The Long Journey Home- - Star Control 2-inspired roguelike from Daedalic Entertainment

[Infinitron]

http://www.pcgamer.com/the-long-journey-home-review/

THE LONG JOURNEY HOME REVIEW

One of my favourite moments in The Long Journey Home happens before I take off. I spend 15 minutes analysing the characters, picking the ones I’d tolerate being trapped with, trying to work out if there was a secret reason I should take a potted plant into the space. It didn’t matter. Three hours later they were all dead from burns and/or suffocation. This doesn’t mean that what came after was bad (apart from the deaths), but just that the game does a smart job of defining the gravitas of your mission. You’re going into space and, despite the name, you’re probably not coming back.

Your four adventurers are flung to the far side of universe and must navigate their way home by farming resources, maintaining their ship, and negotiating with a selection of distinct alien races. The journey is different each time, and their are loads of combinations of crew and craft, so there’s no ‘right’ way to play it. (Although I discovered multiple times there’s definitely a ‘wrong’ way.) The Long Journey Home largely delivers on the promise of grasping and desperate journey across space, but it’s deliberately tough. Your crew will die. Your equipment will break. Aliens will take your things.

I went into the game expecting the difficulty to be high, but there are times when the balance feels off. You gather resources by dropping your lander onto planets, drilling for metals, and sucking up gases like a vacuum cleaner. You’re given a description of each planet before you land, so you don’t have to be reckless, but it’s always a risk. Any errant bumps and crashes can cause injuries to your pilot which can only be cured with expensive medpacks. Each excursion only takes a few minutes, but it’s still a gruelling, repetitive way of gathering essential resources, and it isn’t always fun. Variables such as convection, which blows your lander off course, only compound the frustration. I pimped my lander to reduce the effect of wind, but I started to dread the threat of landing on a planet’s surface. Sometimes, you have no choice but to brave the most difficult planets, and it often results in disaster.

Gathering essential resources can be a chore, but it’s not the only way to play the game. The Long Journey home is full of alien encounters, which feel like the heart of the game. You could push through by just collecting resources, but interacting with the aliens and completing tasks feels like the more rewarding route. I searched for lost artifacts, located stranded explorers, and helped religious zealots wipe out alien infestation. It felt more righteous than that reads. Each encounter feels different and the aliens are all different, so you get real sense of the universe being inhabited by creatures who were there before you. Being able to actually talk to the aliens helps, too—it’s precisely the thing I felt No Man’s Sky lacked, and it brings this universe to life.

It’s a bright, interesting system to explore. Characters are crisply designed, and I got a strong sense of who everyone was just by looking at them. Planets are striking and varied. The music makes everything you do feel important—even asking a crewmate what they think about a medicinal slime takes on a cosmic significance. But it’s the story that stands out, adding definition and reason to a world that would otherwise seem soulless. It’s good enough, in fact, that sometimes I wished that I could enjoy it without all the broken bones, fuel ruptures, and suffocation. The unpredictability can feel punitive.

Likewise, some of the random, wear-and-tear problems your ship experiences feel mean-spirited. Mechanical failures are common, and they’re expensive to fix. There are also occasions where it feels like a solution should come quicker than it does. I foolishly accepted a gift from a suspiciously-friendly race of infectious plant monsters, because I didn’t want to seem rude—even in space, it’s important to remain civil—and I had to watch as my crew slowly became infested, aware of the issue but unable to fix it. Each playthrough is defined by the things that go wrong, which makes the game striking and memorable, but too often the resources needed to fix problems are too precious or too rare, and the game piles misery upon misery.

Despite this, I like the game enough to keep coming back, and I’m ready to start my fifth (certainly doomed) attempt to get home. Each journey is a learning experience, and the vague promise of success is enough to keep me interested, even if half the missions end up with me screaming at my lander as it blows around like a duckling on a windy day. If nothing else, I won’t rest until I find out what that bloody plant does.

Disclosure: PC Gamer contributor Richard Cobbett worked on The Long Journey Home.

