Video Game / 80 Days

"We are going around the world!"

80 Days is an interactive fiction game loosely based on Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days. Published by Inkle and written by Meg Jayanth, it was originally released in 2014 on iOS and Android only, but the game was ported to PC in 2015 along with a major update and is available on Steam and other vendors.

The year is 1872, and Phileas Fogg has made a wager that he can circumnavigate the world in eighty days. The player takes the role of his French valet, Passepartout, and it is his job to arrange travel, purchase and sell items to manage their finances, and ensure the general health and happiness of his master Fogg.

The game is set in an alternate history steampunk version of Earth vastly de-centered from Europe, and does not shy away from heavier issues such as colonialism, imperialism, and technological progress vs. traditional culture, all while preserving the feel of an adventure narrative. There are mechanical camels and elephants, steamships and airships, flying machines powered by the life-forces of actual birds and still more technological wonders to travel upon.

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80 Days contains examples of:

• Adaptational Badass:
  • Aodha, who goes from being a would-be victim of sati^note Ritual self-immolation in the original to a mercenary leader.
  • Michel Ardan, despite being cool in the original novel, is now a slightly insane but still ingenious rocket engineer.
• Adaptational Comic Relief: Fogg, to some extent. His attitudes towards interacting with others and his single-minded determination to win the wager for reasons that are unclear or ridiculous are Played for Laughs.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Passepartout, whose sexuality is never expanded on in the original book, is bisexual and has love interests of both genders.
• Adaptation Deviation: In addition to the obvious ones caused by player choices and the alternate setting, one alteration was made for the sake of challenging gameplay. When funds are low, you have to visit the bank to retrieve funds by wire from London. Fogg scoffs at the idea that he would just throw his entire fortune into a carpet bag and leave; in the novel, he does just that, which is why Fix mistakes it for a bank robbery take.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: If there is not enough money to take any route and they have nothing to sell, Passepartout and Fogg will be reduced to begging for funds to continue their journey.
• Allohistorical Allusion:
  "Monsieur Fogg! The date-line!"
  "I have altered our watch already," Monsieur Fogg replied calmly. "Did you think I might forget?"
  My master was, of course, correct. With such an eye as his, it was unthinkable that he might miss such a detail!
  Imagine what might have transpired had we forgotten! A less precise man than Monsieur Fogg might have finished on the eightieth day and yet believed himself to have lost!
  • The German gentleman who is doing the tour around the world the other way may be an allusion to real world journalist Nellie Bly, who attempted the trip and chronicled her journey in the book Around the World in Seventy-Two Days. However, a rival newspaper found out and sent another journalist out six hours later on a journey in the opposite direction.

• Alternate History: While the setting is a fairly recognizable mirror of the real world, the presence of the Artificers' Guild and the rise of Artifice has created different balances of power and different empires and resistances to those empires.
• Anachronism Stew: Aside from the obvious steampunk Alternate History aspect, there are also quite a few machines and modes of transport available to you that wouldn't be invented for another 50 years.
• And the Adventure Continues:
  • Upon returning to London, Passepartout will joke about another expedition but will be completely shut down by Fogg.
  • In some endings, Passepartout can actually leave his master's service to have adventures of his own.
  • If Fogg loses the wager, when the two reach London again he may suggest that they try again!
• Anti-Mutiny: The Captain of the Tea Clipper planned to sell his ship to be with his new wife. His first mate stages a mutiny to keep the ship running exactly as it used to.
• Apocalyptic Log: If the North Pole route goes badly, Passepartout's journal can become this, documenting Fogg's death.
• The Bet: True to the original novel, Fogg's wager with the Reform Club drives the narrative.
• Bittersweet Ending: The endings where Fogg and Passepartout part ways, or when they return having fostered a good relationship but without winning the wager.
• British Stuffiness: Fogg plays this trope fairly straight, preferring to communicate via slight eyebrow movements and dry remarks.
• Calming Tea: Often Passepartout is called upon to brew some tea for his master, which usually serves to calm him in otherwise stressful situations.
• The Cameo: Otto Lidenbrock, Captain Nemo or even Jules Verne himself may appear during the course of the game.
• Captain Oblivious: At one point Fogg may remark that Passepartout has a way with languages and observes that this might be useful in travel. For reference, this is near the end of the game and more than halfway around the world.
• Captain's Log: The text that the player reads is actually Passepartout's journal and written account of the events.
• Character Customization: To an extent. Passepartout's "character" and "manner" are influenced by player choices.

