In Praise of the Grobusverse - The Cure for the Common Lore-brain.

 

Contains minor spoilers

If there's one thing that the internet has cursed us with it's what I like to refer to as 'Wiki-brain,' though to be more accurate 'Lore-brain,' is probably the more descriptive term. It's the tendency for fan communities to reduce the fictional stories they love down to statistics and backstory. The desire to quantity and record for posterity every piece of information a text provides, no matter how trivial it is.

I think it was Hbomberguy who said something along the lines of "Wookiepedia can tell you Chewbacca's exact height and weight but it can't tell you a thing about the themes of the story he comes from." As such I kind of feel there's been a bit of a backlash of late against excessive world-building and creators constantly trying to over-explain every minor aspect of their fictional universes.

There's probably a whole other essay I could write about how thematic constancy is more important than narrative consistency, but I don't think we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There's room enough for stories that play fast and loose with their own continuity in order for the story to come first, but I think that there's just a compelling argument to make that the cure for 'Lore-brain," can also be in telling stories where a drip feed of backstory can be so much more compelling than world guides and appendices, or, god forbid, fan wikis and TV Tropes.

This long winded into bring me to Simon Roy's Grobusverse, for want of a better name. A collection of comics set in a fictional, fractured future. I've discussed entries within this universe before, but this essay is going to be less a review of the stories specifically and more about how Roy chooses to communicate this universe to his audience.

Starting with Habitat in 2017, I was immediately drawn towards the visual aesthetic that Roy conjured to depict this techno-barbaric future. Set on board a space habitat in the style of Arthur C Clarke's Rama, the comic tells the story of warring tribes battling for supremacy using mostly long forgotten technology after having been left behind by whatever galactic community exists beyond the habitat's sealed airlocks. The technology itself looks crunchy and believable. The olive green and industrial orange of it's mech-suits, cargo walkers and harpoon guns all look like they have come from some alternate cold-war Europe, bastard children of Aliens' power loader and Red Alert 2's Soviet Super tech, rather than some far future space utopia.

It's all the more surprising then to find that the habitat also once played host to some kind of dormant god-like creature who seems biological in nature but is otherwise intricately connected to the populace's lost technology.

Habitat is for the most part a completely self contained story. By the end characters have completed both their narrative arcs and completed their stated objectives to bring new life to the habitat's savage world. Yet as a reader so many breadcrumbs are left hanging in the air. Just what is the state of the galaxy beyond the habitat? What cataclysm led to their abandonment? What is the true nature of the colossal creature dormant within the superstructure's depths? Why exactly are the combat robots also representatives of the Catholic church?

Habitat is filled with so many tantalising backstory details that go unexplained, but get into the reader's head in such a way that they can't help but speculate. Had the series have seen a continuation these backstory elements may well have been filled out in a understandable, orderly fashion, but Simon Roy's retro-techno-future world would sit dormant for a few years before seeing it's revival in webcomic form. Though the direction it decided to go in was to zig almost certainly where one would expect it to zag.

Griz Grobus, far from taking place on a high-tech space habitat, would instead pull us down to Altamera, a colony world that appears to be just as cut off from the greater universe as their space dwelling cousins were. Instead of a jungle climate filled with warring tribes, we find snowy mountaintops and forest glades, and a frontier-like community of loggers, miners and trappers. The technology is still present, but like in Habitat, poorly understood, with archaeologists and academics doing their best to try and piece together what little even operates.

Griz Grobus delves more into the mysterious robotic priesthood, who still seem to keep the faith with Lord Jesus Christ despite having little concern for their religion's near extinction amongst the populace. Fittingly, this story is told side by side with a folkloric fable of rampaging warlords and magical geese. A reminder that even on the other side of the galaxy strong stories can hold great power.

Like Habitat, Griz Grobus only drip-feeds it's backstory, hinting at possible explanations for the state of the universe here and there. Interestingly, the Kickstarter edition came with a small guidebook to the "Thinking Machines of the Apostolic Congress." Presented as an in-universe artefact, this guide book details the different forms of robo-priest and their intended purposes, but notably gives NO information as to why these machines appear to be specifically Christian in origin.

