The Longest Journey

The Longest Journey
Developer(s) Funcom
Publisher(s) Empire Interactive
Tri Synergy[1]
Producer(s) Ragnar Tørnquist
Designer(s) Didrik Tollefsen
Ragnar Tørnquist
Programmer(s) Morten Lode
Audun Tørnquist
Artist(s) Didrik Tollefsen
Writer(s) Ragnar Tørnquist
Composer(s) Bjørn Arve Lagim
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows, iOS
Release

Windows

  • NO: 19 November 1999
  • UK: 20 April 2000
  • US/CA: 16 November 2000

iOS

  • AU: October 28, 2014
  • WW: November 27, 2014
Genre(s) Point-and-click adventure
Mode(s) Single-player

The Longest Journey (Bokmål: Den lengste reisen) is a point-and-click adventure video game developed by Norwegian studio Funcom for Microsoft Windows and released in 1999.

An iOS version was released on October 28, 2014.[2]

Gameplay

The Longest Journey is a point-and-click adventure game where the player interacts with objects on the screen to solve puzzles and advance the story. The game features expansive recorded dialogue most of which is non-essential to completing the game but contributes to the setting.

Plot

The game takes place in the parallel universes of magic-dominated Arcadia and industrial Stark. The protagonist, April Ryan, is an 18-year-old art student living in Stark, identified as a 'Shifter' capable of movement between these worlds, and tasked with restoring their essential Balance.

The player character, April Ryan, is standing in front of The Tree in her dream.

The story begins in Stark, where a sleeping April unintentionally shifts to Arcadia and meets the 'White Dragon', who identifies her as the heroine of the coming story. Upon learning this, April is attacked by a dark 'Chaos Vortex' and awakens in Stark, where she dismisses her experience as a nightmare. The character 'Cortez' later surprises her by revealing his knowledge.

When surreal activity begins affecting her friends, April meets again with Cortez, who transports her to the Arcadian city Marcuria. There she meets Tobias Grensret, Vestrum of the Sentinel; learns Alltongue, the common language in Arcadia; and hears from Tobias that the Balance protecting both worlds is dissolving after the dereliction of its Guardian, and must be restored by the appearance of another.

To return to Stark, April visits Brian Westhouse, a friend of Cortez, who assists her return; Cortez then tells her of the organization known as the Vanguard or Church of Voltec. The next day, April consults Warren Hughes, a homeless boy who agrees to help April if she erases his criminal record and locates his missing sister, in doing which April finds a data cube on the Church of Voltec. Hughes then refers her to a hacker named Burns Flipper, who reveals that the wealthy magnate Jacob McAllen is head of the Vanguard, assisted by Gordon Halloway, a former candidate for Guardianship divided by the Vanguard into Chaos (in Arcadia) and Logic (in Stark), and gives her a false identification by which to infiltrate the Vanguard through its front company MTI.

Meeting Cortez and Father Raul in a Catholic cathedral, April is told that Arcadia is on the brink of war. Later in Arcadia, April meets the innkeeper, Benrime Salmin, and the clairvoyant Abnaxus, ambassador of the Venar, who identifies the coming danger. In the morning, April learns of four magical species, each of whom has prophecies of a savior who will restore the Balance, only to finally break it – and determines to visit one such species, the winged Alatian of the island Alais, having gained sea-travel by rescuing a talking bird that she names Crow. Before departing, she learns that she must defeat an alchemist named Roper Klacks, in order to free the ships' wind that he holds captive.

At Roper Klacks' Tower, April challenges Klacks to use his magic against her calculator, and wins. Immediately before her departure to Alais, Tobias gives April the Talisman representing the Balance. En route, April kills the monster known as 'Gribbler' while rescuing one of her captive Banda, whose species later give her the name 'April Bandu-embata' as a mark of gratitude and grant her part of the disc necessary to restore the Balance.

On the voyage to Alais, a 'Chaos Storm' attacks the ship, and April sabotages the ship's compass to restore its course. When the ship's captain seizes her Talisman, April attempts to retrieve it, and in so doing sinks the ship, whereupon the crew abandon her on a raft. She is taken prisoner by the Maerum, a Mermaid-like species related to the Alatian, but currently their enemies. In revealing their common ancestry, April fulfills a prophecy of the 'Waterstiller', a foretold savior of the Maerum.

After fulfilling the second prophecy by killing a 'Snapjaw', she is conveyed to fulfill the third by re-uniting the Maerum with the Alatians. After a series of tasks and in meeting with the Alatians' leader, April fulfills their prophecy by flying without wings, and convinces the Alatian to make peace with the Maerum.