• Clear My Name: One of the longer ocean crossings, aboard the Noelani, contains an entire murder mystery in miniature. If Passepartout is carrying a weapon in his luggage, that will be the murder weapon, and Fogg will call on him to solve the mystery in order to clear both their names. (Solving the mystery is not guaranteed; if the player fails to put the clues together correctly, the authorities will decide to let them go due to lack of evidence, and the mystery will remain unsolved.)
• Clock Discrepancy: Lampshaded. In the original novel, Fogg seems to have lost his bet by being a day late but soon finds out that the travelers have crossed the International Date Line and effectively gained a day. Here, Fogg knows to adjust his clock when the line is crossed and Passepartout remarks that there is no way such an organized man would miss such a detail.
• Clockwork Creature: Artificers are fond of making those - from human-like automatons to tiny mechanical spiders.
• Closed Circle: While trying to solve the crime aboard the Noelani, during a week-long ocean crossing during which nobody can board or depart the ship.
• Cool Airship: There are plenty of airships that can be taken in the game, with many differences between the countries of origin, though a frequent headline proclaims that African airships will dominate the skies.

• Cool Train: Trains that travel underwater, trains that are actually proto-MagLev; there are plenty of trains to be found.
• Creator Cameo:
  • After the first playthrough, Jules Verne himself, who wrote the original novel, may be encountered on the Amphitrite Express from London to Paris.
  • While travelling in North Africa, a woman can be conversed with whose portrait resembles Meg Jayanth, the game's lead writer.
• Criminal Doppelgänger: As in the novel, Inspector Fix will claim to mistake Fogg for a bank-robber. However, in many playthroughs this subplot may never be encountered, and the game even questions Fix's motives as he may appear as a bartender in the Reform Club afterward.
• Cunning Linguist: Besides French (his native language) and English (because he lives in London), Passepartout is also fluent in several other languages, including Spanish, German, and Portuguese—though there are still places where he still encounters a language barrier; he can't speak Turkish or any variety of Chinese, and his knowledge of Greek is limited to some phrases (implied to be obscene or at least raunchy) taught to him by a contortionist ex-paramour. Fogg himself is fluent in Ancient Greek, which surprises Passepartout, but doesn't make it any easier for the duo to get around Athens and Thessaloniki.
• Cutting the Knot: If Fogg and Passepartout try to go around the North Pole. In the game, Passepartout can even remark that this is 'the Alexandrian solution.'

• Damsel in Distress: Inverted, as the original damsel in distress in the book (Aodha) now puts Fogg as Passepartout in distress.
• Developer's Foresight: Fogg can make remarks about the items that Passepartout buys. For example, if the player buys another Smith & Wesson when you already have one in your luggage, he'll ask "Exactly how many guns do you think we need, Passepartout?"
• Dialogue Tree: Pretty much the presentation of all the text in the game, though the choices that pop up aren't always necessarily dialogue choices.
• Deadpan Snarker: Fogg gets quite a few of these moments, though Passepartout and many of the people he encounters on his travels fit the bill.
• Demoted to Extra: Aodha, while a major character in the original novel, is now easily missed on most playthroughs (as she has her own story and life to attend to outside of Fogg), and Inspector Fix may be avoided altogether.
• Did Not Get the Girl:
  • Very possible if trying to romance Goland, as the conditions to meet her at the end of the game are extremely hard to meet.
  • A male version if Passepartout either fails to find Vitti again or dramatically dumps him.
• Disguised in Drag: In Istanbul, through a complicated series of events, Passepartout may find himself in the silks of a harem girl. After his escapade, however, he may choose to remain in the silks.
• Drowning My Sorrows: If Fogg loses his wager, Passepartout has the option to request a carriage driver to the nearest pub.
• Emergency Cargo Dump: On the route to the moon, Passepartout is ejected from the rocket in order for it to achieve escape velocity. Ironically, he is inferred to be the only survivor due to this.

• An Entrepreneur Is You: To an extent, as the primary source of income (other than banks) is through the arbitrage of goods between foreign markets.

