Steampunk could also be just a little overplayed as of late, however Far: Lone Sails stands out from the highest hat and techno-monocle crowd. Its stark, shifting palette of whites, reds and darkish blues, a bleak and empty world that feels huge round your tiny character, and the centrepiece of the motion: your creaking steam-powered land-ship.
In this quiet post-apocalyptic journey, your tiny little plains-wanderer is tasked with sustaining and singlehandedly crewing this huge vessel throughout the nice plains of a long-dry seabed searching for civilisation out within the wastes. It additionally launches immediately.
I obtained to take just a little peek at Far: Lone Sails at EGX Rezzed just lately, and whereas a crowded conference centre isn’t maybe the perfect setting through which to soak within the quiet, wind-swept environment of the sport, I used to be pleasantly shocked with simply how strong and tactile the world felt. Your ship looks like a convincingly actual vessel, its inside workings ticking alongside as its broad prow crunches its method by crumbling constructions, and its huge wheels slowly minimize their method throughout the sand.
While different video games (reminiscent of Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime and Regular Human Basketball) have experimented with the thought of getting just a little platformer-style character working a automobile in a a lot larger-scale world, Far’s initially extra contemplative tempo provides it a really completely different really feel. You’re not frantically hopping between stations attempting to attain a victory, simply making your method steadily forwards. And if all else fails, you’ve obtained the choice of hopping out of your ship and dragging it (very slowly) throughout the sands as a substitute. A considerably softer ‘failure’ state than most.
As for whether or not there’s sufficient selection within the situations encountered to maintain the central loop of gathering gasoline and travelling throughout the plains participating till the credit roll, that’s one other query totally, and one I’m not outfitted to reply, however I can say that it no less than strikes a robust first impression.
Far: Lone Sails is out now on Steam, GOG & Humble for £11.39/15€/$15
