Tuesday, March 08, 2011

The Longest Journey Is Not A Very Good Game

Oh man, now I have to back that up. Why have I done this to myself? Even I don't agree with it. Well, here goes.

The Longest Journey is a classic point-and-click adventure game developed in Norway. In it you play April Ryan, a teenage girl who finds herself embroiled in a metaphysical conflict between her slightly futuristic sci-fi home and a parallel magical dimension. It is at this point that I should admit that I have not played the game since 2005, so must apologise if some of my recollections are slightly hazy.

The game is rightly acclaimed for its story and characterisation. The soundtrack is stirring and atmospheric, and resides on my mp3 player. The graphics are graphics.

And then we come to the puzzles. The Longest Journey is famed for an early puzzle in which you have to retrieve a key from a railway line without electrocuting yourself. You achieve this by combining some clamps, an old clothes-line and an inflatable rubber duck. Now, I know what you're thinking - any list of items is going to sound a little odd when recited like that with no further explanation. It must have made sense in context. I must have kicked myself when I eventually looked it up in an on-line walkthrough. However, let me assure you that the solution is not one that would be considered for even a moment by any sane individual in any possible universe. Really, April? That's what you're attaching to the clothes-line? An inflatable duck-clamp? Not, for example, a bit of wire or pipe cleaner bent into the shape of a hook, or literally anything that isn't an inflatable duck?

It is at this point that the developers perhaps concede that puzzles are not their strongest suit, and from this point onward you are shepherded along from one situation to the next where the puzzles are, by contrast, trivially easy. Now I'm not saying I didn't get stuck at any point - I can't remember; I probably did. But this has to be one of the most linear adventure games I have ever played. Rarely do you have to consider which location you next need to use an item to progress, as you rarely get a chance to even turn back. Instead you just look at the latest obstacle which has been presented to you, and think "this item will probably do it." Followed occasionally by "no? Maybe this one then."

I must stress that all through this, the story remains well written and engaging. After crossing over to the fantasy world, I found I needed to place a bet at a market stall to continue, and was prompted to offer something valuable. The obvious solution was April's gold ring, but I was genuinely hesitant - I had no idea how I would win the bet, and it had been established that this ring was all April had left as a memento of her estranged family. After some deliberation I offered up the treasured heirloom, only to be told that it was worthless. This was a fantasy world, after all, with different rules and values; gold was in plentiful supply, because of magic or something. With silent relief I instead gave the stall-holder some commonplace real-world item which fascinated them.

A nice bit of player-oriented storytelling, but it still boiled down to me picking items from the inventory until I found the right one. The only such game I can think of with simpler puzzle design is Discworld Noir, where every single locked door or container was bypassed by smashing it in with a crowbar. And you've got to at least admire the inherent deconstruction of the genre represented there.

Perhaps I'm naysaying. Maybe I just don't get adventure games? (You certainly know I'm in trouble when I start generating straw man arguments to defeat.) The stuff I've described - trying out items from the inventory until you figure out how to proceed - that's what point-and-click adventure gaming is. But it's all in the execution. This is what frustrates me, as The Longest Journey stikes me as one of the biggest missed opportunities in game design. So instead of simply criticising, I will try to elaborate on how it should have been done.

You have a story in which the heroine can travel from one world to another. Oppressive, futuristic Stark and strange, fantastical Arcadia. But these two worlds parallel each other. Everything has its counterpart in the other universe, and what you do in one will affect the other. Instead of crossing from one to the other only at predetermined points in the story, you should be able to do so at will. Think, for a moment, of the possibilities. You cannot get past a fearsome dragon in Arcadia, so you shift to Stark where it is replaced by a mechanical digger (I am aware that this is terrible, but I'm thinking off the top of my head here.) Cut the wiring in the JCB and suddenly the dragon has a severe aortal aneurysm. Instead of progressing in a linear fashion, you might have two or three puzzles to ponder at different ends of different universes. An innocuous item collected in Stark proves infinitely useful in Arcadia - which happens already, granted, but in this case you would have to figure out for yourself how and where to use it.

All of this has been done before in objectively the best adventure game ever, Day of the Tentacle. (Which is, coincidentally, another game with a well-written female protagonist.) Day of the Tentacle is a masterpiece of design wherein your characters interact with three different periods in history, every action you take affecting the future timeline in a logical way. Everything makes perfect sense and I can only remember two puzzles irking me even slightly: one where I was apparently trying to use the wrong sharp object to deflate a clown, and another where you have to make it rain by washing a car. And even that one makes sense within the cartoon logic of the world presented to you.

The Longest Journey, on the other hand, stumped me completely near the end. None of my items would gain me access to the spaceport. Eventually, I consulted an on-line forum and determined that I had failed to exhaust all of my dialogue options with a character in another location. I went back and did so, which, through some ineffable cosmic wheel of metaphysical cause and effect, inexplicably caused a random pedestrian to throw a pizza box into the litter bin.

Understand that this is a cardinal sin in adventure game design. It is literally the worst thing in the entire world. I feel like I shouldn't have to explain why.

I've been complaining a lot and I should talk a bit more about the writing. At the beginning of the game you encounter an acquaintance of April's named Zack, who is swiftly identified as an obnoxious creep. So effective is this characterisation that you really feel April's pain when you later find that you are going to need to ask him for a favour in order to proceed. The worst case scenario ensues in which Zack insists that April repay him by going on a date. Later April is at the bar with her friends when she remembers about her end of the bargain, and you are given the option to keep to it or stand Zack up. The choice you make has no real bearing on the story, but by this point you are right there with the protagonist. Why should you stop having a good time with your friends because of Zack? That guy's a twat. There's always tomorrow to worry about that sort of thing anyway.

The Longest Journey is a very good story and I am happy to recommend it. It's just not a very good game.