• Evil Colonialist: Quite a few of these, especially passing through India, though the game rarely reduces them to a two-dimensional stereotype.
• Fish out of Water: Fogg, for example, refusing to adapt his Saville Row wardrobe to the harsh Arabian desert, makes him stand out among the locals.
• Floating Continent: The floating First Nations reservation.
• Foreshadowing: The game enjoys throwing small suggestions about events in other places into dialogue.
  • A beggar can be found at night in Irkutsk. He claims he can read palms, and will wisely inform Passepartout that he will suffer a great loss in Hong Kong. This foreshadows Inspector Fix's Plot to separate Passepartout from Fogg.
  • If you ask somebody about Nanortalik during the 'converse' screen, they may tell you that Greenland is the 'loneliest place on Earth’ and 'the last place you’d expect to find someone you know'. This, of course, means that it’s the perfect place to run into Vitti Jokinen from the North Pole plot once more.
• French Cuisine Is Haughty: Passepartout can brag to an Artificer in Paris about French cuisine. When he returns to the Ritz to find Fogg, he also takes note of him eating plain roast beef a l'anglais.
• Gadgeteer Genius: The setting is defined by these, with Artificers making automatons. During the course of the game, one might encounter Madame Shu, Savarkar, and/or al-Talib.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Despite the fact that it's you who decides which direction to go, Passepartout will comment as if it's actually Fogg who made that decision (for example, deciding to visit Tromsø will have him remark why visit a city so far north and whether the idea is to circumnavigate from top to bottom instead of west to east).
  • If you decide to board the SS Thunder as the duo did in the book, Fogg will remark as if you are planning to go to Hong Kong even if you chose to alight at Singapore.
• Game Within a Game: With the update, you can play poker with a millionaire. There are also dominoes, playing cards, and dice you can buy which the characters play in-game (though there's no special minigame for those).
• Gay Option: Passepartout can date Octave in New Orleans or Vitti Jokinen during the North Pole expedition.
• Gentleman Adventurer: Fogg, obviously. He's a gentleman, he goes on an adventure! However, because he considers himself a gentleman, he doesn't go out of his way to experience adventure. The unspoken implication is that he expects Passepartout to experience the various locations they visit and relate the valet's adventures back to him, as a way to adventure without adventuring. That being said, Fogg is certainly willing and able to stand up and be adventurous when the time calls for it.
• Gesundheit: When the Kahwoka Othunwe is first mentioned, one of the possible responses is to assume the speaker is suffering a coughing fit.
• Glorious Mother Russia: Furry hats! Drunkenness! Bitter cold! Communists! Passepartout and Fogg's travels in Russia have it all.
• Gratuitous French: Passepartout curses in French (merde!) and sticks to 'monsieur' and 'madame' when referring to people, mainly just because he can be a tad patriotic.
• Here We Go Again!: One possible ending, if Fogg and Passepartout fail to complete the trip in time, is for Fogg to declare that there is only one thing to do now — go around the world again, and do it right this time.

• Hidden Elf Village: There's one in the North Pole, populated by Polar people from Norway to Canada.
• Historical Badass Upgrade:
  • Emperor Cetshwayo is historically known for being fantastically intimidating, but in this game he has an army of terrifying automaton animals used for war and defence, controlled by a shard embedded into his brain.
  • Whole groups like the Ottomans, Indian revolutionaries and Arctic tribes are given more power to attention away from Western Europe.
• Historical Domain Character: While generally avoided, characters like Thomas Edison, Jesse James and others are occasionally name-dropped or make a cameo themselves.
• Holy Ground: As in the book, Passepartout may get into trouble for encroaching upon a Hindu temple.
• I Choose to Stay: The "Love in the Ice" achievement on Vitti Jokinen's romance path, if Passepartout decides to stay with him in Nanortalik and abandon Fogg.
• Idle Rich: Fogg, who at one point even says that his ancestors worked so he wouldn't have to.
• An Immigrant's Tale: Immediately upon entering the USA in San Francisco, you can meet immigrants with stories to tell about themselves.
• Interpretative Character: Fogg and Passepartout themselves. All they had to be was a somewhat snobbish English gentleman with an eye for a gamble and a bumbling but well-travelled French valet. The game takes their characters in new directions, highlighting Fogg's outer coldness and occasional ignorance, but tendency to feel troubled and care for others, and makes Passepartout extremely personable and zestful.
• In-Universe Game Clock: The clock controls when your routes arrive and depart, as well as determining how long you have left on your wager. It doesn't even stop when you're at the bank or market.
• Inventory Management Puzzle: Extra suitcases cost extra money, as well as being expensive or impossible to take on certain routes. The economy of the game basically depends on managing the inventory as well.
• It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans: The main focus upon hitting New Orleans is the encounter Passepartout has with Octave, dressed in full personified death costume.
• It's the Journey That Counts: The nature of the game's branching paths and the story itself make this pretty evident, and the creators have said as much.
• It Will Never Catch On: Passepartout on the tiny desert town of Las Vegas, clinging on as a place for trains and their passengers to refuel: "It was a triumph of invention over nature, and will almost certainly disappear into the dust once more in the next fifty years."
• I Will Wait for You: In a rare example of a man waiting on a woman, Dmitri, the bitter newspaper seller in Minsk, is still waiting on his old love, Leena, who ran off across Europe to be a dancer. The two can be reunited if you go looking for Leena and tell her he told a total stranger about her.
• Literally Falling in Love: If Passepartout falls onto Vitti Jokinen in the hot-air balloon. He can even say, "It appears I have fallen for you."
• Luke, I Am Your Father: The Black Rose is revealed to be Fogg's bastard daughter with the Reform Club's cook.

