Closer the Distance

There is so much heart and artistry in this game. Unfortunately it does not, as a whole, work.

The premise is noble. It's a story about grief and letting go, drawn out slowly with considerable tenderness and sensitivity. The voice actors, the graphic artists, and the music come together lovingly into this vision. Other parts, however, do not.

For one, the narrative is missing necessary context. The story's central pillar is a tiny community trying to stay together, but it's never made clear just why. Nevermind why we should care about it, I never got a grasp on why the people there do. They don't seem to be strongly connected to each other. Here and there are hints of a background story about how this community was created and for what purpose, but it's never shared with us. We, the players, are asked to just accept that community is vital. Alas, it's hard for me to care about something without understanding its point.

And then there's the writing, which too often feels disconnected from the vision. The individual story threads can be illogical, irrelevant, half-baked, or ... just plain uninteresting. Sure, dealing with grief can involve much that is mundane, but if there's nothing said about or added to an experience, then we are left with a series of flat vignettes.

I could have forgiven all that clumsiness, but unfortunately the gameplay itself makes this game hard to recommend.

How would you design a game about grief? Perhaps a point-and-click adventure with lots of documents to read? A Telltale Games-style choose-your-own adventure? A walking sim? All of those could work. But what Closer the Distance chose was to be a The Sims clone. Huh?

It's hard for me to even understand the intent. Maybe the devs wanted us immersed in those mundane everyday tasks? One foot in front of the next, as they say, even when all seems hopeless... Unfortunately, the result is the opposite of immersive. I never felt comfortable with the clunky, unresponsive UI. I never felt like I was in control of my "Sims". Indeed, you are only ever allowed to control a handful of the characters, and their tiny "quests" are predetermined, timed, and are constantly being mysteriously blocked.

For example, I spent several in-game days trying to have one character train with another character. It seemed like I had achieved all the prerequisites, but the option was always disabled, until the opportunity itself disappeared with no explanation. Could it have been a bug? Perhaps, but there were so many similarly frustrating issues that make me think it's by design: You are supposed to not be able to do everything you want. Fair enough? No, not really. I don't mind being challenged by a game, but these challenge feel arbitrary, unnecessary, and opaque. I don't know what I did wrong, but I do know that I was punished by being denied access to game content. Yay.

A The Sims engine is generally a poor fit for conventional storytelling. For example, often events happen at the same time, but you can't pause them individually. There were several instances in which I had to make a choice as to what conversation I wanted to listen to, and too many times that meant I missed out on important details. Once again, my punishment for not timing everything perfectly—not that I even could—was being denied access to game content. Double yay.

I think I get what Closer the Distance is trying to do. And I appreciated many of its nice moments. But by the time I reached the unsatisfyingly open ending I was happy to leave this leaky and awkward experience behind.

I gave it a on Steam. Respond to this review there.