Afar

Spaceships may not be a thing right now, but we already have thousands of designs, both possible and impossible. Science fiction movies and books have taken care of everything in this regard, starting with their method of propulsion, all the way to how the interior and the exterior are going to be decorated. In fact, it will be a big surprise if the first spaceships don’t resemble one of the already existing sci-fi designs.

Afar is a short sandbox game in which you get to explore a spaceship and see what it takes to be a captain. On the other hand, this was designed for a jam, which means that it’s pretty short and incomplete. Even so, the concept is pretty intriguing, even if the idea itself is not very original. As long as the final game has enough content to keep you busy, however, things should be fine.

Given the fact that you are a captain, it’s up to you to decide where to travel and whether to intercept hostile ships or not. This is not achieved directly like in most space sims, since it would be silly for the captain to do everything himself. Instead, you give orders to the crew and wait for them to complete the tasks and present you with the results.

The disappointing thing about is that it features very little actual content at the moment, even if it’s a jam game. There’s nothing you can really do, other than walk around a rather small and linear environment or give orders to your crew. Even the combat is boring, especially since there’s no feedback to let you know how everything is going.

In case you hope for detailed graphics to distract you, that’s not on the menu either, which is yet another problem to deal with. The corridors and the rooms are almost entirely gray, except for the low-poly models characters. It would be nice to see more objects around you, especially since you cannot look out the window either. On the other hand, there’s still hope for when the game is going to be complete.

In the end, Afar might be what you are looking for, but it’s far from complete at the moment, which is a bit of a bummer. Even so, it’s worth a place on your watch list, just to keep an eye on the project until it starts to bloom.