This piece contains spoilers for Far Changing Tides.
What would you cling to in a world where you have nothing?
The future, perhaps?
The hope that one day, someday, this too would pass?
It turned out to be a carousel that I clung to.
It’s not that I didn’t care about the things I did sacrifice to the hungry engine.
But the deer and the duck and the ballerina symbolised something else, I think.
I was choosing to keep them safe for the future.
Because there was a future - and I was choosing to survive.
But survival is what sits at the heart of Far Changing Tides.
But later, just as things feel impossibly grim, a patchworked balloon unexpectedly picks you up.
- into the clouds.
It’s miles away now!
Suddenly, your world is vast.
You begin to think that you may make it.
And then the balloon sinks.
Imperceptibly at first, but then less so.
The euphoric respite ebbs away as your on-screen companion physically and metaphorically floats back down to earth again.
But you’ll survive this.
Just like the last time.
Just like the next.
Stuff is just stuff, and you’ll do whatever you have to survive.
Because someone somewhere is out there waiting for you.
And that’s what makes this unassuming little puzzle game such an absolute delight.
