FAR: Lone Sails is a side-scrolling adventure where you explore a desolate landscape with the aid of a vehicle that requires constant fuel and attention. There are 14 Steam Achievements, all documented in the walkthrough below. Welcome to the Ship. FAR: Lone Sails is an adventure game, published by Mixtvision Games on the Android platform. In fact, initially, the game was only available on Console and PC. But thanks to its deep and engaging content, the game has received numerous awards during the period 2015 – 2019. FAR: Lone Sails is a side-scrolling adventure where you explore a desolate landscape with the aid of a vehicle that requires constant fuel and attention. There are 14 Steam Achievements, all documented in the walkthrough below. FAR: Lone Sails is an exploration adventure video game developed by the Swiss development company Okomotive. The game released on Microsoft Windows and OS X on 17 May 2018, with Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions released in April 2019, and the Nintendo Switch version on 18 August 2019. It was released in Japan on January 23, 2019.
FAR: Lone Sails full game playthrough (no commentary) My Second playthrough of the game. First 50 minutes are blind gameplay. Buy the game and support the ch.
| FAR: Lone Sails | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Okomotive |
| Publisher(s) | Mixtvision |
| Engine | Unity |
| Platform(s) | macOS, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS |
| Release | May 17, 2018 |
| Genre(s) | Vehicle Adventure |
FAR: Lone Sails is an exploration adventure video game developed by the Swiss development company Okomotive. The game released on Microsoft Windows and macOS on 17 May 2018, with Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions released in April 2019, and the Nintendo Switch version on 18 August 2019.[1][2][3] It was released in Japan on January 23, 2019.[4]
Gameplay[edit]
In FAR, the player controls the driver of a large vehicle as they search through a post-apocalypse setting.[5][6] The game's vehicle is a hybrid between a land and sea vehicle that has been modified a number of times.[7] The game is played from a side-scrolling perspective, with the vehicle interior seen as a cross-section. To control the vehicle the player must move around inside it, operating stations and pressing buttons to perform various functions that keep the vehicle moving, such as engaging the engine or filling the boiler with fuel sources found over the course of the player's journey.[6][8] The various parts of the vehicle can take damage, requiring the player to stop and extinguish fires and repair damaged systems. They are also required to solve puzzles in the world to allow the vehicle to pass and collect upgrades for it.[9][10] The game has no enemies, though the player-character can die due to environmental hazards, and will restart at the last checkpoint.[11]
While the game starts with a burial scene,[8] the rest of the game's background story is intentionally vague, with the developers intending for the player's curiosity to motivate them to explore. The landscapes passed during the game show the ruins of a technically-advanced civilization, and a world where the oceans have dried up, leaving massive ships scuttled on dry beds and bouts of extremely hazardous weather.
Development[edit]
FAR began in 2015 as the Bachelor's student project of lead developer Don Schmocker at the Zurich University of the Arts. During his master's degree he continued the development together with his fellow student Goran Saric. They founded the game studio Okomotive in February 2017 and expanded the team with other students and friends from University.[12] Schmocker was inspired by Strandbeests, the book Stephen Biesty's Incredible Cross-Sections, The Straight Story, and games such as Journey and LittleBigPlanet when designing FAR. Looking to take a new approach to the use of vehicles in video games, the developers aimed to create a game where the player was dependent on their vehicle, forming an emotional attachment to it over the course of the game.[7]
The game is developed in Unity, and the developers use Blender and Adobe Photoshop for the 3D and 2D graphics respectively.[7]
Reception[edit]
| Reception | ||||||
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Writing for Mashable, Anna Washenko named the game as one of her favourites from E3 2016, calling it a 'simple but lovely game'.[9] After playing the game at GDC 2017, Chris Livingston of PC Gamer described FAR as 'one of the most intuitive games' he had played, also praising the visual design and music.[17] On Polygon, Charlie Hall described the game as having 'more meaning, conveyed silently, than many major AAA games released so far this year'.[8] Kyle Hilliard of Game Informer praised the game's ability to connect the player to their vehicle, the world building, and the puzzles.[10]Limmy described the game as 'brilliant and beautiful' and 'almost had a tear in my eye cos it was so nice, no joke'.[18]
GameSpot scored the game 8/10, praising the visual style and ease of play.[19] Edwin Evans-Thirlwell of Eurogamer recommended the game, describing it as an 'enormously warm-hearted adventure' and commenting positively on the game's pace and environments.[20]
Far: Lone Sails Cracker Barrel
The game was a finalist in the Best Student Game category at the 2017 Independent Games Festival.[21][22] It was also nominated for 'Best Visual Design' at the 2018 Golden Joystick Awards,[23][24] and for 'Game, Puzzle' at the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards.[25]
References[edit]
- ^Chalk, Andy (15 March 2018). 'Far: Lone Sails, a land yacht journey across a barren desert, is coming in May'. PC Gamer. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
- ^LeClair, Kyle (17 March 2018). 'Vehicular Adventure Game Far: Lone Sails Sets Course For a May 17 Release Date'. Hardcore Gamer. Retrieved 23 April 2018.
