Closer The Distance Review – A Melancholic Sim with Deep Emotional Impact

Introduction to Closer The Distance

The fun part of any simulation game is managing an egregious amount of bars and panicking whilst trying to make sure that you’re using your time wisely. This means that most often, the simulation games that offer the most interesting stories are dating sims, but even then, it’s still dependent on you not catastrophically fumbling your run. The German-based Osmotic Studios, though, had an idea for a simulation game that I had never before seen. Published by Skybound Games, Closer The Distance is a simulation game with all the bars you’d expect of a good one- and a deeply emotional narrative.

A Heartfelt Story with a Supernatural Twist

Within the title, Closer The Distance, you play as Angela, the oldest daughter of a small family in the quaint little town of Yesterby. Except there’s a slight catch.

She’s dead.

There’s been an accident somewhere down the road; she went out late, she wasn’t back for dinner, and now the cops are at her home. Yesterby is still already recovering from another death that shook the village, and now Angela is gone too. But it does seem she can talk to her younger sister, Connie.
And so, the two of them will attempt to team up and stop Yesterby from falling apart entirely.

Balancing Emotional and Physical Needs

Guiding Conny as Angela means selecting things on the map with interactable prompts. Sitting down to read, write, knit, or talk to the various villagers are some of the various actions she’ll be able to perform at your behest. On the left of the screen is a profile with her various objectives, the history of your choices, various mood bars, and her current status. If those bars, such as hunger or solitude, aren’t filled, for example, she’ll find more complex tasks more difficult, or she’ll be unable to do them, so it’s best to keep them filled.

The voice acting is phenomenal, adding a layer of emotional intensity that perfectly complements the game’s poignant narrative.

If you want to go over all of your options, you can click on any of these bars, as well as the objectives, and you’ll be given a zoomed-out view of the village. This view will display any of the corresponding actions, and you can pause the clock to give yourself some time to process. It sounds fairly straightforward, right up until you get access to other characters, who you will be managing simultaneously.

Gameplay Mechanics: Immersive and Stressful

It isn’t just a case of completing the objectives as they appear, as many objectives offer choices with mutually exclusive results. Some lead to aesthetic differences, others affect relationships, and you can fail them. It won’t net you a game over, but you will feel the pain. With only a limited amount of time at your disposal, I still have to wonder if it’s even possible to clear everyone’s objectives in just one playthrough. Theoretically, it should be possible, but it’s also very difficult and I haven’t been successful yet. And y’know what? Given everyone’s mental state, even if you are prodding them, that’s just how it goes.

Closer the Distance is a unique simulation game that carries a melancholic tone while stressing you out with its time management mechanics.

Closer the Distance is a very special type of simulation game, as it manages to carry a very melancholic tone whilst stressing you out. In a dose of fantastic ludonarrative success, you can immerse yourself in the frustrations of the town further because of the gameplay mechanics. You can’t just watch everyone at once; you’ll even have to make choices as to who you listen to, and with the lack of a raw backlog, that’s a lack of information you’ll have to deal with.

Visual and Audio Presentation

The presentation of this game is immaculate. I adore the autumnal color scheme that makes Yesterby feel both so homely and yet so cold. Houses are little dioramas that have their walls and rooms become transparent so you can see what the characters are doing. The cast themselves are very expressively animated, enough so you can easily identify anything important from afar, even with the stylistic models.

What little is lost from the lack of facial expression in their character models is recouped tenfold in the voice acting. The voice work is phenomenal, especially considering how poignant and laden with emotional intensity this game’s scenario is. Every actor has done a fantastic job. When you couple those performances with some immaculate sound design (and vocal songs), it creates a heavy atmosphere that is pitch-perfect.

And if you think that it might be too much for you, you can rewind your Save File. I wouldn’t recommend doing so until you’ve completed a run for the first time, but I would highly recommend several playthroughs so you can see the ins and outs of the very well-written cast. I had actually intended for my second playthrough of the game to be one that intentionally messes things up for everyone- but the cast is so interesting, and I was so engrossed that I couldn’t bring myself to do so, so easily.

Final Thoughts on Closer The Distance

Closer the Distance is a unique take on the life sim genre. It creates an incredibly intimate experience that is freely accessible to all while also presenting gameplay challenges that allows players who are fond of stressful time management to push their skills to the limit.