The Longing is an indiepoint-and-click adventureidlevideo game, released on March 5, 2020 by Studio Seufz. The game is notable in the in-game four hundred days pass in real-time, regardless of whether or not the player opens the game. It is based on the legend of Kyffhäuser. The game follows a creature called a Shade, who waits 400 days to awaken a sleeping king. During this wait, the Shade must find ways to pass the time. The Longing received positive reviews and was praised for its experimental nature.
Gameplay and story
The gameplay of The Longing revolves around a real-time countdown of 400 days as the player character, called a Shade, waits to awaken his king. Interaction with the world is slow-paced by design, with the Shade's movement speed being significantly slow. The gameplay consists mostly of exploring caves, gathering resources to furnish the Shade's home, and other time-wasting activities such as reading and drawing. Many aspects of the game are time-dependent, for instance, roadblocks which require the player to wait a certain amount of time before progressing. The game is intended to, at least in part, be played idly, enabled by features such as idle reading and a bookmark system, by which the player can direct the Shade to automatically walk to a previously saved location, his home, or randomly wander around. The player's main goals are driven by a to-do list of things to improve the Shade's life, however, no interaction with the game world is required to advance the timer, as it continues regardless of what actions are taken and increments independently of the game being open. Time advances faster in the Shade's home depending on how well-furnished it is, as well as while performing certain actions such as drawing. As a result of the timer's constant progression, it is possible to beat the game by opening it once, waiting 400 days, then opening it again, although this is not the intended way to play. To prevent cheating, the game also has a dungeon system as a consequence for players who attempt to circumvent the time limit by changing their computer's system clock. The game features several endings, and not all require the player to wait out the 400 day timer.
Development and release
The Longing's story was largely inspired by the Kyffhäuser legend, particularly by a dwarven character within the poem "Kyffhäuser Mountains Barbarossa" by Friedrich Rückert, which was based upon the legend. The dwarf was tasked with checking every 100 years if its king was ready to awaken. Anselm Pyta, director of The Longing, found the character interesting, and focused in on it and its mental state. As such, much of the game was built around the theme of loneliness. The gameplay was inspired by idle games such as Clicker Heroes. Prior to release, a demo of the game was showcased at AdventureX 2020. The game released on March 5, 2020 to Steam for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Reception
The Longing was received positively by critics, aggregating 76% on Metacritic. In particular it was praised for its experimental nature; PC Gamer's Joakim Kilman called it a "fascinating experiment", and Christopher Byrd of The Washington Post spoke of how " level of creativity reinvigorates my expectation of what games can be," drawing comparisons to The Witness and The Beginner's Guide, among others. In part due to its release date, Rachel Weber of GamesRadar called it "the game that best sums up life in the 2020 pandemic". Some reviewers criticized the game's lack of content; Feronato Emaneule of The Games Machine praised its story, but stated that it " with the lack of puzzles and too many pauses" and Athanasios Aravositas of Cubed3 stated "you won't exactly swim in content while playing it."