- ^'Far: Lone Sails'. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
- ^'Far: Lone Sails'. Nintendo Japan. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
- ^Foxall, Sam (5 February 2017). 'Sail the literal open ocean in solitary adventure game Far: Lone Sails'. PCGamesN. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
- ^ abLahti, Evan (16 June 2016). 'Take a weirdly charming roadtrip through the post-apocalypse in Far'. PC Gamer. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
- ^ abcCouture, Joel (15 February 2017). 'Road to the IGF: Student project FAR: Lone Sails'. Gamasutra. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
- ^ abcHall, Charlie (16 May 2018). 'Far: Lone Sails is a poem disguised as a video game'. Polygon. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
- ^ abWashenko, Anna (20 June 2016). 'The 10 best independent games at E3 2016'. Mashable. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
- ^ abHilliard, Kyle (18 May 2018). 'Far: Lone Sails'. Game Informer. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
- ^Nielsen, Holly (2017-08-25). 'The 11 best games at Gamescom: Mario Odyssey, new Assassin's Creed and more'. The Guardian. ISSN0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-09-04.
- ^'Okomotive wins prize at Swiss game awards'. Switzerland Global Enterprise. 19 February 2019.
- ^'FAR: Lone Sails for PC Reviews'. Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
- ^'FAR: Lone Sails for PlayStation 4 Reviews'. Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
- ^'FAR: Lone Sails for Xbox One Reviews'. Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
- ^'FAR: Lone Sails for Switch Reviews'. Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
- ^Livingston, Chris (4 March 2017). 'This week's highs and lows in PC gaming'. PC Gamer. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
- ^Limmy (2019-04-16). 'Last night I streamed a brilliant and beautiful game called FAR: Lone Sails @FARtheGame. Almost had a tear in my eye at one point cos it was so nice, no joke. Completing it today at 9am right here:http://www.twitch.tv/brianlimond'. @daftlimmy. Retrieved 2019-04-16.
- ^O'Connor, James (15 May 2018). 'FAR: Lone Sails Review: Come Sail Away'. GameSpot. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
- ^Evans-Thirlwell, Edwin (22 May 2018). 'FAR: Lone Sails review - outsailing the apocalypse'. Eurogamer. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
- ^'Finalists and Winners'. Independent Games Festival. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
- ^Chalk, Andy (9 January 2017). 'Independent Games Festival Awards finalists announced'. PC Gamer. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
- ^Hoggins, Tom (24 September 2018). 'Golden Joysticks 2018 nominees announced, voting open now'. The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 6 October 2018.
- ^Sheridan, Connor (16 November 2018). 'Golden Joystick Awards 2018 winners: God of War wins big but Fortnite gets Victory Royale'. GamesRadar+. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
- ^'Nominee List for 2018'. National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers. 11 February 2019. Archived from the original on 13 February 2019. Retrieved 19 February 2019.
External links[edit]
A beautiful, but flawed mini-masterpiece, FAR: Lone Sails has some wonderful scenes coupled with some frustrating bugs.
Type: Single-player
Genre: Action, Adventure, Indie
Developer: Okomotive
Publisher: Mixtvision
Release Date: 18 May, 2018
Introduction
FAR: Lone Sails is the debut title from indie developer, Okomotive. It’s been on my wishlist for many months, ever since I first saw it in Steam’s upcoming games list, but it’s turned out to be not quite what I expected.
Far: Lone Sails Crack Torrent
The story behind the game is only hinted at, inferred by the landscapes you pass through while you play, and the scarce inanimate remains of a society that is no more, vanished in some undescribed apocalypse. Even the character you play is mostly hidden from you, leaving you to guess at its age, gender, and appearance beneath the obfuscation of its red coat and hat. I played through thinking that she was a young girl, perhaps 10 at most, but I’m not sure why I thought that; I’ll go with it for now, anyway.
The game begins as she is looking at a photograph, presumably over a grave. Leaving the grave and her home, she ventures out into the world and finds a strange vehicle, an okomotive. This is almost indescribable, like a wooden steampunk bus that a pacifist Mad Max would drive. Feeding anything she can find into the okomotive’s fuel container — which seems to be able to process anything into some sort of glowing liquid fuel — the girl presses various buttons and manages to get the okomotive moving.
Where she is heading is anyone’s guess; the world seems completely devoid of human life except for her own.
Presentation
The most obvious appeal of FAR: Lone Sails is the impressive art style. The game is rendered in 3D, but it’s a 2D side-scroller. An understated colour palette is used throughout with contrasting bright red for the protagonist’s clothing and buttons that you need to press. You’ll see occasional green or blue in the environment, but generally the colours are muted, even drab, with lots of faded browns and greys.