I hope it's clear by now what it is in Roy's approach I find so appealing here. No doubt he could easily fill the book's back matter with timelines and backstory and faction guides and whatnot, but a huge part of the enjoyment comes from the journey, not the destination. Like the characters within the stories themselves, we often lack context surrounding their discoveries, and like the archaeologists and artefact hunters, we have to analyse and interpret from incomplete data.

As the Grobusverse would continue, so too would we continue to interpret. A short comic, The Envoy and the Warrior, sheds more light on the colossal superbeings we witnessed at the end of Habitat, and only hints at what great cataclysm may have brought down humanity's spacefaring civilisation. Miramar would take us to yet another isolated planet, this time an ocean world to show how the human remnants would adapt differently with their limited technological knowledge when subjected to new environments.

Refugium would return us to Alamira, but this time looking at ecology rather than technology. Refugium would, ironically, contain probably the most significant amount of lore so far but it would be almost entirely be regarding the original flora and fauna of the planet long before it was overwritten by human terraforming. Once again, we are left to infer backstory from information that is most relevant to the characters within the moment.

Critically, this attitude constantly reminds the readers that the people of these worlds come first, not the setting they inhabit. Their human experiences, hopes, fears, losses and gains, are what have and will drive the arc of history we only at times get small glimpses of. I have no doubt Roy could probably explain in fine details the mechanics of how the mech-suits work, but it's just so much more compelling to discover that from a struggling mechanic desperately trying to keep the thing working.

More than anything I think Roy's world reminds us that despite periods that we refer to as "dark ages" human beings are not inherently stupid. People didn't magically forget how everything worked after the Roman Empire fell. Instead language and literature was stratified. Knowledge could not easily be replicated and passed along. Some sciences were maintained unchanged, while others passed into folklore and superstition, while others still were lost.

That so much of what is going on in the Grobusverse is obscured, hinted at, there to be scrutinised by inquisitive readers, is a great example of how we can address that pesky 'lore-brain' without reducing world-building to a big list of stuff that happened. It's a very specific way of trusting the audience and respecting the integrity of the work. It creates not just a fun story but a mystery to be solved with you as the investigator.

Roy has been very clear that there is much more to come, with a guide to "Man-Amplifiers of the Euhumanist League," no doubt giving us only just enough information to lead to more speculation. It's been a wild ride so far, and I'm hoping it's just getting started. I have no idea what little titbit will trickle out of the plot next, but I can't wait to dust the edges and study it's form in the hopes I can glean it's context.

------------------------

Jack Harvey (2024)

The Longest Journey Series Retrospective – Part Three: Dreamfall Chapters (2016)

This is a multi-part series retrospective on Ragnar Tørnquist's Longest Journey Series, made up of The Longest Journey, Dreamfall and Dreamfall Chapters. Part One is here. Part Two is here.

                                                                         

It took seven years for The Longest Journey to see a sequel, and when Dreamfall arrived the gaming landscape had come a long way. It would take another ten years for Dreamfall's follow up to arrive, and when it did the gaming landscape had moved even further.

Where TLJ was a standard point-and-click affair, and Dreamfall a third-person action-adventure, Chapters would instead present itself as a full blown episodic drama, a format popularized by Telltale's The Walking Dead and Dontnod's Life is Strange. The adventure game, long thought dead, had now been resurrected in a new form, and it seems fitting that The Longest Journey would see a revival along with it.

Chapters is in many ways the biggest departure from the series so far. Like the contemporaries that influenced it, game-play is paired down to a bare minimum, with character interaction and dialogue taking on a a greater focus. It would also be the first in the series to give the player binary choices that would impact the plot of the game. One of the neat tricks it does is trigger a message stating 'The Balance Has Shifted' upon an important decision being made. In any other game this would be a simple reminder to the player, but in a series that has constantly framed 'The Balance' as a critical, world shaping power, this gives your decisions real weight.

