The Indie Informer

I went hands-on with a handful of fantastic games over the winter break and have been teasing previews for them for too long. To help you forgive my lateness, I’ll begin with a little bit of murder.

Faraway, just so we’re clear, is not a title one might expect to inspire bloodlust. Its gameplay balances meditation and strategy like a satisfying seesaw. Its audio and visual design are clean and absorbing. However, solo developer Steph Thirion made the mistake of telling me my performance, which would have stunned him only an hour ago, was now just second-best. The person before me, he clarified, had taken to the cosmic puzzler with an ease beyond his expectation, and my only path to becoming number one meant killing off the representative from Digital Trends who was so dazzling.

And so, Giovanni Colantonio must die.

With that out of the way, let’s focus on Faraway, which the creator describes interestingly as, “an immersive, both challenging and chill, procedurally generated audiovisual experience about creating constellations.” Sinking into the lulling mechanics, in which a shooting star makes its way across a dark field dotted with points of light, I realize I have little control.

My star glides forward without my input and will continue along its trajectory unless I influence its path. I can do this by catching it in the gravitational pull of another star, swinging my shimmering projectile around the other star’s orbit by holding on to the shoulder button. It’ll shoot off again once I let go, hopefully in the direction I was hoping for.

Developer Steph Thirion has also outlined the player’s basic goal, fittingly, in the form of my star’s inner, and very poetic, monologue. “I am a shooting star! A spark meant to shine and vanish in a blink,” the game’s description reads. “But I will travel! I will mark my trail in every firmament. I will live to see the universe.” And that is your entire objective. To fulfill the star’s wish by flinging it around various zones ready to become constellations.

Stringing together these bracelets of light has rules. I can’t cross a line I’ve already created or else the starry shape would be marred. This means piloting with care is a must — though that’s easier said than done when I have such little control over my movement. Thus the strategy. I have to study a potential constellation to plan when to zig, when to zag, and when to double back to solve the galactic riddle. As I unlock more levels, Faraway‘s riddles grow more complex and more rewarding.