THE VERDICT
68

THE LONG JOURNEY HOME
A savage, sometimes frustrating space exploration game that succeeds because of beautiful design and a compelling universe.

 

[Jimmious]

I don't get how this review ended up giving a score of 68, the whole text seems to indicate that it's quite good.

 

[MRY]

If you guys are playing the game on Steam, Daedelic needs you to post positive reviews to offset criticisms.

 

[Infinitron]

Sad!

I mean really, it's sad that making requests like that is increasingly a thing. I wonder how things would be like if there was some some restriction on reviewing to prevent knee-jerk ratings. Like only letting you review a game a week after you first played it or something like that. (Review suppression!)

 

[Zombra]

Huh, I read this on one Steam review:

Complaining - The crew will whine and cry non-stop the entire way home, only taking a break occassionally to throw in random comments about whatever interesting thing you did. It's on par with kids asking every mile "are we there yet"

oasis789, any comment? This sounds like it would make the whole game even more demoralizing and depressing. I don't expect the crew to exactly be overjoyed every time you crash the ship, but a game that complains to you directly about how badly you're playing it all the time really seems fun-sucking.

 

[T. Reich]

From the few let's plays I've checked out, the party banter was mostly unintrusive quips.

My guess is maybe the type of banter you get is dependent on situation - if you're a shitty player (as most of "reviewers" are), then the crew is probably inqured and demoralised, then no wonder that they're complaining.

 

[LESS T_T]

I don't know anyone who reads or writes Steam reviews. It reminds me a little bit of literary MFAs writing in rarefied journals and anthologies only other writers read, and then wondering why they never achieve popular success. If you want to help the game, you'd probably be better off upvoting it on metacritic or posting on reddit.

Positive Steam review score not only helps shape people's perception, but also favored by Steam's recommendation system.

 

[Zombra]

I don't know anyone who reads or writes Steam reviews.

FYI, I do both and you know me. I don't take them as gospel, but patterns emerge and there is often valuable information there.

Suspicious that you avoid answering a direct question about one

 

[MRY]

Whether you approve or not, the strategy has already pushed them up from 66% to 67% [edit: now 68%! ITZ HAPPENING!], so I think it's good that they're giving it a shot. I recently came across the (perhaps obvious) sales rule that you should always expressly ask for what you want, and then ask for a commitment to give you what you want. That's not really my own style, but I think it's smart of Daedlic under these circumstances to be explicit -- there are probably lots of folks who want the game to succeed, irrespective of whether it's great or not, want Daedelic to succeed, want the team members to succeed, etc. Writing a positive review is a little like donating someone else's money to a Kickstarter -- there's nothing to lose from the standpoint of those who want to reward the game developers, and nothing for Daedelic to lose by encouraging it. Until Steam gives developers tools to lock/merge/hide negative reviews the way Daedelic or others can with the negative forum threads, this is really the only way they can leverage their power.

Also, I think oasis789 is mostly wrong about Steam reviews being low value -- they definitely move sales. Basically no professional reviewer or major LPer would give Primordia the time of day. Any success we had was because players were generous enough with their time to write reviews, which drew in their friends, etc., etc. At their best, Steam reviews are a conversation starter: you see that you friend wrote a positive one, you shoot him a message to ask follow up questions, you buy the game.

EDIT: Another technique I hadn't see is that they're urging any non-positive feedback be made through private channels, on the ground that it will make sure it's heard by the developers. That's an interesting strategy and probably a smart one.

Actually there is a discort channel where you can talk to the developers directly. Everyone is kindly invited and they tend to answer questions and constructive critique very quickly.

https://discordapp.com/invite/tljh

***

Once again I recommend the discord channel

https://discordapp.com/invite/tljh

If it´s a bug, or even just constructive critique, you can report it to the developers and you will find them most cooperative

***

everywhere are people that don´t seem to get along well with each other and that is totally fine, but you should judge a game for what it offers for you rather than how other players appeal to you. Just my thought

It's really fascinating to watch developers find strategies for managing public feedback as players have gotten more vocal.