Dreamfall had finished on a cliffhanger, leaving many plot threads unfinished. I can't imagine what it must have been like, waiting ten years, not knowing if Zoë would even come out of that coma. Indeed, the series was in a precarious position, and it was only the changing landscape of crowdfunding that gave it new life. Tørnquist and new developer Red Thread seem to have been very aware of this, and go to great pains to truly bring together a satisfying conclusion.

Like Dreamfall, Chapters is less of a self contained story and more an installment of a larger series. Going from Dreamfall to Chapters feels natural, and the two clearly compliment each other as part one and part two of the same plot.

The story picks up almost immediately where we left off with Zoë in a coma, Kian imprisoned and April dead. It doesn't take long to get the plot moving however, with Zoë finally awaking and moving to a new city, Europolis, and Kian escaping to an uneasy alliance with the Marcurian rebellion. It also introduces a new character, Saga, who's life we play through gradually, and who's importance does not appear to be immediately apparent.

If you thought the politics would stop with Dreamfall then you'd be very much mistaken. In many ways Chapters itself becomes more overtly political in telling an allegory for the current climate. In Europolis, we see a crisis unfold around the coming election, as the two main parties are represented by a right-wing fascistic bully and a morally compromised centrist, while the far left struggles to make a diffidence due to constant infighting. Kudos to Tørnquist for so succinctly framing the problems that continue to plague western politics.

In Marcuria, the Iraq War allegory mostly gives way to a focus on nationalism and xenophobia. Onor Hilloriss, a minor villain, is clearly a stand in for many right-wing European politicians, and definitely influenced by one from the UK in particular. Through Kian we see more of the Azadi's compromised occupation and how it was intended as a mostly benevolent campaign that was, instead, prolonged and manipulated by the powerful few for their own ends. A clear representation of how many feel about the never-ending War on Terror.

Chapters weaves these stories intrinsically into each other, showing that both Zoë and Kian's struggle to find a place in the world is absolutely tied to mankind's self destructive impulses. The political chaos in Europolis and Marcuria is caused by the exact same longing that the characters suffer from, and sticking with the themes of the earlier games, the only cure is to move forward. The past can never be regained.

And it's these themes that are so wonderfully brought to a head in Chapters in bizarre and wonderful ways. Not only does the game draw back to characters and storylines from the first entry in the series, but it expands the scope even furthers, from The Balance, to The Dreaming, to Storytime itself.

It's fitting, in a way, that each entry in the series has evolved in tandem with the adventure genre. The Longest Journey couldn't have stayed a point-and-click adventure game, it had to evolve with updated technology and changing audience tastes. Just like the characters, you can't stay in the same place forever, you just can't, you have to keep moving. It's how you stay alive.

Thus, over the course of three games, we see old lives put to bed and new ones embraced. Zoë finally finds her place in the world, Kian brings an end to the Azadi occupation and April finally realizes her destiny through reincarnation as Saga, becoming the old lady in the comfy chair that was recalling the tale all the way back in The Longest Journey.

On it's own, Dreamfall Chapters is a fine and inventive episodic drama. As the final entry in the series, it ties everything together to make them all greater than the sum of their parts. The stories and lives we witness are universal, but what's even more wonderful is just how broad the scope is.

This isn't a story about mighty warriors or powerful space marines. It's a story about artists, farmers, mechanics, bar owners and computer programmers. It's a story about the dispossessed, the persecuted and the downtrodden. It's not a power fantasy, it doesn't offer any easy answers, but it's comforting too. It lets the player into the lives of it's characters and shows that we aren't the only ones who struggle to find our place in the world.

This is only reinforced by the diversity of it's characters. Back when I was talking about The Longest Journey I already mentioned that the cast was pretty diverse to begin with, but the decision to put LGBT and POC characters front and center brings it's themes of belonging right to the forefront. A less diverse game would have been unquestionably a weaker one.

