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.