One Thousand Yards braves an emotional journey through some dark topics with a steady gaze. Every moment in this project puts readers in the MC’s shoes with incredible ease which allows for its emotional punches to land that much harder. The dev has also employed audiovisual elements that, though simple, elevate the reading experience. Its few appear as somewhat intrusive expositions at the very beginning and a very heavy-handed tearjerker epilogue, but those are small stains on a beautiful carpet. One Thousand Yards is a raw experience about a tough subject, but executed in a very touching way that makes it worth experiencing for yourself.
Very good package: excellent writing, art, music, etc. In particular, I like that the whole VN basically consists of small scenes and vignettes: it makes it so there is never a dull moment and we get little moments of payoff throughout the story.
I will mainly focus on the parts that I wasn't as big of a fan of, but like I said I think the VN as a whole is excellent, and definitely worth your time!
- The initial couple of scenes were the only ones I didn't like, and if I were in a different mood (and I wasn't trying to force myself to read all NovemBear entries), they might even led me to drop the VN altogether. The very wordy exposition dumps were not a graceful introduction to the characters and their situation. I also thought it was a very weird choice to have the narration recap what happened before, when the VN opens with the protagonist recounting those very same details to the investigator. Hearing those details from the conversation, instead of indirectly from the narration, would have surely been more engaging. Other than that though, the writing was smooth sailing from beginning to end. (I do think the very ending was trying a bit too much to elicit an emotional response from me, but it's still well executed.)
- While the art for the sprite was amazing, I wasn't a fan of all the expressions (in particular, the parents). Since the sprites never change expressions, in some scenes I thought their default expression felt out of place. Speaking of which, I think the game should have probably considered not using side sprites in some scenes: it's a bit odd to see the protagonist in his normal clothes when he's supposed to be naked or in football gear, especially when we already have CGs.
- The way the "incident" on the football field is portrayed is a bit odd. We cut to the CG very suddenly, but nothing accompanies this change so it ends up feeling flat. In particular, the audio track continues unperturbed.
The writing is good on a level that doesn't need qualifications like "for an indie game" – it's just good. The imagery is amazing, all the subplots are steadily paced, and I like how meticulously the game lays out the nitty-gritty procedural bits and how dreadfully inevitable the looming conclusion seems. For something sort of loose in its chronology, I especially appreciate how your skill at starting and ending scenes helps the story maintain its momentum. It's one thing to have a killer line or a hard-hitting metaphor, but working them into the structure of the piece this effectively is what really makes the prose so fluid and engaging to read.
Moreover, I feel like the game demonstrates a thorough understanding of the medium and its tools while also pushing it towards a fresh, more novelistic mode of expression. The alternating use of ADV and NVL segments and the tasteful title cards contribute a lot to the rhythmic structure, giving the passage of time a bite something built on prose alone would not be able to capture.
There's a lot like in the art, too. The sprites are full of character; I like how the detective is built from triangles in contrast to the soft, round shapes of the bears. But by far the most fascinating piece of visual storytelling is the degree to which the sprites feel almost dissonant with what the text is saying, in a sense – the carefully sketched expressions capture a lot of nuances that seem to belong to the façades of the characters, with their interiority coming through as especially strong in the NVL parts where you get no visuals. Intentional or not, it's definitely appropriate with how the narrative explores a family in crisis as it's seen both from inside and outside.
I could be here all day listing all the little details I loved, but let's just call One Thousand Yards a deeply affective, masterfully spun tale with a respectable amount of polish and production value packed in. Definitely up there as one of the best overall impressions any shortform furry visual novel has left on me.
I drew a lot of parallels from this to my life. Before I go on about my thoughts on some of the themes I see here, and to pad out this comment before spoilers, is that the bird SFX can be a bit loud, at least for me. That is the one thing I could possibly say in criticism.
I have not literally lost a sibling (minus some scares), let alone a twin brother, but they gradually have become a point of contention in my family as of late. I don’t know how much influence I alone have over my parents staying married, but I suppose we both started out as the glue holding them together. I feel for Tom and Jamie, because being a mediator for parents sucks. Growing up in a home where you regularly pick sides sucks. I was wondering if Tom had run away out of frustration at some points. Sadly, it is not the case.
Parents can become desperately ignorant to facts and statistics, maybe for years. They start to stay together out of pure obligation. It gets harder to hide resentment. I think this was well-addressed with the outburst that occurs at the family gathering.
In this story, the cruel reality for the mother and father is that they really could not have known anything. There was no chance to prepare for it. It’s like taking everything I have gone through so far, and suddenly striking it down upon them all at once. My own parents also had no way of knowing, and no reason to think that anything could happen. Realizing that has really gotten to me as I write this.
When a professional or someone of similar credibility tells a parent things are NOT going to get better, it’s quite the stark and sudden switch. Maybe by then it’s too late to do anything about it–that these false hopes led to decisions that were misguided and wasted time, or did more harm than good. I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to the final discovery. It is beyond my caliber.
This is all to say that I think the characters’ actions are realistic, and it hits home accurately and painfully! It makes me reflect on my experiences so far, and imagine what’s still to come, and it hurts my heart. Sometimes in life there’s just nothing you can do, and no one you could blame.