• Magitek: Unlike the steam and metal automatons created by members of other nations, Haitian machines are made from bone and wood and seem to run on blood and Voodoo.

• Meaningful Name: As in the original novel, Passepartout can literally translate to 'goes everywhere' and sounds similar to the English 'passport'.
• The Mentor: Fogg proves to give surprisingly good boxing advice.
• The Millstone: Passepartout can become this for Fogg, especially if he neglects his well-being. Fogg will even complain about having to both suffer and suffer an insufferable valet.
• Misaimed Stereotyping: Linked to Mistaken Nationality. One of the ship captains yells 'Tally-ho!' and asks Passepartout if that's what 'you English' say.
• Mistaken Nationality: One of the Running Gags is that people assume Passepartout is English, which he can irritably correct.
• Mobile City: The City of Agra walks on giant mechanical legs. In fact, the whole city is your mode of transportation at one point if you choose that path. On its top, you have the gardens and the majesty of the Taj Mahal. Below decks, you have the steaming and clanging underbelly where thousands of multicultural workers live and work, ensuring the safe operation of the walking city. It's also mentioned that the political status of the city is being contested, as the Brits claim that it's part of The Raj while the rest of the peninsula claims that, since Agra sometimes wanders into their territory, it can't be a British holding.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Literally, for much of Passepartout's past. One of the earliest cases is in Paris, where the player can choose what his role during the Siege of Paris was (a blockade runner, a cook, or a soldier). There are some constants, however, such as him being a circus acrobat prior to becoming a valet.
• Multiple Endings: By the end of the game, Fogg may win or lose his wager, return to London alone, or even die on his travels.
• The Mutiny: There are several possible mutinies in the game, and Fogg can even entreat Passepartout to instigate one, in the most British way possible:
  Fogg: The ship is not going fast enough. Passepartout, please organize a mutiny.
• My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: Passepartout can proudly say some (unfortunately unnamed) obscenities in Greek that he believes are polite phrases.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In the novel, Fogg and Passepartout have to travel by elephant part of the way because the railroad is not yet complete. On the corresponding route of the game, they travel on a steampunk mechanical elephant.
  • The encounter with Jesse James is one, not to the original novel (which avoided cameos by real people) but to the 1956 film.
• Norse by Norsewest: The Nordic characters are mostly quite weird. On board an airship aptly named 'Northern Lights' the crew members play a nonsensical verbal game called 'Hurgen-Jurgen'. A Norwegian girl impulsively proposes marriage to Passepartout, a Swedish prankster has nothing better to do than make wild claims about Stockholm to tourists, there's a cheerful but competitive bicycle race in Copenhagen, and the Finnish characters alternate between gloomy and, in Passepartout's words, generous.
• Not His Sled: The original novel's famous plot twist has Fogg and Passepartout believe they have lost by arriving a day late in London, but then realise suddenly that they crossed the international dateline and gained a day, meaning they have won after all. But here, Fogg always acknowledges that they have passed the dateline to avoid such a twist.
• Not Staying for Breakfast: In Vitti Jokinen's romance route, he will have fled due to a combination of trauma and guilt over the Ice Walker's crash the morning after, only to be found right before the end of the game. After their reunion, Passepartout can even pull this on Vitti. Many other of Passepartout's romantic liaisons end like this, due to the transitory nature of travel.

