So Far

by Andrew Plotkin profile

Surreal
1996

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Number of Reviews: 4
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Puzzle-heavy surreal game. Like Porpentine before Porpentine, February 3, 2016
by MathBrush
Related reviews: 2-10 hours

I played "So far" years ago, made it to the bird-animal farm, and never got any further. It was just overwhelming. I don't like games that are so extremely open-ended that you have no idea if what you are doing is helpful or game ending. That's not to say that I dislike non-linear games; a lot of non-linear games have items that suggest what you need to do, and then you find a way to do it.

In "So Far", you are utterly clueless most of the time. So I just gave in after a few years, grabbed a walkthrough, and checked out the game. The worlds I found were fascinating and alien, like many of Porpentine's games.

I was surprised that many of the worlds were connected with abstraction and metaphor; the first two worlds put me off by making me think they would all be well-established alien worlds without any explanation.

Having gone through with a walkthrough once, I plan on playing again, relying on my memory of the last attempt but not referring to the walkthrough. Hopefully, this will let me explore more, and have fun with some puzzles whose solution I didn't understand or can't remember.

For those who want a taste of the abstract worlds, there is a world where (Spoiler - click to show)everything is dark and everything is sound.

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