Reader reviews for Some Distant Memory

I enjoyed this VASTLY more than the current reviewers review on this site and I think a lot of people will be turned off the game if it is the only opinion available, so I thought I would offer an alternate one:

Some Distant Memory is a slow paced short exploration game clocking in at about four hours. Its set 300 years after the end of civilisation, with humanity only surviving in small protected colonies. Not much has survived from before the The Bloom and when your historian character accidentally stumbles upon a fully preserved city undamaged by The Bloom you begin using your AI to try and reconstruct a vision of that lost past, what times were like, what people where like, back before things were destroyed by ecological disaster.

Its kind of interesting in that they are looking at our time now through the filter of 300 years and sometimes they don’t quite understand, in the same way I am sure we look back at the ruins of lost civilisations in our own time making the best guesses we can from what has been left behind, filtered through the cracked lens of the passage of so many years.

The ending was a bit of a gut punch, not quite the way I expected, but still an emotional ride (Dont worry, no spoilers). The pro environment message and the romanticism might be a bit too much for some, but if you are on board for its message and its storytelling, its really quite good. It made me laugh a few times and cry more than once. There is a mix of things going on, not just the two characters looking back at the past, but what an ecologically ruined future might look like and how much we take for granted.

The relationship between you (Professor Zay) and your escort (Commander Ti) was obviously deeper than either of them let on, and I liked it a lot and came to care about what they would say to each other next. It reminded me a little of the game Firewatch where most of your interaction is over the radio. Its similar to that here, you and Ti talking over what you are seeing through your helmet display down below while he waits above trying to find a way to rescue you.

The original review is correct in that there is not much in the way of puzzles to be done in this one, its a game about exploration and atmosphere. I found its story to be quite a poignant one, though it is definitely sentimental.

I liked it muchly, so four stars from me.

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Time Played: 2-5 hours
Difficulty: Very Easy