We encountered a wonderful surprise over the Xbox area of the West Hall. A small-ish micro-management game entitled simply Far. Fans of the duotone puzzle side-scroller Limbo will absolutely love this game. The central character is quite literally a box. Or, at least some kind of humanoid entity wearing a box. Representatives from the game’s developer and distributor Mixtvision indicated to us that it’s unclear what the character is by design.
In Far, the box-like character has a gigantic wheeled steam engine. The engine itself is a puzzle, with a series of red button to control the various elements. The “box” must navigate around the most desolate world imaginable, a completely uninhabited dried-out seabed. Evidence of abandoned boats and wind-farms are everywhere. The “box” (as we’ll call the main character from now on) must collect rectangular packets of fuel, carry them into the steam engine, and then devise how to continue keeping the machine running Eastward (or to the right on the screen). The packets are used to feed the engine and a separate button loads them up into the fuel compartment. A different button–by design not in perfect working order—must be pressed twice to start the engine running.
The “box” can then head out to the top of the sandcrawler engine. A tiny flag indicates wind direction. If the wind is blowing in the Easterly way, a button atop the engine can be hit to raise a massive sail. The sail can then carry the sandcrawler forward even if the engine runs out of fuel. Numerous other switches have fun, intriguing effects. Some maintain the engine’s health. Others trigger a sprinkler system to put out fires. Another lowers a shovel device at the bow of the steam engine allowing for fuel and other garbage to be automatically collected. As the engine rolls on, various environmental challenges impede the path forward. You must navigate the “box” to figure out what is necessary to alter to allow the engine free space to continue its journey. The devs on hand indicated this was an alpha build of the game, but we can’t wait to see it in its finished form. The word is it will be ready for release in 2017.