Gripes? I have a couple. The change in Kian's voice actor between games is pretty jarring, particularly how he goes from soft spoken in Dreamfall to deep and gravelly in Chapters. His redesign also looks lighter skinned, so take that as you will. The game also struggles to shake it's predecessors obtuse puzzles every now and again, in contrast to it's contemporaries more straightforward solutions. Still, these are all minor, and the freedom to choose the path of the story, and explore Marcuira in full for the very first time, more than makes up for it.

The Longest Journey series was intend to have one more entry, The Longest Journey Home, a sort of interquel set between TLJ and Dreamfall that would have followed April and gone back to the series roots as a classic point-and-click. It was set as a stretch goal for Chapters' funding, but the goal was never met, forcing Tørnquist to put the project on ice. In a way, I'm glad that this happened. I don't think it would be in the series best interest to see a sequel so immediate or nostalgic. I'd much rather see Tørnquist come back to it in another ten years time, when the gaming industry, and the world in general, has once again moved on.

All things considered, Chapters is a worthy conclusion, and elevates the series to that lofty status of high art. The worlds of Arcadia and Stark closely mirror our own, and gently warn of the pitfalls of historic reverence, and encourages us to take hold of our own destiny. I can't recommend the series enough. If you've never played them before, you have to check them out, and if you're a long time fan, they are absolutely worth a revisit.

Jack Harvey 2017. Dreamfall Chapters is (c) Red Thread Games

The Longest Journey Series Retrospective – Part Two: Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (2006)

This is a multi-part series retrospective on Ragnar Tørnquist's Longest Journey Series, made up of The Longest Journey, Dreamfall and Dreamfall Chapters. Part One is here.

                                                                          

The Longest Journey itself was tight and self-contained enough that a sequel wasn't immediately expected. Even so, it's not hard to imagine what an immediate follow up to the game might have looked like. The continuing adventures of April Ryan, exploring more of Arcadia and Stark and foiling the further machinations of the Vanguard. There have been worse proposed point-and-click sequels.

But TLJ didn't get an immediate sequel, instead it's follow up Dreamfall arrived seven years later, and was a departure in both game-play and storytelling. The action in Dreamfall is more immediate, more dynamic, and the writing is both deeper and further reaching. Where TLJ was a mostly well written quest made of familiar fairy tale tropes, Dreamfall seeks to explore bigger ideas.

Once again, it's the writing that's the strength. There's not a lot to really say about the game-play. Dreamfall leaves behind it's predecessor's classic point-and-click presentation to give us a more action-oriented third-person focus. Though there are Tomb Raider inspired climbing sections and the occasional stealth sequence, the game is mostly business as usual in talking to characters and using inventory items to solve puzzles, albeit in a very paired down, more focused way.

Beyond that the most maligned part of Dreamfall was it's combat sequences. These are finicky and just plain bad, but the worst part about them is how unnecessary they are. There are only a handful over the course of the game, and most could have easily unfolded as cut-scenes instead. It's likely that the move to a console market demanded action, action, action, but it's a real shame that this does nothing but blot an otherwise wonderful game.

Indeed, it's not just the combat that is affected by the move to a console release. While the game's graphics hold up quite well, and still look crisp and atmospheric today, the game is cut into tiny pieces and riddled with loading screens due to the limitations of the console generation at the time. This is a problem that also plagued Thief: Deadly Shadows, and both game words feel tight and claustrophobic in the wrong sort of way.

Still, that's not to say Dreamfall doesn't do interesting things with it's new graphical engine. In fact, Dreamfall plays with cinematic convention in a way only video games can. There are two specific occasions where this really shines. First is when the player returns to Newport, no longer rendered as a painterly background but instead as a full 3D map, except due to the engine limitations Newport actually looks worse than in TLJ. It's smaller, tighter and less flashy than when we last visited it, but this actually works in the game's favor since it mirrors Newport's own fall from grace.