In a coastal sea cave, the Teller's guard and the Maerum Queen bring stones which combine to form the second part of the Balance's disc; whereupon the Maerum convey April, at her own request, to the Blue Dragon, who gives April one of the disc's Jewels and takes her to a ship inhabited by the Dark People, who give April the third piece of the disc, and an astral map locating the Guardian's Realm.

At the Marcurian Harbor, April is attacked by the Chaos and returns to the Cathedral in Stark. There, Father Raul reveals that he is also a Sentinel Minstrum of Stark, and that Cortez is missing. On returning to her lodgings, April is caught by Gordon Halloway. She is rescued by another character, Lady Alvane, who teaches April to shift at will, and sends April to Abnaxus to receive the disc's final piece. April then returns to the White Dragon, who reveals herself as April's mother and dies, and a new White Dragon emerges from her egg.

Returned to Stark, April gives Flipper the star map to decipher, infiltrates MTI, and is captured by antagonist McAllen. Unable to escape, she surrenders her two jewels and the disc, and is then imprisoned. Upon escaping in pursuit of her object, she is trapped again; but rescued by Cortez. McAllen then reveals that he and Cortez are two Dragons (called 'Draic Kin', in-universe) meant to protect Stark, but at odds after McAllen's decision to re-unite the two worlds despite the risk of Chaos. The two then appear to die in combat. Retrieving the disc and the four jewels, April returns to Flipper, whom she finds dying after the seizure of her deciphered map by Gordon Halloway, and gains a copy from him, which she uses to locate the Guardian's Realm near the space station 'Morning Star'.

At the station, April frees Adrian, the derelict Guardian, and escapes with Halloway in pursuit. On her way to the Guardians' Tower, she imprisons the Chaos Vortex in her Talisman and later summons Crow, who helps her complete the necessary trials. Inside the tower, April re-unites Halloway with the Chaos Vortex to restore his candidacy as Guardian and returns to Stark and Arcadia.

In the Epilogue, the scene returns to Lady Alvane’s home, where she has narrated the entire story to two youths, and where she reveals that the two worlds re-united under Gordon Halloway. Upon their departure, an aged and graying Crow enters, asking the tale of the "warrior princess" who won the war of the Balance, and she corrects his impression; a possible reference to the sequel, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey.

Development

The title of the game is a reference to the quote by the Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjöld: "The longest journey is the journey inward, for he who has chosen his destiny has started upon his quest for the source of his being."[3] Other inspirations for the game included Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, Neil Gaiman's The Sandman and The Books of Magic, Hellblazer, Swamp Thing, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Joss Whedon's writing in general.[4]

The Longest Journey was developed by a small internal team at Funcom led by Ragnar Tørnquist. It was their first original project. Funcom put few restrictions on the developers except the budget (approx. $2–3 million) and the deadline. Since the team had to develop the game engine and most of the required tools from scratch, they struggled to release the game on time. For most of 1999, the team had to work overtime and during weekends to ultimately meet the deadline.[4]

First published by IQ Media Nordic in Norway in 1999, it was later localized for and released in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, Spain, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic, Russia, and the United States. The game was originally written and recorded in English, though most of the localizations were released before the English version.[5] In October 2011, it was announced that The Longest Journey was being ported to iOS, with the article mainly focusing on the iPhone.[6]

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores
AggregatorScore
GameRankings88.00%[7]
Metacritic91/100[8]
Review scores
PublicationScore
Adventure Gamers4.5/5[9]
GameSpot9.3/10[10]
GameSpy92/100[11]
IGN9.3/10[12]
PC Gamer (US)90%[13]

The Longest Journey was acclaimed by critics. It was praised for its female protagonist April Ryan, who is considered one of the most memorable female characters in the history of adventure games,[14] and also for its enigmatic, complex storyline and high production values, but was criticized for some of its more obscure puzzles. It received a score of 88.00% on GameRankings[7] and 91/100 on Metacritic.[8] GameSpot called it "one of the best adventure games in years" and applauded the "complex and interesting story" although found the ending lacking as "the epilogue does little to wrap everything up".[10] IGN said the game "actually reinvents how stories can be told in the medium" and noticed the mature content, including "harsh subject matter, and some big time swearing". Some of the puzzles were described as "inane", but on the whole the game "hones the genre into its tightest, sharpest form yet".[12] The US edition of PC Gamer praised the "mature and magical" story, the "sumptuous" graphics, and the game's puzzles.[13] The only criticism levied by the magazine was that some parts of the game might be "too edgy" for younger players.[13] The Longest Journey subsequently won the Adventure Game of the Year award by both gaming sites.[15][16]

The editors of Computer Gaming World named The Longest Journey the best adventure game of 2000. They praised it for offering "a mature, literate, and compelling story featuring a strong female heroine who, for once, is not exploited for her looks."[17]

In the United States, The Longest Journey sold only 351 copies and earned $14,430 during the year 2000.[18] By June 2001, Funcom announced that The Longest Journey had sold 250,000 copies worldwide, with the United States accounting for 90,000 of these sales.[19] By mid-2002, total sales had reached 450,000 copies.[20]

Sequels

A continuation of The Longest Journey, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, was released in April 2006. The next installment of the series, Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey, was crowd-funded on Kickstarter and is being released episodically. Its first episode was released in October 2014.[21] The last episode shipped in June 2016.

