The Long Journey Home
Developer(s)Daedalic Entertainment
Publisher(s)Daedalic Entertainment
Writer(s)Richard Cobbett[1]
Platform(s)
ReleaseWindows
May 30, 2017
macOS
June 28, 2018
PlayStation 4, Xbox One
November 14, 2018
Nintendo Switch
September 4, 2019
Genre(s)Adventure
Mode(s)Single-player

The Long Journey Home is a 2017 space exploration video game by Daedalic Entertainment for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

Plot

The player controls the crew of Earth's first jump-capable starship. The game begins after a jump to Alpha Centauri goes wrong, leaving the misfit crew stranded on the far end of the galaxy.[2] As the crew journeys back home, they meet aliens who offer them various quests.[1]

Features

The goal of the game is to return home after being lost in space.[2] The player navigates a procedurally generated universe,[3] which is randomized to make the experience of exploring more open-ended and diverse.[4]

The physics of ship movement are realistic, as the player has to use gravitational slingshot to navigate.[1] There is a steep learning curve to be proficient to travel.[1][5]

The player will encounter aliens who offer them quests. The player can choose to help, ignore, attack, or even betray the quest-giver.[2] For example, when an alien asks a player to transport a box, the player can decide to open the box and steal what's inside of it.[3] Each alien has their own culture, which creates challenges around cultural misunderstanding.[5]

Development

Daedalic was a game studio known for point-and-click adventure games with a narrative focus.[4] The team has described the game as a roguelike space role-playing game, drawing its main inspiration from Star Control II and Starflight.[2] Where Star Control II described many aspects of the alien cultures through dialog, writer Richard Cobbett pushed to improve on this by making this culture more visible and interactive.[2]

The team strived to maximize player choice, allowing them to break or ignore quests, or attack even friendly encounters.[2] Quests were designed to encourage forward momentum, and also illustrate the different alien cultures and personalities.[3] This led to what Cobbett described as "a lot of writing", which was organized in spreadsheets using proprietary tools.[3] A goal for the game's writing was to create feelings of loneliness, vulnerability, and desperation.[2]

Initially, the game featured a trade system, but this was simplified in favor of credits.[2] A month after the game's release, The Long Journey Home was updated with an easier story mode.[6]

Reception

The reception to The Long Journey Home has been mixed. Its aggregate Metacritic score is 68/100.[7] Adam Smith of Rock Paper Shotgun compared the game favorably to the openness of No Man's Sky with the short minigames of Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, but felt that there was "not quite enough here to win me over completely".[8] Polygon, giving the game a 55% rating, explained that it was "extraordinarily difficult to navigate" and "infuriating," concluding that the game had failed to live up to the promise of a "truly narrative-driven roguelike."[9] Giving the game a 6/10, PC Games N praised the characters and setting, but criticized the different minigames as tedious.[10] IGN, which gave the game a 6.4, complained of "the weight of frustrating and tedious minigames" that were "often unfair."[11] Kotaku dismissed the game as built upon "a poorly-implemented version" of Lunar Lander, "an infuriating experience" and "a poorly thought-out homage."[12]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Smith, Adam (11 May 2017). "The Long Journey Home is a wonderful space odyssey". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "The RPG Scrollbars: Questing at the speed of light". Rock Paper Shotgun. 2016-11-14. Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "The RPG Scrollbars: Notes On Writing A Universe". Rock Paper Shotgun. 2017-02-13. Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  4. 1 2 Campbell, Colin (15 May 2017). "The Long Journey Home offers a rich vision of space exploration". Polygon. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
  5. 1 2 Ricchiuto, Madeline (13 May 2017). "Daedalic's The Long Journey Home Will Release On May 30th". Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movie, TV News. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
  6. "The Long Journey Home gets easier in 'Story Mode'". Rock Paper Shotgun. 2017-06-04. Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  7. 1 2 "The Long Journey Home for PC Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
  8. "The Long Journey home review". Rock Paper Shotgun. 2017-05-30. Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  9. Caldwell-Gervais, Noah (29 May 2017). "The Long Journey Home review". Polygon.
  10. Forward, Jordan (November 6, 2017). "The Long Journey Home PC review". PCGamesN. Retrieved 2021-08-05.
  11. Johnson, Leif (31 May 2017). "The Long Journey Home Review". IGN.
  12. Gardner, Elliot. "Why I Can't Stand the Long Journey Home..." Kotaku.
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