Floor 13 is a single-player computer game set in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, where the player is the director of a secret governmental agency involved in clandestine domestic operations. The headquarters is hidden on the thirteenth floor

Thirteenth floor

Thirteenth floor is a designation of a level of a multi-level building that is often omitted in countries where the number is considered unlucky...

 of a building

Canary Wharf

Canary Wharf is a major business district located in London, United Kingdom. It is one of London's two main financial centres, alongside the traditional City of London, and contains many of the UK's tallest buildings, including the second-tallest , One Canada Square...

 in London Docklands, hence the title. The game was developed in 1991 by Virgin Interactive

Virgin Interactive

Virgin Interactive was a British video game publisher. It was formed as Virgin Games Ltd. in 1981. The company became much larger after purchasing the budget label, Mastertronic in 1987. It was part of the Virgin Group...

, a now-defunct division of the Virgin Group

Virgin Group

Virgin Group Limited is a British branded venture capital conglomerate organisation founded by business tycoon Richard Branson. The core business areas are travel, entertainment and lifestyle. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by Companies House, who class it as a holding...

.

Plot

The player takes on the role of the Director General

Director-general

The term director-general is a title given the highest executive officer within a governmental, statutory, NGO, third sector or not-for-profit institution.-European Union:...

 of the "Department of Agriculture and Fisheries", a non-existent Executive Agency

Executive agency

An executive agency, also known as a next-step agency, is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate in order to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly or Northern Ireland...

 that conceals a secret police

Secret police

Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....

 which keeps the government popular by any means necessary. Answering only to the Prime Minister

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...

, the Director General has the power to use wiretapping

Telephone tapping

Telephone tapping is the monitoring of telephone and Internet conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitoring connection was an actual electrical tap on the telephone line...

, surveillance

Surveillance

Surveillance is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people. It is sometimes done in a surreptitious manner...

, smear tactics

Smear campaign

A smear campaign, smear tactic or simply smear is a metaphor for activity that can harm an individual or group's reputation by conflation with a stigmatized group...

, disinformation

Disinformation

Disinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately. For this reason, it is synonymous with and sometimes called black propaganda. It is an act of deception and false statements to convince someone of untruth...

, burglary

Burglary

Burglary is a crime, the essence of which is illicit entry into a building for the purposes of committing an offense. Usually that offense will be theft, but most jurisdictions specify others which fall within the ambit of burglary...

, kidnapping

Kidnapping

In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...

, torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

, and assassination

Assassination

To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...

 to keep the government popular with the people.

In addition to the Director General's regular duties suppressing and removing those who threaten the status quo

Status quo

Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...

, there is also a subplot

Subplot

A subplot is a secondary plot strand that is a supporting side story for any story or the main plot. Subplots may connect to main plots, in either time and place or in thematic significance...

 involving his membership in a secret society

Secret society

A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...

 called "The Secret Masters of Thoth

Thoth

Thoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat...

". These missions, which are received from a "Secret Master" wearing the vestments of an Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

ian pharaoh

Pharaoh

Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...

, involve more bizarre opposition than regular missions; these missions include protecting a fellow member from a Mafia

Mafia

The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

 assassination, foiling an attempt to subvert the nation by pod people

The Body Snatchers

The Body Snatchers is a 1955 science fiction novel by Jack Finney, originally serialized in Colliers Magazine in 1954, which describes the fictional town of Santa Mira, California being invaded by seeds that have drifted to Earth from space...

 in key positions, the protection of the Church of the SubGenius

Church of the SubGenius

The Church of the SubGenius is a "parody religion" organization that satirizes religion, conspiracy theories, unidentified flying objects, and popular culture. Originally based in Dallas, Texas, the Church of the SubGenius gained prominence in the 1980s and 1990s and maintains an active presence on...

 from a scandal, and restraining the growing power of the Illuminati

Illuminati

The Illuminati is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776...

, among others.

Gameplay

During the course of the game, the player must walk a metaphor

Metaphor

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

ical tightrope

Tightrope walking

Tightrope walking is the art of walking along a thin wire or rope, usually at a great height. One or more artists performs in front of an audience or as a publicity stunt...

, with two possible ways to lose the game; every 21 days, the Prime Minister reviews the opinion poll

Opinion poll

An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence...

s and will terminate the Director General's job if his popularity is under 50%. If he still has the lead, the Director General will be given more resources to work with. This outcome can be easily averted with finesse and subtlety — however, if the player is clumsy or blatant, the Prime Minister will quickly terminate the Director General's life. The last Director General (jokingly named after Richard Branson

Richard Branson

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, best known for his Virgin Group of more than 400 companies....

, the owner of the Virgin Group) suffered from a severe case of defenestration

Defenestration

Defenestration is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window.The term "defenestration" was coined around the time of an incident in Prague Castle in the year 1618. The word comes from the Latin de- and fenestra...

at the hands of Mr. Garcia, and the same will happen to the new Director General if he gets too far out of line.

The game has two possible endings (not counting being terminated, either way); if the player has successfully navigated through every scandal encountered for an entire year while keeping the approval rating above 50%, the government realizes that the player knows too much and appoints him or her Prime Minister — with a final note to "enjoy it while it lasts". The other ending involves successfully completing all seven Secret Master missions; the player is anointed the new head of the society and the face of the character is shown. The final note of this ending: "Was it worth it?"