Worlds Apart

Brass Lantern
The story is revealed through cleverly meshed flashbacks and the game is full of interlinked themes and symbols that add dimension to the experience. The most satisfying of the game's puzzles are meta-puzzles, requiring the player to think outside the game whilst moving through the game--not in the sense of relating acts to an external system (the meta puzzle of 'what does it mean?') but in the sense that there is often little way of providing feedback on some of these puzzles--you either get it or don't--so the 'working out' of the puzzles goes on externally. (Sam Barlow)

All of this aside, "Worlds Apart" is a tremendously ambitious work, in that it attempts to deal not only with a physical environment but also with social realities, family history, and even spiritual state. It is scrupulously implemented. I ran into nothing I would qualify as a game-play bug, and there is a very large set of examinable scenery objects and of conversation topics. Though I think the story has some flaws, I hope it receives a wide audience. Considerable craft went into its creation; it is markedly different from anything else currently available; and it provides useful data for the discussion of character background and world-building in interactive fiction. (Emily Short)
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IF-Review
Casting a Critical Eye
A lot of the difficulty with Worlds is that it never lets up. The same tone and mood persists virtually throughout, and it's such a big game that this gets tiring after a while. You start craving some comic interludes or some random, messy violence. Well, I did, at least. (Yes, there is some violence, but it doesn't feel distinct enough from the piece to provide a sufficient contrast). Although the ending manages to maintain much of its clout despite this, I get the impression that a little change of pace about midway would have breathed some vibrancy back into it. Early on in the game, Worlds seems very alive and engaging; the majority of the later scenes are intrinsically no less so, but by the time they're reached I, at least, had been exhausted by the style and found it difficult to get new things out of it. This objection doesn't make the style or verbosity any the less worthy, however; it just makes it more difficult. [...] In short, Worlds isn't my cup of tea, in terms of themes, mood, or content. However, there's plenty that I have to admire about it: scope, detail, the quality of both code and prose.
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Play This Thing!
It takes place in a science-fiction world Suzanne Britton spent years thinking about and developing. Its plot episodes are there in large part to illuminate the world she has imagined, rather than the other way around. Implementation is deep and meticulous. There is a great deal to learn, and a great deal to dig into.
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SPAG
There is much to like about Worlds Apart, in the end--in quantity and quality, the detail that went into the worldbuilding is unmatched in any work of IF in recent memory, and it's unlikely that any player will catch all, or even most, of the story on the first try. If it's a little inaccessible at first, that comes with the territory--i.e., introducing the player into a highly complex and well-developed world--and it's hardly a fatal flaw. In its interactivity and in the quality of its storytelling, Worlds Apart is a remarkable accomplishment.
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Adventure Gamers
[...] requires a lot of patience, but is ultimately absorbing and extremely unique.
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