EDIT2: Later in the thread they mention they're introducing a casual difficulty mode so that "all the players that are not satisfied with the gameplay at the moment will enjoy the game by then." I wonder how it'll fix the criticism of too little gameplay variety, though.

EDIT3: One last thought on the subject. If you consider how much money Daedelic spent on things like advertising on RPS and other focused sites, having LPers publicize the game, giving away keys to enthusiastic players through game review sites, etc. -- it's sort of crazy to spend all that money to generate synthetic word of mouth when you could also just ask your players to give you the same kind of promotion for free. I would guess that 100 enthusiastic Steam reviews focusing on the good aspects of the game and explaining why the criticisms are coming from casuals who don't appreciate good games -- coupled with the current strategy of upvoting positive reviews and downvoting negative reviews -- would actually be worth much more in terms of bringing in players than having some guy stream the game for even 10,000 views. The latter is pretty ephemeral, and moreover it is a dangerously unmediated experience -- as was discussed earlier in this thread, when you watch the game in a stream you might come away with the impression that it's boring or repetitive, but a well-written fan review can explain that that's not the case. Just 100 more 100% positive reviews would shift them from 66% (alas, the bump has been offset) to 82%, and that is a huge difference.

For me, making games is a hobby. But for the Daedelic West team, it's a living. It may be easier for them to develop positive reviews than to develop a game that will naturally be positively reviewed, and given all the hard work they put into making The Long Journey Home, it seems reasonable that they'd put a little work into the reviews, too. As someone who has spent the better part of his life dreaming of a worthy successor to Star Control II, I think I'm with the player who gave the game a positive review even though he thought it was terrible because he hoped that it might encourage other games that get closer to SC2. I'm worried that if this does poorly -- and if Stardock's also does poorly -- the experiment of cloning SC2 may come to an end with a couple deformed offspring, rather than continuing until someday we get something worthy.

For any rich developer like Daedelic or Star Dock reading this, one really good first step would be to hire Niklas Jansson, who just messing around in his free time got so much closer to the mark than TLJH. Lest you doubt me:
Misc art: https://androidarts.com/starcontrol/star_control.htm
Story: https://androidarts.com/starcontrol/Exodus.htm

 

[Iznaliu]

My guess is maybe the type of banter you get is dependent on situation - if you're a shitty player (as most of "reviewers" are), then the crew is probably inqured and demoralised, then no wonder that they're complaining.

I think that is too much effort for most devs. I think the reviewers are just taking everything negatively.

 

[you know what time it is]

This game has no business to run as hot as it does. Most modern shooters put less stress on my GPU, i'm frankly quite annoyed by the late trend of very limited graphic options in the games, especially when it comes to limiting frames, there's no proper way to turn on/off v-sync even (aside from tweaking ini files). It also runs in borderless window by default with no apparent way to change it.

 

[thesheeep]

It also runs in borderless window by default with no apparent way to change it.

Which is the proper way to run a game anyway, since it has all upsides of "actual" fullscreen with none of its downsides (resetting graphics drivers takes time, alt-tabbing can be bothersome, etc.).

 

[Roscoe Scaggs]

As someone who has spent the better part of his life dreaming of a worthy successor to Star Control II, I think I'm with the player who gave the game a positive review even though he thought it was terrible because he hoped that it might encourage other games that get closer to SC2. I'm worried that if this does poorly -- and if Stardock's also does poorly -- the experiment of cloning SC2 may come to an end with a couple deformed offspring, rather than continuing until someday we get something worthy.

As someone that holds up SC2 as the pinnacle of games that have both a truly open-world (galaxy) and an engaging story; I don't know if I can agree that we should support the mutants just so a child with five fingers and toes can be maybe be born. SC2 is good enough that the drive will be there. And where the good is, there will be money.

