Faraway’s Unprecedented 16-Year Development Has Resulted in an Instant Classic

Faraway is the latest game from Steph Thirion, the solo developer behind 2009’s critically acclaimed iOS puzzler Eliss. (It’s published by Annapurna Interactive, the company arguably best-known for publishing offbeat games for wider audiences.) At a distance, Faraway looks like a small project: a high-score chasing arcade game about shooting stars. In reality, it’s a 16-year passion project that has finally come to fruition. Even in its one-button simplicity, Faraway feels like the kind of small-scale masterwork that so often gets overlooked in an industry that increasingly values Hollywood production over expressive gameplay.