Comments
One Thousand Yards braves an emotional journey through some dark topics with a steady gaze. Every moment in this project puts readers in the MC’s shoes with incredible ease which allows for its emotional punches to land that much harder. The dev has also employed audiovisual elements that, though simple, elevate the reading experience. Its few appear as somewhat intrusive expositions at the very beginning and a very heavy-handed tearjerker epilogue, but those are small stains on a beautiful carpet. One Thousand Yards is a raw experience about a tough subject, but executed in a very touching way that makes it worth experiencing for yourself.
Very good package: excellent writing, art, music, etc. In particular, I like that the whole VN basically consists of small scenes and vignettes: it makes it so there is never a dull moment and we get little moments of payoff throughout the story.
I will mainly focus on the parts that I wasn't as big of a fan of, but like I said I think the VN as a whole is excellent, and definitely worth your time!
- The initial couple of scenes were the only ones I didn't like, and if I were in a different mood (and I wasn't trying to force myself to read all NovemBear entries), they might even led me to drop the VN altogether. The very wordy exposition dumps were not a graceful introduction to the characters and their situation. I also thought it was a very weird choice to have the narration recap what happened before, when the VN opens with the protagonist recounting those very same details to the investigator. Hearing those details from the conversation, instead of indirectly from the narration, would have surely been more engaging. Other than that though, the writing was smooth sailing from beginning to end. (I do think the very ending was trying a bit too much to elicit an emotional response from me, but it's still well executed.)
- While the art for the sprite was amazing, I wasn't a fan of all the expressions (in particular, the parents). Since the sprites never change expressions, in some scenes I thought their default expression felt out of place. Speaking of which, I think the game should have probably considered not using side sprites in some scenes: it's a bit odd to see the protagonist in his normal clothes when he's supposed to be naked or in football gear, especially when we already have CGs.
- The way the "incident" on the football field is portrayed is a bit odd. We cut to the CG very suddenly, but nothing accompanies this change so it ends up feeling flat. In particular, the audio track continues unperturbed.
The writing is good on a level that doesn't need qualifications like "for an indie game" – it's just good. The imagery is amazing, all the subplots are steadily paced, and I like how meticulously the game lays out the nitty-gritty procedural bits and how dreadfully inevitable the looming conclusion seems. For something sort of loose in its chronology, I especially appreciate how your skill at starting and ending scenes helps the story maintain its momentum. It's one thing to have a killer line or a hard-hitting metaphor, but working them into the structure of the piece this effectively is what really makes the prose so fluid and engaging to read.
Moreover, I feel like the game demonstrates a thorough understanding of the medium and its tools while also pushing it towards a fresh, more novelistic mode of expression. The alternating use of ADV and NVL segments and the tasteful title cards contribute a lot to the rhythmic structure, giving the passage of time a bite something built on prose alone would not be able to capture.
There's a lot like in the art, too. The sprites are full of character; I like how the detective is built from triangles in contrast to the soft, round shapes of the bears. But by far the most fascinating piece of visual storytelling is the degree to which the sprites feel almost dissonant with what the text is saying, in a sense – the carefully sketched expressions capture a lot of nuances that seem to belong to the façades of the characters, with their interiority coming through as especially strong in the NVL parts where you get no visuals. Intentional or not, it's definitely appropriate with how the narrative explores a family in crisis as it's seen both from inside and outside.
I could be here all day listing all the little details I loved, but let's just call One Thousand Yards a deeply affective, masterfully spun tale with a respectable amount of polish and production value packed in. Definitely up there as one of the best overall impressions any shortform furry visual novel has left on me.
I drew a lot of parallels from this to my life. Before I go on about my thoughts on some of the themes I see here, and to pad out this comment before spoilers, is that the bird SFX can be a bit loud, at least for me. That is the one thing I could possibly say in criticism.
I have not literally lost a sibling (minus some scares), let alone a twin brother, but they gradually have become a point of contention in my family as of late. I don’t know how much influence I alone have over my parents staying married, but I suppose we both started out as the glue holding them together. I feel for Tom and Jamie, because being a mediator for parents sucks. Growing up in a home where you regularly pick sides sucks. I was wondering if Tom had run away out of frustration at some points. Sadly, it is not the case.
Parents can become desperately ignorant to facts and statistics, maybe for years. They start to stay together out of pure obligation. It gets harder to hide resentment. I think this was well-addressed with the outburst that occurs at the family gathering.
In this story, the cruel reality for the mother and father is that they really could not have known anything. There was no chance to prepare for it. It’s like taking everything I have gone through so far, and suddenly striking it down upon them all at once. My own parents also had no way of knowing, and no reason to think that anything could happen. Realizing that has really gotten to me as I write this.
When a professional or someone of similar credibility tells a parent things are NOT going to get better, it’s quite the stark and sudden switch. Maybe by then it’s too late to do anything about it–that these false hopes led to decisions that were misguided and wasted time, or did more harm than good. I don’t even know where to begin when it comes to the final discovery. It is beyond my caliber.
This is all to say that I think the characters’ actions are realistic, and it hits home accurately and painfully! It makes me reflect on my experiences so far, and imagine what’s still to come, and it hurts my heart. Sometimes in life there’s just nothing you can do, and no one you could blame.