AFAR: An Interactive Horror Film

This isn't traditional FMV game. There are no QTEs or Dragons Lair style timed escapes. This is a choose your own adventure movie. This would be perfectly playable on a DVD (and it is!) so if you're in for a cool supernatural adventure film that you can change the plot to, this is your product!

Loved this. Great visuals and cinematography. Amazing soundtrack. and damn, just loads of fun to play! Highly recommend!!! Thank you Jason Trost!

AFAR goes full Beat-Beat in the dark – Trost still runnin’ the game Yo, straight up – AFAR hits harder than a double-perfect in Frazier Park, yo. Jason Trost dropped an interactive horror flick that feels like he just stepped outta the FP and decided to haunt your soul instead of your high score. You can feel that Trost DNA in every frame – DIY grit, heart for days, and world-building tighter than a Beat-Beat combo chain, for real. This ain’t corporate game juice – this is pure backwoods blood, sweat, and VHS tears. Low budget? Nah, it’s high spirit, n ♥♥♥♥. It’s like BTRO blessed it from the cloud. Every decision you make feels like a life-or-death step battle with the dark. The whole vibe – that off-kilter humor, the intensity, the style – it’s all Trostverse canon, just twisted into horror form. AFAR proves you don’t need a million creds to drop something original as hell. You just need vision, guts, and a little FP soul. Get goals accomplished! 10/10 – feels like the FP went to hell and brought back a masterpiece. Respect the Trost dynasty. Stay hydrated. Stay elevated. Stay FP.

AFAR is a game by an accomplished film maker trying their hand at interactive fiction on Steam. Their film making chops are on full display here. The effects are well integrated, maybe not seamless, but good enough to tell the story. Said story is decent, all the pieces fit together in a way that makes sense, and depending on what ending you get, are tied up in a satisfying way. The way they used the VHS effect to enhance intense moments was fantastic. The creature design is very neat. They seem to share a thematic design with the monster from their film "The Waves Of Madness", which has strong Resident Evil vibes. Worth checking out. On the note of inspiration, this game seems to be hold more homage to Silent Hill. Unfortunately, while there is a lot to like on the Film making end of things, the interactive game side of things falls flat. Every few scenes, you are presented a choice without the context to make that decision meaningful so you pick one at random. Most of these choices hold no weight. They simply lead to alternate scenes conveying some info about the world before funneling you back to the main plot line. An example of a choice you get is 3 items, Journal, Phone, News Paper. Currently, you pick one, learn about the situation a bit, and then move on to the next scene. The game would probably have been stronger if instead, there was a 4th option to move on, then you could pick one, loop back to the choice, and decide to learn all the info, feel like you're exploring the world a bit. Then on repeat runs you could just skip with the 4th option. Same goes with exploration, having 3 places to go, and the 4th option could be resting for the day. Sure, there would be less replayability, but it would have made the core EXP of your first run much stronger. As is, the first run has the chance to fall super flat depending on which ending you get. Which you get by making arbitrary choices like Camp, Grave yard, or Aurelius Gate. Only one branch of endings feels satisfying from a narrative perspective, as it actually deals with why you're there and the hero's damage. Otherwise, [spoiler]one seems to be a loop ending and the other is just that you were crazy the whole time. [/spoiler] [b]I appreciate how much effort the Director put into all this, and for the right price, it'd be an okay way to spend an hour or so.[/b] While AFAR didn't grip me, it did expose me to "The Waves Of Madness". I'll be looking forward to "The Castellum Of Blood", or what ever else ends up coming next. Should they decide to continue their journey designing games, I hope they'll focus on improving that aspect of their craft till it's on par with the film making aspect.

I made it 10 minutes in. Sub Alan Wake writing, terrible acting, and the effects, yes I get it...overkill much. Its a disaster and I got a refund.

AFAR: An Interactive Horror Film decisions echo in the place between places where whispers take you I played 'AFAR: An Interactive Horror Film' (2025) on Valve's Steam, which (at the moment) is primarily a gaming platform. AFAR is less a game than it is a movie, but unlike the experience you get from video streaming platforms, it isn't entirely passive. Its deliberate pacing contrasts with the hyper-reactive demands of modern games, yet making a decision every 3-5 minutes hits a surprising sweet spot of immersion, just enough to draw you into the mystery and the mind of the protagonist. Unlike other narrative works that use interactivity as a gimmick (Black Mirror: Bandersnatch comes to mind), AFAR integrates choice into its very fabric. The design, writing, compositing, score, sound effects, and acting... every level of the whole works together to evoke the eerie atmosphere of late-90s horror games, and it's very well done. AFAR explores the liminal space between movies and games, tapping into another vein of the same primal energy as its creator's similarly excellent experimental gamer-film, The Waves of Madness (2024). AFAR feels both nostalgic and new, which is exactly how to do nostalgia right. It's not shallow "memberberries" pandering; it's a masterful multi-instrumental composition, and one of the instruments happens to be your childhood Pyramid Head panic. I'd love to see what an artist like Jason Trost (aka JTRO) could do with the resources of a major studio, a small team, a healthy budget, and a couple of years to just go creatively wild. But JTRO clearly thrives under constraint, so whatever the scale of production, I can't wait to see what he creates next. I might be the perfect demographic for AFAR, but even if you don't have first-hand experience of the era of gaming that it draws from, it's still a worthwhile experience. Whether you consider it a game or a movie, AFAR is a work of art.

I died! I'll be going back for more. Fun story.

Looking forward to playing again and making different (and also bad?) choices.

Afar is a CYoA game that gives you a rush of nostalgia for the FMV genre that was so popular in the 90's. So far I have done three playthroughs and received two different endings. I look forward to playing more playthroughs. Each playthrough is approximately 30 minutes, so it's easy to squeeze some gameplay in-between a busy schedule. Menus work smoothly and I would look forward to playing more games from this author.

It's self made amateur in the good way, lot of pratical effects and effort to give something believable on screen. We can see there is some experience with a camera and acting! It's a short story but the differents point of view give more believability. Plus, Australian folk horror is welcome! There's issues tho : I suppose it's a made for DVD but, no setting, even for the sound volume? VOST for the dialogue could have been useful, too. Plus a warming for anyone who have flashs sensibility is necessary, the visuals effects are intense! I can't recommand for everyone, but for the genre lovers it's worth a try!