As we return to April Ryan's old place of work it's a grim and gray affair, just as how the once bustling Venice is also on it's last legs. Dreamfall uses what it has with it's limited 3D maps to evoke a specific reaction from the player.

It does a similar thing when the player first returns to Marcuria. As we leave the Journeyman Inn, the camera focuses on the the Inn's sign, before pulling back to the same angle that it was framed at during TLJ. While the character is amazed at the new world they have entered, the player mimics their amazement at seeing a familiar place now rendered in more detail.

And indeed, the entire experience of Dreamfall is all about playing with the familiar and the unfamiliar. The game starts with a flashback to to Brian Westhouse, a minor character from the first game, traveling from Tibet through a hole in reality, but before we get a handle on things we are pulled away from Brian's story, and what unfolds in the prologue wouldn't become relevant until the next entry in the series, Dreamfall Chapters.

We are instead introduced to Zoë Castillo, who appears to be somewhat of a replacement for April. She's also a disillusioned student who's struggling to find her place in the world, and just like TLJ, the game starts us with her morning routine to give us a baseline normal before her world is turned on it's head. Like April, Zoë starts to uncover a strange corporate conspiracy that is somehow connected to the magical world of Arcadia. The player is lulled into thinking that this is mostly a remake of TLJ and Zoë is going to be revealed to be another shifter with a role to play in an ancient prophecy.

Instead the game pulls the rug from under us, revealing that Zoë is actually a dreamer, and has a much different role to play. Zoë gets caught up in an international conspiracy that involves the use of dream machines intended for mass surveillance. In a weirdly pertinent twist, Zoë teams up with a corporate whisleblower who wants to leak these surveillance plans to the press. Despite coming out in 2006 the game has strong parallels to the NSA and Wikileaks scandals of the New 10's.

It's not just the Stark portion of the game that gets political either. The Acadia plot seems separate from Zoë's main arc, and instead follows two further characters, April, now a revolutionary leader, and Kian, an assassin sanctioned to kill her.

After the events of TLJ, the Vanguard's forces occupying Marcuria are deposed by a technologically and socially superior nation that decides to leave a military presence to impose it's own values of society and religion on the reluctant Marcuirans. This in turn leads to a rebellion that isn't above the use of terror tactics.

In case you haven't noticed, this mirrors the unfolding of post-invasion Iraq, with Kian and the Azadi standing in for the Western coalition and April and the resistance standing in for the insurgents. I'm astounded that Funcom and Tørnquist had the balls to frame the west as the bad guys and the insurgents the sympathetic characters, but it does seem that the subtext was lost on most people.

While the game does frame the Azadi occupation as immoral, through Kian's eyes we see that it was done with the best of intentions, and most Azadi leadership just wonder why the Marcurians can't get with the program and civilize themselves. The Acradian plot would be explored in more depth as Dreamfall Chapters rolled around, but it's seeds are planted in the most wonderful ways here.

The game ends with Zoë's plot mostly wrapped up with the discovery that a sister, Faith, unknown to her, was a critical part of the dream machine's development, and her vengeful soul haunts the data-sphere, threatening to end everything. Zoë sacrifices herself to lay Faith's soul to rest, and ends up trapped in a coma. On the Marcuria side, Kian, doubting his loyalties, unintentionally triggers a sting operation against April, which results in her death and his imprisonment. All things considered, the story ends on a grim note, and a final cliffhanger hinting more to come.

Unlike The Longest Journey, Dreamfall is undoubtedly part one of a multi-part story, with clear intentions of a continuation further down the line. This makes it difficult to judge on it's own merits, and had Dreamfall never seen a sequel it would be safe to judge the game poorly on it's decision to stretch out the plot over multiple games. That being said, Tørnquist and his team have to be commended for their decision to expand the story and take it to strange new places like The Dreaming.

Indeed, Dreamfall is a wonderful example of playing with audience expectations, forcing players to second guess where they think the story is going. Zoë is not April 2.0, but the step-by-step realization of this is part of what makes the plot so joyful. The Azadi are not the expected evil occupiers we originally assume them to be, and setting right what once went wrong is not shown to be as easy as fighting an end boss or defeating a horde of enemies like most games suggest it would be.

