Description

Your ship is gone. You are a very long way from Earth, with a suit, a tank of fuel, and the air in your lungs. The Long Way Home is a game about thrust being precious and drift being free. Every burn spends fuel you may never replace, so the fastest route is rarely the straight one. Swing past a planet and let its gravity throw you onward for nothing, and keep the fuel for the moment you actually need it. Between you and home: abandoned supply stations, each holding one decisive resupply. Sealed containers you can crack open if you have the patience. Debris fields that will shred you at speed and let you pass at a crawl. VESTA, the assistance unit strapped to your chest, talks you through it. She is a machine and says so, and she will tell you when your heading is wrong. Get to Earth before the oxygen runs out. Then do it again, carrying cargo.

Instruction

Everything is also an on-screen button, so it plays with a mouse, a keyboard or a touchscreen. DRAG anywhere to look around and aim. ENGINE or SPACE burns the main thruster — short taps, fuel is finite. STOP or X flips you around and burns retrograde; it is the only way to slow down out here. DRIFT or Z lays you flat along your heading, which streamlines you and lets you sidestep rock. ION DRIVE or V is a weak electric thrust that runs on battery instead of fuel. SCAN or F lights up nearby supplies and charts debris fields onto your map. REPAIR or T patches the suit. TAB, or a tap on the small map, opens the planning map — pick a destination there and your scanner becomes a compass. The AIM ONLY / HOLD = THRUST switch changes whether dragging also fires the engine.

Specifications

• Easy to play