Worth the wait
The payoff is a game changer in The Longing
The Longing
Application Systems Heidelberg Available on Mac and PC
Every so often a game comes along that is so audacious it reminds me how pedestrian many of the games that I’ve reviewed — and liked — are by comparison.
This level of creativity reinvigorates my expectation of what games can be.
On a short list of games that meet this standard I would include The Witness, The Beginner’s Guide, Nier: Automata, Disco Elysium and now The Longing.
The Longing is a point-andclick game about waiting based on an old German legend about a ruler who goes to sleep in a cave.
It commences with a king addressing his trusted servant, the Shade — a yellow-eyed, beak-nosed, sooty-looking figure — who he stands on the palm of his hand.
Upon informing his servant that his power is waning, the king tells him that he will sleep for 400 days to regather his strength, after which time his servant is to wake him so that he may “end all fear and longing.”
Once the king falls into his slumber, the Shade repairs to a nook within the underground network of caverns where he contemplates the weight of his task. The 400 days of which the king spoke equate to 400 actual days. So, if you start The Longing and come back after 400 days, you’ll discover one of the game’s different endings. (I read that there is a consequence if you try to cheat the game by changing the time on your computer.) Mercifully, the Shade strikes upon an idea as to how he can make time go faster by decorating his abode and/or by reading.
By exploring the neighbouring areas, the Shade will come across items such as paper, books, coal, tools and mushrooms that glow in the dark.
The Shade can use paper to create drawings to decorate his home and coal to create a cosy fire. The mushrooms can be used as a makeshift flashlight or ingested to bring about a vision.
Soon after, the Shade finds a door that takes a couple of minutes to open, so slowly does it move on its old hinges.
Wait you must for two hours, a week or a month for some of the events in the game to occur.
The Longing makes a mockery of the idea that games depend upon instant gratifications.
It is a minimalist game that creates space for the mind to wander and philosophize along with the Shade as he considers his existential condition, his loneliness and his lack of control over his situation.
As I type this sentence, my computer is running The Longing in the background. Last night, I had the Shade read through Moby Dick while I slept; he turns the pages at a faster clip than I do.
A nifty feature of the game is that you can bookmark different locations to which the Shade can return, so you can send him hiking while you cook dinner.
I’m only 387 days in (seven days of real time), so I can’t make a conclusive judgment, but I’m invested.