"The Longest Journey" was not the first video game I played. It was certainly not the last. However, it was the first game to convince me that video games could tell a story, and tell it well. This game is an excellent example of the potential of video games as a means for interactive story telling.

Getting the game

I was deprived of video games as a young kid. I had loved the puzzles of Lemmings and the creativity allowed by Sim City, loaded off MS DOS from floppy disks. However, I had never imagined a video game could tell stories as well as the books I read and loved. Then in the May of 2000, looking for news on games for my first console, the N64, I read a preview article on a new adventure game coming out for the PC, "The Longest Journey". The article was glowing, but didn't give much detail on the game. I was very excited by he description of a rich fantasy story, like that I had read in my favourite books. I asked my parents if I could use my saved pocket money to buy the game when it came out. It was the first game I had bought myself, and I was so excited to play it. I had preordered it on Amazon a month in advance and the wait seemed like forever. As the release date drew closer and closer my excitement grew.

You can imagine my disappointment when the game arrived and I discovered that it wouldn't run on our aging PC. However, at the time I was going to a church run youth group every Wednesday night, and they had a new computer in the church hall. I asked the woman who ran the group, a teacher from my old school, if I could play my game there every Wednesday night, and to my relief, she agreed.



Starting the Journey

For a game released in 1999 the graphics were incredible. Remember, my only experience of contemporary game graphics was the cartoony, chunky Donkey Kong 64. Though for the time Donkey Kong's graphics were good (the game needed the expanison pak to run), they couldn't stand up to the fantastic artwork of the glorious prerendered backdrops, and realistic character models of "The Longest Journey". The game opens with an old woman telling a story in a medieval house. The characters mention unfamiliar terms, adding to the sense of mystery. "The Balance". As the old lady starts to tell her story, a cinematic plays, as we enter the dream of our heroine, April Ryan. She stands in a blasted fantastical landscape. Within moments she encounters a giant egg, and the spirit of dying tree. Solving a simple puzzle (the first of many), the Mother, a white dragon, arrives to claim her child. I won't spoil the story, but her first riddling remarks set April on the first steps of her journey. She awakens back to her life as an arts student in Venice, a bohemian suburb of Newport, a city in a not-so-distant future America. The world is pure cyberpunk, with passive aggressive corporate-run police. As April struggles to prepare for an upcoming exhibition, she encounters increasingly strange occurences, as the world of her dreams starts to seem more and more real. At the same time, Cortez, an aging Spaniard starts to make cryptic remarks about her dreams, and the story commences. Before long she discovers she is a Shifter, a human capable of travelling between the worlds of Stark and Arcadia, worlds of Science and Magic, Order and Chaos.



This fantastic plot device allows the game to seamlessly blend the cyber-punk sci-fi world of Stark, with the traditional fantasy world of Arcadia. The mythology of the game is detailed and beautiful, and you feel like the events you play out take place in a much longer story, whose details you only start to glimpse. The game is occasionaly philosophical and has very deep, well developed back story. Thanks to excellent exposition and April's humourous take on the events she's caught up in, the depth never weighs the story down. At the time I hadn't played enough games for the presentation of April to suprise me. In retrospect, her portrayal as a deep, well-rounded female main character who you can fully sympathise with, has yet to be matched. Her humour and quiet intelligence make her character likeable, and her confusion at the unfolding events matches the players own. She is no silent character whose body you occupy. You get the strong sense that you are watching her story played out. The game matches serious themes with mild satire and well placed humour, creating an enjoyable balance of tone. Despite its excellent story, the game never takes itself too seriously- when characters are on the verge of being pantomine villains, other characters point out their theatricality. There are moments of well observed parody of the sci fi and fantasy genres , even as the game presents one of the deepest fantasy stories available, even to this day. The story is littered with moments of tragedy, comedy and pathos, while never becoming melodramatic.


Stark

Gameplay

All this excellent story telling would be let down by weak gameplay. Fortunately, it is a brilliant example of the point and click adventure genre. While it doesn't attempt to reinvent the wheel with gameplay, sticking to the formula perfected by the Lucas Arts adventure games, it fits the genre well, and the gameplay fits the story telling well. The game occasionaly nods to its predecessors; for example, April's toy monkey, used in a couple of the puzzles, is called Guybrush. Some reviews criticised some of the more obscure puzzles, and the way to solve some situations isn't immediately obvious. However, some of the weird, arcane puzzles are all the more satisfying when you finally solve them. As well as the classic combination of items gameplay mechanic there are logic puzzles of varying difficulty. The gameplay, in line with the drive of the story is fairly linear, although you'll get a chance to explore the beautiful worlds of the game as you try to find the item to solve the next puzzle; Usually there is only one solution to a puzzle to find. Though you could blast through the game very quickly, the game is packed with incidental detail and depth.

In retrospect...

The game was intended for a mature teenage audience. If my parents and the people who ran the youth group had actually investigated the games content, they would probably have realised the game was by most standards unsuitable for a 12 year old. The game contains strong langauge, references to sex and drugs. All I can say is thank God I got a chance to play the game. I had never played a Final Fantasy game, or any other game with anything resembling a story line- my only game on the N64 at the point was Donkey Kong 64. I couldn't believe the amazingly deep storyline of the game, with its complex character development, its twists and turns, and well placed philosophical musings. The game raises the bar on story-telling in gameplay, and teaches important lessons about character and plot development. The character April Ryan is a brilliant example of a well portrayed female character, a rare find considering the damsel in distress and tough chick stereotypes that pervade the medium.

The future

The sequel, released in 2006, failed to come close to the original, incorporating a misplaced battle system and a badly implemented camera system. It was nice to revisit some of the locations of the first game in up-to-date 3D, but it failed to recapture the sense of wonder of the first game. The master-mind behind the game, Oxford educated Norwegian, Ragnar Tørnquist, has planned an episodic series of games to continue the story. However the orginal game was recently released on Steam, for a very low price. If you haven't played it yet, and you are even slightly interested in gamings potential as an artform and a means of interactive storytelling, what are you waiting for?