Excellent all around, definitely some of the best work in the jam! The story is perfectly scoped and paced – the simple plot is absolutely devoid of fluff, with every detail coming off as essential characterization. The character voices are believable and without the kind of overt quirkiness pastiches of internet culture often succumb to, and the prose is not any worse, always feeling purposefully clean and terse.
Though the title has other, more literal meanings as well, I was particularly struck by how the game uses the push-and-pull of closeness and distance and the motif of gradually increasing awareness to frame its story. The drama remains appropriately understated in the childhood segments – the stakes revolve around the central relationship in spite of some dark topics lingering in the background – but there is also a retrospective feeling to it all as the structure simultaneously builds towards the present-day meeting of the characters. It is only fitting, then, for the climax to be equally layered, both an act of finally closing the gap and letting go of the past for good.
The visuals are thoughtfully configured around this theme, too; the meticulously recreated computer graphics capture the feeling of connection via online spaces, and the spriteless final shot is such a stunning moment of intimacy. It's impressive to riff on a central idea in so many ways without it ever feeling hokey.
I would also say that the original soundtrack fares very well – it's memorable and poignant while never underscoring what's happening in the scene too much. The presentation is a little rough around the edges (some buttons in the main menu cause a crash, and it does that annoying thing where the hitboxes of the buttons are limited to the pixels that constitute the letters only), but Erebus's UI component fits the feel of the game, and it's a stylish and delicate package on the whole. Good stuff.