places, the beverages are of a illegal variety. Government signs warning the player that it is illegal to access the roof are quickly forgotten when you walk past them. The meager arrangements of the player's apartment speaks to either their modesty or how often they are on the move. The missing leg of one of your companions is also very telling, serving as a detail that marks the sequential order of the game's disjointed events.

Jenkins, H. (2004). Game design as narrative architecture. Computer, 44, s3.