I don't think people will stop holding PS:T up as a great narrative-based game just because T:ToN dropped the ball, and then ran after the ball into traffic. Someone will came along and pick up the ball again.

 

[you know what time it is]

Played it for a while, I might give it another spin at some point, but boy is this game hard to like. It's also difficult, not in the usual way though, since there's no real complexity to speak of as far as gameplay goes, instead the main thing preventing you from getting home is a terrible UI, questionable controls and very gamey mechanics. Even NPC interactions are limited to two or three topics, before they need to... rest (¿wat?).

It's pretty much Mass Effect: Mineral Collector edition. All of the cool bits are far and few between, while most of your time goes into tedious resource gathering and maneuvering.

Hope springs eternal and all that, but if you are looking for a proper space exploration game - this is not it. Not by a long shot.

At least I got an itch to play Space Rangers (one of the rare, successful spins on the idea of SC2) again, so there's that.

 

[MRY]

A couple of German sites have given it strong 75% reviews, which should be a good boost for the game, and is a nice bit of Teutonic solidarity.

http://www.4players.de/4players.php...-CDROM/36355/82567/The_Long_Journey_Home.html
http://www.pcgames.de/The-Long-Jour...plus-Video-zum-Space-Roquelike-Mix-1229182/3/

Windows Central said it was basically boring but gave it a 3.5/5, a Good rating that should help raise its Metacritic score. I think it'll come out all right. Its fans are helpfully explaining to any negative reviewer that they are filthy casuals and its developers are channeling criticism into private forums, so I think they may be able to get the Steam score up too. They've already moved it from 65% to 69%, especially after several negative reviews were delisted. A little more and it'll be above 70%. Hope springs eternal! [EDIT: With another negative review gone and another positive one added, they're at 70%! Hooray!]

Given my ironclad rule of not buying games until they are 75% off, it'll probably be a couple months till I pick it up, but by then they said they're going to drop the difficulty and add free saving, so it should be great for a milquetoaster like me.


EDIT: Strong end to the third day. They've got their Metacritic score over the two-thirds threshold (67%), Steam score is up at 70%, negative threads are almost all gone from Steam forum as are a few of the more negative Steam reviews, it's 4.5/5 on GOG.com, where it's the 4th best selling game, by comparison to Everspace, another rogue-like space game from 2016, which is all the way down at 11. They're about to patch the game to "make the journey easier to get into, and your ride smoother." Steamspy sales ownership has tripled since the first day, which is a good sign too. It's the 47th best selling game world wide on Steam, and the only space games ahead of it are Planet Explorers, Oxygen Not Included, Everspace, and Endless Space 2. It sounds like the streamers are also really presenting the game in a positive light, which bodes well:


Fingers crossed the weekend sees a spike back above 1,000 players.

 

[Zombra]

THE LONG JOURNEY HOME – IASA RESPONDS TO MISSION CRITICISM
NEW ‘STORY MODE’ ALLOWS EASIER GALACTIC EXPLORATION. ALL THE WONDERS, LESS OF THE FRUSTRATION. PLUS: NEW IMPROVEMENTS FOR ALL ASTRONAUTS.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/longjourneyhome/announcements/detail/1265922321501048185

 

[Infinitron]

TLJH is a sad example of why AAA games have to go through mandatory focus testing panels.

If I were an employee at Daedalic, frankly I'd be mad that I wasn't given that information in advance. This game's rough edges could have been filed off before it was released.

 

[MRY]

TLJH is a sad example of why AAA games have to go through mandatory focus testing panels.

If I were an employee at Daedalic, frankly I'd be mad that I wasn't given that information in advance. This game's rough edges could have been filed off before it was released.

What information? It went through testing, including a beta test that included more or less the same number of players who have bought it post-release, so I'm sure they got this feedback. I assume they rejected it because -- as fans and Richard and other devs have posted in response to every time the feedback was given on Steam -- any criticism of the game reflects an unwillingness to master its subtle, often hidden mechanics. The team made a decision to keep the game a high-challenge Lunar Landar rogue-lite rather than a walking sim in space, I assume in the belief that there isn't enough content to justify a $40 price tag if you don't have the long learning curve for the three minigames that are its gameplay.

