izigame.me

Exceptional writing accompanied by excellent voice acting.
+ I find it rare to, especially in the last couple of years, find great writing in a game where characters feel alive, real and relatable. Closer the Distance has some of the best collective feel from all the games in recent memory for me personally. Especially how well the subject of loss and how it affects each of us differently. All in all it is a love letter to people who have experienced loss and struggle with moving on. Especially the ending, where most games don’t know how to end, ending was the most moving part of the game where the writing and I believe personal experience really shined.
* One neat detail I love about the game is the design of the needs system. Every person has different needs to be taken care of. In that sense it is a lot more deeper than The Sims and just looking at the needs of the person, you can tell who they are. Without needing to read their history or bio. Like an introvert who needs their alone time and routine to calm down. Or a person who needs to keep herself busy helping others, so she does not blame herself.
There are a couple of small points I think the game could have polished better. The game introduces a character in the middle of the game who arrives into the town. Presenting later what sort of feels like the most important decision in the game. But in the end that decision does not have a real impact, unless you choose one certain option - at least I did not notice while doing all the endings. Also for his own presence and goal in the game, there is not really much the game gave him to do.
- Most critique I would give the game is pacing - the time you have to complete tasks is too short - and the needs system is quite demanding for a story driven game. To make sure you get to complete every task, you have to skip dialogues and let them play in parallel because of the loss of time. Your timing has to be almost perfect and you have to hope rain doesn’t ruin your day when you need to take a run. I'm afraid that for most of the casual players the game can be too stressful and demanding and they might not experience the story because of that. This is even emphasized by the fact that the most impactful activities have to be done in just a couple of days where everything has to be perfectly planned and then you have a couple of days basically just waiting with nothing to do, but just wait for the next story to wrap up. I think even the story would have benefited with more breathing room in between and with a more relaxing vibe (or like casual difficulty).
Wrap-up
But all in all, this is the best game and best story I have played in years and I can imagine so many more stories using this game and system design. Stories from all over the world. Somehow I even ended up imagining WWI stories from trenches handled in this design, the vibe of the game seems perfect for a somber story like that. So here is hoping that this is not the last story this team will introduce to us - and it would be cool if the one traveler would be the only thing connecting them.
And I wish good luck to Osmotic Studios for their future projects ;)