Though Dreamfall's story ends with many threads still hanging, it's an ambitious and lofty project, with aspirations that go far beyond the standard affair of action-adventure games. It wants to explore big ideas, both political and metaphysical, and it wants to build on the foundations of the adventure genre while both taking it in new directions that the advancing technology and graphics would allow.

For a sequel to a fine 1999 point-and-click adventure game, it far exceed what anyone would expect, and as we'll find out next time, it's follow up would be great launching point to take the genre even further.

                                                              

Jack Harvey 2017. Dreamfall is (c) Funcom

The Longest Journey Series Retrospective - Part One: The Longest Journey (1999)

This is part one of a multi-part series retrospective on Ragnar Tørnquist's Longest Journey Series, made up of The Longest Journey, Dreamfall and Dreamfall Chapters.

                                                                                                                 

Some games are a cut above. They're not necessarily the best games ever made and they're not always my favorites, but there's something that sets these games apart from the rest of the gaming mainstream. They elevate themselves beyond their genre trappings to tell stories that get to the heart of the human condition. They have things to say.

Some of these games are shooters, like Spec Ops: The Line, RPG's like Fallout: New Vegas or small Indy throwbacks like Undertale. Most of these games are deliberately written as subversion, taking a familiar genre or setting and twisting it to examine a universal truth. Only a few of these games are created from whole cloth, rather than as reaction, and even fewer maintain their themes across several installments.

I never expected The Longest Journey to join the ranks of these games, and even morose I never expected the entire series, with Dreamfall and Dreamfall Chapters, to join these ranks either. In fact, the most interesting thing about The Longest Journey series is how each individual installment dosen't stand out on it's own, but experienced together they becomes a powerful story of life and the inevitability of change.

But we'll get there in due time. For now, I'm going to dig in to the first installment, 1999's The Longest Journey.

TLJ is the most traditional of the three games. It was released on the tail end of the golden age of point-and-click, where pixel graphics were beginning to be discarded and 3D was leading to games with more dynamic game-play. TLJ reaped the progress of this era, with graphics that were, for the time, more realistic than the cartoony visuals used in genre classics like the Monkey Island series, and using a refined version of point-and-click mechanics that replaced the big list of 'use on' and 'pick up' with a simple eye, hand and mouth.

The opening hours of the game are notable for two things. First, setting up a baseline normality to better present the more fantastical parts of the plot later. We begin the game as April Ryan, a disillusioned art student who just needs to work on her painting and get paid for her part time job. These little tasks really set the scene, and allow us to get into April's head so that when the plot proper gets going, we understand the stakes and the emotional turmoil she is experiencing.

Second, the game has a good run of avoiding a lot of point-and-click adventure bullshit. A lot of the tasks make sense in a logical way and I found I didn't have to resort to a walkthrough early on like I do with a lot of these kinds of games. That being said, as the plot progresses, the puzzles too begin to get more obtuse. This is heralded with the notorious 'rubber duck puzzle' which is asinine for the sake of being asinine.

In the end, I, and I imagine most people, gave in to a walkthrough at points. Many may not agree, but I feel this is acceptable when the game is so story focused. I'd rather just bypass figuring out some harder puzzles if it means I can get on with the plot.

It's for the best really, as the plot here is TLJ's greatest strength. As the story progresses, and April begins to investigate some shady corporate goings on with the mysterious Vanguard, she discovers she is a 'shifter' who can travel between the worlds of science and magic (described in the game as Stark and Arcadia) that were long ago separated to prevent catastrophe. Legend has it that a guardian must come to watch over The Balance, and April seems to be that prophesied guardian.

The visuals are well designed for this tale. Stark and Arcadia both have a distinct style that sets them apart, and while the blocky character models really do look dated now, the painterly backgrounds still maintain some stunning visuals, especially in places like downtown Venice and the Alchemist's fortress.

