THE LONGING

THE LONGING is structured around a single audacious commitment: 400 days of real time. You play a Shade, the last servant of an underground king whose powers have faded. The king lies down to sleep for 400 days to regain his might, and your job is to wait in the earthen palace until he wakes. The countdown begins the moment you start the game and continues even when you quit, shut down your computer, or forget about the game entirely.

What you do with the wait is up to you. You can come back in 400 days and see the ending. You can explore the vast hand-drawn cave system to collect items for your underground living room. You can read tons of classic literature in-game — Nietzsche, Moby Dick, others — or have the Shade read them. You can ignore the king's commands entirely and venture into deeper, more dangerous parts of the cave.

Studio Seufz's design uses atmospheric Dungeon Synth music and slow exploration to make patience itself the gameplay. Various endings reflect what you actually chose to do with your wait. Time-based puzzles play with the real-time countdown directly. The protagonist is small, lonely, and very cute, and the cumulative effect is unlike almost anything else in the medium.