Lord almighty, video games take a while to make, ‘ey? Especially if you’re just one person working on it by yourself. Such is the case with Faraway, out today, an arcade game that reminds me of the early days of PS3 indies “about a shooting star that creates constellations to stay alive,” all made single-handedly by creator of cult-classic mobile game Eliss, Steph Thirion. Did I mention that Faraway took 16 years to make? Like I said, game development is a lengthy process.
Looking at Faraway, and knowing how long it took to produce, it doesn’t surprise me to come from a dev who managed to release a mobile game in the early days of the platform, long before free-to-play got its chokehold on the industry. It also really does feel like it should be sitting amongst the likes of PixelJunk, this thing should be something I’m desperate to play on my PS3 while I wait for my controller to charge.
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As mentioned, you are a shooting star, a “spark meant to shine and vanish in a blink.” But still you persist, connecting to and wrapping yourself around starts to “harvest their energy,” in turn lengthening your own life, and of course, in arcadey fashion, racking up a nice score. It looks like game design as poetry, everything you’re looking at procedurally generated to bring freshness to every run. I can fully envision this as a “one more run” kind of arcade game, the best kind, especially in an age long past the need to shove in another of your hard earned coins.
Faraway conceptually charms me because it taps into a style of game we don’t get to see much of any more. What I’m saying is, I’m just a teensy bit sick of how many roguelikes there are, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want a game I can just hop in and out of at my own whims. Sure, arcade games might not be in vogue, I just miss them a bit. In any case, Faraway is available to pick up on Steam right now. Seems like it’ll be worth a punt!