Should these changes fix your issues with previous missions, please do consider giving us a ‘Thumbs Up’ review on Steam. Experimental missions like these, not to mention the IASA team, desperately need your support. The more Thumbs Up we get, the greater the mission’s visibility. The more civilian buy-in we get, the more we’ll be able to keep working on helping our people get Home.

Seems to be working -- they were up at 71% last I checked. I wouldn't be surprised if they're over 80% once more of the negative reviews are delisted or changed.

[EDIT: Also, I think holding a low-fi indie project like this to AAA standards is probably not fair. It only had a 12-person team and it was only announced in August 2015, so probably only had a two or two-and-a-half year development cycle. While that's certainly more man-months than, say, Star Control II or Starflight or FTL had, it's nothing like what AAA games have today.]

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

[EDIT: Also, I think holding a low-fi indie project like this to AAA standards is probably not fair. It only had a 12-person team and it was only announced in August 2015, so probably only had a two or two-and-a-half year development cycle. While that's certainly more man-months than, say, Star Control II or Starflight or FTL had, it's nothing like what AAA games have today.]

IDK, if you want to be held to low-fi indie standards, then a $40 price is a bit high. AAA standards might be excessive, but I think a 12 man team can be held to a higher standard than a two or five man team.

 

[MRY]

Fair enough. Also, I'm not sure that "game is a tedious grind" is really a AAA vs. indie issue.

It's nice that they're doing outreach to reviewers who criticized the game. Maybe with enough pressure they can get the game re-reviewed with the nerf patch?


Also, anyone who doubts Richard C.'s gift for words should read his awesome takedown of a guy who criticized them for soliciting positive reviews and offering free keys to other Daedelic games to negative reviewers:

Not sure what you're talking about. We're asking people who like the game to leave a positive review, because most players don't leave reviews - especially if they're busy playing the game - but being classed as Mostly Positive or Positive is hugely important for visibility. The more visible the game is, the better it's likely to do, the more we can continue working on it. Everyone wins. Right now, we're on the border between Mixed and Mostly Positive, so... yes, we'd like people who like the game to say so. It's not a conspiracy and the reason for it should be pretty obvious. The launch window for a game is important, especially as far as Steam's front pages go.

No idea what you're talking about with bribes.

(Also, anyone who gets a free copy of the game, such as beta testers, isn't counted by the system. Their reviews appear to be read, but their thumb-rating isn't factored in by the algorithm. That's especially relevant to a game like ours where many - not all, but many - of the negative reviews are going to be people who bounced off within a couple of hours, while the people who've been playing for the last couple of months and had the time to really get into it don't count, and most of the people who are enjoying it are on the other side of the galaxy playing it.)

(It happens the game has the same 71% rating whether you include all players or just those who paid for their keys, but it's good to have a positive outlook.)

 

[Infinitron]

What information? It went through testing, including a beta test that included more or less the same number of players who have bought it post-release, so I'm sure they got this feedback.

I don't share your confidence. They also somehow released the game thinking it was 6-8 hours long...

 

[MRY]

Wait, there are bribes? Where's mine?

From the thread, I think you get them when you post a negative review. Or did for the first two days?

 

[sser]

I know absolutely nothing about this game. Literally nothing. Clicked the trailer and closed it in 2s. Still interested in buying for some reason thanks to recent sci-fi kick and because I kinda want to try my movie-watching method of playing games without really digging too much into the details (beyond genre, obviously). Which brings out the only question left, is it in some ambiguous sense worth 35-dorrahs?

 

[MRY]

Seems like if you like it, yes, if you don't, it's not worth any dollars. The cost really is a risk factor, not a value factor. Reviews seem about 2/3 love, 1/3 hate.

 

[tindrli]

it should be 20 at most, stand proud and sell like hell