The developers view Dreamfall: The Longest Journey as more of a spin-off than a direct sequel to the first game, as it revolves around a new protagonist, with a new storyline.[4] The direct sequel to The Longest Journey, entitled The Longest Journey Home, was revealed in 2013 and is to be produced after Dreamfall Chapters.[22] By 2016 the release of TLJHome is still under a question. Ragnar Tornquist stated that even though he wants to produce the game, there are many and many reasons why it may never happen.[23][24]

References

  1. ↑ "The Longest Journey is Paradise Found - Gameindustry.com". February 21, 2001. Archived from the original on February 3, 2015.
  2. ↑ Matulef, Jeffrey (28 October 2014). "The Longest Journey remastered is coming to iOS "very soon"". Eurogamer. Gamer Network. Archived from the original on December 2, 2014. Retrieved 27 November 2014.
  3. ↑ Ragnar Tørnquist et al. (22 February 2013). RedThreadGames: Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey (live stream). Oslo, Norway: TwitchTV. Creator commentary starting at 10:01:20. Archived from the original on February 26, 2013. Retrieved 27 February 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 Böke, Ingmar (1 March 2013). "Dreamfall Chapters – Ragnar Tørnquist". Adventure Gamers. Archived from the original on March 4, 2013. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  5. ↑ Sluganski, Randy. "Interview with Ragnar Tornquist". Just Adventure +. Archived from the original on June 10, 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-11.
  6. ↑ "The Longest Journey coming to iPhone - VideoGamer.com". Archived from the original on July 10, 2012.
  7. 1 2 "The Longest Journey for PC". GameRankings. Archived from the original on March 16, 2009. Retrieved 30 March 2008.
  8. 1 2 "The Longest Journey for PC Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on August 20, 2010. Retrieved 30 March 2008.
  9. ↑ Bronstring, Marek (20 May 2000). "The Longest Journey". Adventure Gamers. Archived from the original on June 15, 2012. Retrieved 30 March 2008.
  10. 1 2 Dulin, Ron (26 June 2000). "The Longest Journey for PC Review". GameSpot. Archived from the original on June 19, 2006. Retrieved 29 March 2008.
  11. ↑ Schembri, Tamara. "The Longest Journey". GameSpy. Archived from the original on April 9, 2008. Retrieved 30 March 2008.
  12. 1 2 Lopez, Vincent (20 November 2000). "The Longest Journey Review". IGN. Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved 29 March 2008.
  13. 1 2 3 Steinberg, Scott (February 2001). "The Longest Journey". PC Gamer US. Brisbane, California: Imagine Media. 8 (2): 97. ISSN 1080-4471.
  14. ↑ Molloy, Sean (23 February 2004). "The Longest Journey review". GamePro. Archived from the original on May 17, 2008. Retrieved 14 December 2006. April Ryan is one of the strongest, most well-written, and most likeable heroines ever to point-and-click her way around a PC game.
  15. ↑ "Best and Worst of 2000". GameSpot. Archived from the original on July 15, 2007. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
  16. ↑ "Best of 2000 Awards". IGN. 26 January 2001. Archived from the original on May 10, 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
  17. ↑ Staff (April 2001). "The 2001 Premier Awards; Games of the Year". Computer Gaming World (201): 72–80, 82, 83.
  18. ↑ Staff (April 2001). "It's All in the Numbers". PC Gamer. Future US. 8 (4): 40, 41.
  19. ↑ Park, Andrew (June 22, 2001). "The Longest Journey sells 250,000". GameSpot. Archived from the original on November 12, 2001.
  20. ↑ "The Longest Journey – General News". Funcom. 29 July 2002. Archived from the original on October 10, 2002.
  21. ↑ Red Thread Games (8 February 2013). "Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey". Kickstarter. Archived from the original on February 11, 2013. Retrieved 8 February 2013.
  22. ↑ VanOrd, Kevin (1 March 2013). "Taking The Longest Journey Home". GameSpot. Archived from the original on March 4, 2013. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
  23. ↑ Hillier, Brenna (10 June 2016). "Dreamfall Chapters teaser heralds the end of The Longest Journey". VG247. Archived from the original on June 11, 2016. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  24. ↑ O'Connor, Alice (10 June 2016). "Dreamfall Chapters Ending Longest Journey Next Week". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Archived from the original on June 11, 2016. Retrieved 17 June 2016.
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