Likewise with the strength of the writing. Just like the day-in-the-life opening, once we finally get to city of Marcuria we get to experience the boots-on-the-ground nitty gritty of the place first. We learn about map distribution, dock work and the running of the Journeyman Inn, which would go on to be a well trodden location over the course of the series. While the stakes may involve world ending prophesies, April spends much of the game talking to working class people and dealing with working class problems. This in turn ties in to her character's development.

One of the most notable aspects of the game, I've found, is it's use of what I like to call 'anti-worldbuilding'. Off world colonies, badger people, mutant cybogs, talking trees. TLJ and the series as a whole will often be free to pull out whatever it likes without fear of contradiction because it gives us very little to contradict.

Indeed, world building isn't really necessary, for the only world that matters is April Ryan's world. As the game progresses, and through her dealings with crisis both big and small, April agonizes about her place in the world, the people she loves, and the life she has lived. Should she accept the offer to become the guardian or return home to an art career she found no love in?

Tørnquist makes heavy use of contrasting characters to mirror April's plight, from fellow man-out-of-time Brian Westhouse, to newly liberated talking crow... uh Crow. The game gives no easy answers, presenting both destiny and the decision to screw it as a false binary, and indeed, the game saves it's greatest twist right until the end, emphasizing this point.

As it turns out, April Ryan is not the chosen one. The Balance rejects her, and indeed the true chosen one is revealed to be little more than a secondary character that was being manipulated by other parties. In a bittersweet end, April is left to find her place elsewhere. While she hasn't had to sacrifice her old life, she hasn't been shown a better path either. It's a journey she'll have to take on her own. In life, there is no hand holding.

The game ends with an epilogue of (seemingly) an aged April and Crow telling the tale to a young audience, and hints that there were greater things in her life yet to come. It's a neat and tidy ending, and while it leaves the door open for future installments, there are no hanging plot threads or unanswered questions. If no further installments had followed then it would still have been a great tale.

The Longest Journey isn't a perfect game by any means. The maguffin hunt really drags on into the later chapters and doesn't add a whole lot to the story, and, as mentioned, a lot of the puzzles can be brain explodingly obtuse, but it's a story that is well executed with a wonderful cast of characters and real heart to it.

One of the things that stands out to me is that were The Longest Journey released today it would be denigrated by some portions of the internet as an 'SJW' game. The story is about a strong independent woman and her life, loves and aspirations, with a surprisingly diverse cast. Heck, one of the first characters you speak to is your lesbian landlady.

There's a false narrative that's been created in recent years that games that celebrate diversity, that have female or non-white characters, LGBT, race and gender themes, are only a recent occurrence that has been 'inserted' into the genre artificially. TLJ clearly shows that such a sentiment is complete bunk, but it does to some degree reveal why such a misconception is easy to believe.

When I used to read PC Zone magazine back in the day, The Longest Journey sat on the top ten list of adventure games, side by side with the other top tens. While not what one would call a AAA title, it was viewed as an equal side by side with games like Baldur's Gate, Quake 2 and Age of Empires. This was because, all in all, PC gaming, and gaming in general, was more niche back then, and genres generally had a more equal niche within that niche.

Over time, the mainstreaming of consoles and the popularity of more 'dynamic' titles resulted in games like TLJ being left behind, and the thoughtful, deep writing, in many ways, got left behind with it. It isn't that the fans went anywhere, so much as that the fans of other genres grew exponentially larger. By today's standards TLJ is much more what people would consider 'indy'. Small team, simple game-play, and a focus on pushing boundaries when it comes to writing.

The Longest Journey wouldn't see it's sequel arrive until seven years later, and by then the video game industry's landscape had evolved much since 1999. Dreamfall: The Longest Journey would be a very different game than it's predecessor, but as I'll explain in part two, this would only go on to make the series all the stronger.

                                                 

Jack Harvey 2017. The Longest Journey is (c) Funcom.