I’ve become sentimental, stupid, sweaty when I’m in love Thirty flights of love from the first time I played it. It’s a magical, fast-firing, realistic looting game that tells its short story using cutscenes, flashbacks, and no dialogue.
It’s been nine years now and so of course it has received its 9th anniversary update. It has been “updated for modern operating systems”, with menus, HUD and UI fixes, as well as Mac and Linux ports. Lovely.
Here is the original trailer:
The trailer features the quote, “Tell a better story in 13 minutes than most games do in 13 hours.” However, it is credited for the cheeky PC Gamer fanzine RPS, so you probably can’t believe whoever wrote that. Here is what they wrote:
We’re usually quick to condemn games that use cinematic language and cram them into an interactive medium, but Thirty Flights of Love uses its borrowed technique so well that it makes Its traditional story feels more interesting, not less. This is a first-person game created by director Edgar Wright of Scott Pilgrim.
It uses montage to tell an incredible amount of story in a short 13 minutes. It uses it to fill in the character’s backstory with fun, stylish jump keys. It uses it to tell a linear story while still allowing players to navigate its levels in ways they choose, without bringing them to a dead end.
I agree with all of that, except for the Scott Pilgrim reference, which feels a bit outdated.
To celebrate the update, TFOL is offering 50% off from Itch.io or Steam, which costs £2 / $2.50 / €50. But if you own it, you might be glad to know that Brendon Chung, the developer of 30 Flights, is currently working on a new game, Thick skin.
