A Long Way to the Nearest Star
This piece of interactive fiction is an important data-point to be considered in the context of Russovian Merger Theory, which predicts the ongoing growth of overlap between the ür-thesis of parser-based text adventures and its newer antithesis to be found in choice-based clickety games.
A Long Way to the Nearest Star could well be a starting-off point for the in-depth analysis of a hypothetical near-perfect synthesis of the two aforementioned forms.
And now I’ll get down from my jocular ivory tower of theoretical smugness…
In its basic structure, A Long Way to the Nearest Star is an exploration-adventure where the player needs to solve object-based puzzles and unlock gated-off sections of the setting, unraveling the backstory while progressing in the game.
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The level of granularity is somewhere between that of a parser and a narrative Twine. There is a traversable world without compass-directions. (It’s easy to create a map with random connections between rooms.) The PC has a sizeable inventory without the sometimes cumbersome fiddly freedom of verbs a parser offers.
The agency of the player is firmly focused on the actions to be undertaken, not on higher-level choices of how to navigate branching narrative threads.
The writing is very good, mostly so in its characterization of the NPC.
The AI-computer SOLIS is by far my favourite NPC of the Comp, and it’s up there with the best ones I’ve encountered in my IF-playing years.
Now I’m off to figure out how to get this Janitor Bot talking.
Great game.
EDIT: Very satisfying endgame.
Full review: A Long Way to the Nearest Star - Details (ifdb.org)