The environment portrays a desolate, uninhabited world in which leftover devices are all that remain, faulty or fallen into disrepair. The attention to graphical detail is amazing, but mixed with deliberate lack of detail in a few places, such as the protagonist’s model: no discerning features are present; she’s basically a walking red overcoat.
The okomotive and the contraptions that remain in use have a great sort of steampunk feel to them. The game relies heavily on physics and you can feel the huge inertia when your vehicle starts to move, while hitting the STEAM button is like a steampunk nitrous oxide. The vehicle comprises a number of separate physics objects, too, so in collisions or other rapid transfers of momentum it is impressive to watch them all individually moving.
Lighting and special effects are great. Flames are convincing and dynamic lights cast impressive shadows that add to the ambiance. I love the headlight flicker when you power up your okomotive, and the night-time storms are fantastic! There is no in- game UI beyond a couple of temporary instructions right at the start. The pause and main menu are simple and straightforward.
The game’s soundtrack is spectacular as well. The music is lovely and includes relaxing sorts of ambient, uplifting, and dramatic tracks. They’re expertly woven into the story and connected to in-game events; when you first get the okomotive moving the music is perfect! Once you find a radio, occasionally you’ll hear very old-style classic jazz, too, which is a nice contrast.
Much of the game is played without music, too. The okomotive makes all sorts of crazy sounds, like a backfiring steam train, and the environmental sounds are top notch. Weather effects not only look fantastic, but they sound great, too, and change depending on where the camera is positioned. There’s so much going on that when the game does treat you to a few moments of silence it’s almost deafening.
Graphics settings are limited, but the game moves along very nicely; the only performance issues I found seemed to be related to a bug.
Gameplay
FAR: Lone Sails is a very short 2D side-scroller, focusing on physics and button-based puzzles with a few minor platforming elements. There are no enemies, but the environment can cause your death or destruction of the okomotive. The game isn’t difficult — I think the intention is to focus on the journey rather than the challenge — though the many bugs can make it harder than it should be.
Far Lone Sails Free Download
The first 15 to 30 minutes is mostly spent learning the simple controls and familiarising yourself with the okomotive. The game doesn’t provide any hand-holding beyond telling you how to move and which button to press to pick up objects, so you must learn how the okomotive works. There’s also no text in the game, beyond an occasional billboard, poster, or sign making up part of the background in front of which you travel, so it’s left to you to understand what you’re doing and try to make sense of why. That aspect of the game works surprisingly well; after the first few minutes of confusion I really appreciated the game’s pacing.
The basic tasks are essentially the same throughout the game, however, leading to a feeling of repetition even in such a short space of time. You’ll spend half the game feeding collectible objects into the okomotive’s fuel converter or pressing the ‘go faster’ button, and the other half solving simple, if nicely designed and presented, button-pressing platformer puzzles. There’s not much variation.
The game is also rather buggy. I think I finished my first play through in around three hours, but over 45 minutes of that was spent dealing with bugs. That’s an unacceptably high proportion.
The most common issue I encountered was at any of the barricade ‘checkpoints’, where you have to gather speed in the okomotive and use its inertia to smash your way through. Often this simply didn’t work. No matter how many times I tried the barricade wouldn’t break. Apparently this is quite common and the standard advice is to reload the previous save and replay the section before the barricade again, and most of the time this works. At one point, though, I thought I must have finished the game, as nothing I did would let me break through. After reloading previous saves over and over it finally worked, though; I think it took me four attempts.
Other issues included the vehicle endlessly falling through the terrain on a save (reload a previous one to fix), the game reverting to a 1 FPS slideshow on loading (I had to reboot to fix), and a number of strange physics issues including the player character being blown upwind harder than I could walk (so I became stuck on the right of the screen; reload to fix), the wind sometimes not affecting the okomotive’s sails until you lower and re-raise it, and the wind not affecting the okomotive’s little red flag until you raise the sails, at which point the flag suddenly springs to life.
Controller support is provided, but there seems to be no way to remap controls. It’s possible to get yourself stuck, unable to return to the okomotive or move it either, requiring a reload. I’m not sure if the achievements all work; I thought I unlocked two at the end of my second play, but only one of them is shown. And the brakes sometimes disengage by themselves, though this may be a plot device.
Verdict
FAR: Lone Sails is a beautiful game and I’m glad I was able to experience it, but it’s marred by bugs. Combine the bugs with the very short play time and I think I personally would have been a bit disappointed had I paid full price.
If you have some spare cash and think you would appreciate its atmospheric, if rather melancholy journey, then it’s worth a look, but if your gaming wallet is tight then you might want to wait for a sale.