Distance

[Ross Scott]

Genre: Racing

Year released: 2018

Ross's rating: Hazy

Link to game: http://store.steampowered.com/app/233610/Distance/

Free to play: No

GaaS: Unknown

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[Tobin]

Amazing visuals and enthralling tracks.

The campaign is a good intro to all the mechanics, and tells a fascinating (though confusing) story, but it's rather short.

After that — there is too much of a "git gud" mentality to the game, especially in the community. It's hard to find tracks that are fun and forgiving to more casual, or simply unskilled, players. The focus is on crazy challenges, optimizing routes, and shaving fractions of a second. The community definitely produces some "fun" tracks, but where "fun" is too often defined as "keep trying this absurd jump/transition until you can figure it out".

Protip: Take some time to work out the controls. They can be quite confusing at first. You'll probably be best served by customizing away from the defaults. (The controls are fully customizable and support many types of controllers, including classic joysticks. Keyboard-only is possible but not recommended.)

[Backgrounds']

Adding on to what Tobin said,

 

I'm a long-time player with over 2,000 hours-in and from many years of experience so I may be biased with

some of this so take it with what you will;

 

Ross might actually like some aspects of this game due to his affinity for experiencing/exploring interesting worlds!
I personally know after making nearly 100+ map's myself, (Including personally made map-packs might I add.) that the editor
does not mess around! Some people bring up the "Trials" games from "Redlynx" have a great editor, I'd be willing to say
Distance's editor is a very close competitor. As it's been stated by the Devs themselves that's its more or less a re-design
of Unity's editor. (Unity being also the engine the game was made on of course.) However, it should be mentioned, though this
game has VR support (I haven't tried it myself.) I've heard its pretty lacking, mostly because it was added onto the game as
a side-addition and not exactly what the game was really made for. From what little I've heard you can either play in first-
person or a shotty third person kind of like "playing with your toy cars". Obviously I'd recommend not using this game for VR
if you have motion sicknesses of any kind, seeing any sort of gameplay of this will instantly back that notion up, yet its a
nice addition none the less, I'd say.

 

The community is very interlinked with not only the game yet also with the Devs as well! Most people whom just play the game
outside of the community will not get the full experience of the game, I'd say. In-fact the game's online feature will look mostly
dead until you join the Official Distance Discord. (There's even a link to it on the game's main menu if I remember correctly.)
People on the discord like myself are online quite frequently! Talking with not only Pros or Amateurs alike, Level Editors,
Devs, Speedrunners, anyone who's anyone is always welcome and greeted into the family. There even have been competition ran by
the Devs with the community for racing and map creation where people won rare merch only obtainable by those events! On top of
that there's even a yearly 100% community driven event on December called the "Distance Advent Calendar" where people sign up
to release a new level every day all throughout December, so if you're searching through the steam workshop and see a map with the
label "DAC" now you know! I could go on forever talking about the community, it's pretty great over all and very alive.

 

Tobin's protip of taking time to learn the controls is definitely correct, though I'd advise you to take caution to changing
the controls before playing the game as you could royaly screw yourself (Pardon my wording.) in the long run as the controls
are quite complex and layed out as they are by default for a reason. I'd say play a couple hours with the defaults and
understand what they do first before changing them, finishing the first campaign is a good start. (Again as Tobin said,
"it's a good intro to all the mechanics".)

 

By the way, the whole story on the noted "git gud" mentality isn't meant to be taken too seriously, its more of a light hearted
joke in the community though yes, you will need to practice and learn in order to get better at something or faster on a given
map as you would expect.

 

The game is packed full of content, if you need something to do look no further! Not only is there one campaign but multiple and
on-top of that there's also a "arcade" section with extra modes "Sprint", "Stunt", "Challenge" to name a few. (Some multiplayer
only like "Reverse Tag".) These maps are made by both the Devs AND the community alike, before the game's launch, the Devs hand
picked community made maps to be added to the game! (One of my own included and was one of the hardest named "Inferno", I'm not
sorry.) And even on-top of that there's over 3,000+ workshop maps made all by the community to play (Though they range from trash
to average to insanely beautiful as you would expect.) and new maps coming out all the time. Or you can also choose to try and
run maps yourself and get the top global time on each leader board for each map.
Yet it doesn't stop there, Refract also is continually adding DLC to the game, uh *FREE* DLC that is! That's right
there is no extra payment shenanigans in this game what so ever, no DLC, no shops, no boosters, nothing. The Devs spent over
5 years making this game and they have a great care for it and it's users. Oh yea and *psst* Ross, I'm pretty sure you can get
a "DRM Free" version too.

 

Finally I'd like to note that this game is less like a racing game and more like a platformer, in-that its 100% an intended
strategy to *leave the track*. That's right, "What's that? The finish is over that gap and if I jump off the track and ride across
some buildings doing tricks along the way to keep my boosters cooled I could cut 2 minutes off of the current best time?" That's
right. The track is more of a recommendation yet the rest of the world is completely open ended and as long as you have the
know-how, you can do and go where ever your heart desires. Obviously speedrunners love this sort of thing yet anyone can learn
it and anyone can do it, seeing as its tied straight into the point of the car's abilities. *Some tracks are even made to have
off-track secret teleporters or short-cuts, but you didn't hear that from me, shhh.*

 

All in all, Distance is an expansive game that continues to grow every day along with a community that cherishes it.
Oh yea lastly, the Soundtrack is killer and don't you forget it! Especially in the second campaign.
All that's left to do now is try it! The game is frequently on sales (usually after a major update) and it's defiantly worth your time!

[hotride]

Looks great, musics great, drivings great, but a few hours in the game and it has the distinctive feel of a niche game. A niche that is definitely not for me.

 

The controls while doing (forced) stunts are mostly fine, but in some cases are way too floaty for me. The flying controls are just a nightmare. I was unable to use my PS2 controller, which I use for all games that allow a controller; having used the keyboard throughout, I wouldn't even know how to map the controller. Checkpoints during the campaigns are mostly fine though I've probably spent at least 2 hours on 3-4 checkpoints alone (out of 10 hours played and a ton of checkpoints).

 

On more than one occassion, Ross Scott mentions games which require such a level of dedication, that Ross would rather learn an actual valuable skill than continue playing the game. Distance is probably the first game I've played that has made me understand the sentiment. I like the game but I'm definitely not going to invest many hours in it; its way too finicky for me.

Edited September 8, 2019 by hotride (see edit history)

[hotride]

Meanwhile I have about 250 hours in Distance, mostly because I was bored by other video games. I would say, the real fun (for me) started after about 100-150 hours in. Until then the controls were a big issue and the game was not quite enjoyable. I do have a mild completionist problem with some games and that got me through the difficult controls learning process. Now, getting through a difficult track after spending 1-2 hours on it actually gives me a sense of satisfaction, which I've mostly lost when it comes to video games.

 

Also, having invested the time I have, Backgrounds' is an evil person (though probably still has a valid opinion). IMO 2 of the hardest official tracks to get the best medal on are made by Backgrounds'.

Edited November 30, 2019 by hotride (see edit history)

[Gun]

This game weird feelings. Music starts good but than it slowly shifts in to the horror creepy zone like something is about to coma at you.... And visual follow that tone.

[DoctorIan7]

Just get the game. It has everything.

Amazing gameplay/level design, several story campaigns, multiplayer, arcades challenges, level editor, VR mode, you can even add your own music library. It's the full package.

Edited November 24, 2022 by DoctorIan7 (see edit history)