• Obfuscating Disability: On one leg of the journey, Passepartout meets a young woman in a wheelchair. Depending on how the encounter goes, he may learn that she is only pretending to be disabled for reasons of her own.
• Occupiers Out of Our Country: There are quite a few revolutionary elements in British-controlled India, as well as throughout the rest of the game.
• Official Couple: Depending on the ending, Passepartout can be an endgame couple with Goland or Vitti Jokinen.
• Opium Den: Passepartout will encounter these in China. As in the novel, Inspector Fix may lure him to one in Hong Kong, though this is avoidable.
• Persona Non Grata: If their journey takes them through there, Passepartout manages to get both himself and Fogg banned from Calgary for life for reasons which may or may not actually be his fault (depending on the player's choices during the incident). Strangely, this doesn't stop them from being allowed to stay in the city as long as they need to.
• Present Company Excluded: The driver of the hire car to Pangsau Pass has several uncomplimentary things to say about that town's English population, each suffixed by a careful statement that he means no offense to Fogg.
• Pyrrhic Victory: By the end of the game, it can feel like this, especially if some modes of travel have been less than ethical.
• Quintessential British Gentleman: Fogg, of course! Polite but snobbish, loves tea, rocks a Savile Row suit... and occasionally talks highly of the British Empire.
• Reassigned to Antarctica:
  • Passepartout finds out that the British commissioner of Waltair got booted back to Britain after trying to get a divorce from his wife when he fell in love with a woman in India. The woman says she loves him because he is 'too honourable' to abandon his post and come back to be with her.
  • One has to wonder if Vitti Jokinen getting stationed in rural Greenland of all places is something to do with the failure of the Polar Expedition.
• Really Gets Around: Passepartout can have several affairs in the course of one journey, both with men and women.
• Relationship Values: Fogg's relationship with Passepartout is tracked on a scale from "difficult" to "comfortable" and influences dialogue as well as how many hearts can be restored with the "Fogg" interaction during travel.
• Romance Sidequest: Passepartout may flirt with multiple characters over the course of the game, but can have lasting relationships with Goland, Vitti or the Black Rose if you play your cards right.

• Running Gag: Passepartout's fear of bears, as well as the frequent option to blurt out "We are traveling around the world!" to nonplussed strangers on their travels.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Of sorts In-Universe. A high-ranking Artificer could easily round the world in far fewer than eighty days, but the Guild is impressed by Fogg's efforts to do so using only transportation available to normal people.
• Scenery Porn: Passepartout is very appreciative of the places he visits, beginning almost every journal entry with a emotive description of the place and its people.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: To rush departure times and even to dangerously insist of faster speeds, Fogg can throw substantial amounts of money around.
• Sensual Slavs: Finnish dancer Leena Palkala pretends to be Slavic for a reason.
• Ship Tease: Happens a few times with Passepartout and Fogg.
  • A medical student Passepartout befriends asks if he and Fogg are "close companions".
  • Passepartout can even declare his love for Fogg in his journal at a certain point, but nothing ever comes out of it.
  • The North Pole arc can resolve this subplot as a case of unrequited love. Passepartout can pointedly admit that he's in love with Fogg to Vitti, but he'll declare that he doesn't care and kiss him anyway. Staying with him in Nanortalik can be regarded as choosing Vitti over Fogg, especially when Passepartout notes that Fogg doesn't even wave him goodbye.
• Shipping Torpedo: Fogg is not too thrilled about his valet pursuing particular friendships while in his service. Passepartout can also attempt to be this if he is suspicious of those with romantic intentions towards his master.
• Shout-Out: A story event in Vienna involves a flute that forms part of a technical marvel; if Passepartout acquires it, it is listed in the inventory as "die Zauberflöte" (the magic flute), which is the name of a famous opera which was written and debuted in Vienna.
  • It's possible to take a trip across India in a steampunk mechanical elephant, just as the travelers do in Verne's own novel The Steam House.
• Sky Pirate: Behiye bint Kasim, who grabs cars right off the roads in Germany with her airship in order to plunder parts.

• Stiff Upper Lip: Fogg, to the point where Passepartout nearly falls over when he finally does smile.
• The Stoic: Fogg, again, as he rarely betrays any emotions or wonder at the places they travel through.
• Story-Driven Invulnerability: Even if Fogg's hearts reach zero, he does not actually die. This can only happen on the North Pole route.

• Take Your Time: Lampshaded; while Fogg is very much filled with urgency about the term of his wager, Passepartout can arrange a meandering route and choose to stay in cities for as long as he likes, though the clock is always ticking.
• Timed Mission: Very obliquely; though the clock is always there to tell the player how much time has passed, the game does not end when eighty days have passed, as Fogg and Passepartout still must return to London.
• Time Title: An Around the World in Eighty Days adaptation.

• Those Magnificent Flying Machines: Besides the usual airships, the game has mechanical birds, Gyrocopters, balloons, floating cities...

• Video Game Caring Potential: Passepartout can rescue people slated for execution, give money to beggars, smooth the course of love for others, and much more.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Passepartout can refuse to help an injured submariner, mock those he comes across in his travels, and even betray a living soul.
• Vodka Drunkenski: Try asking some drunken Russians what sights there are to see in their city. They'll all laugh at you, and one will explain that the best views are at the bottom of an empty glass bottle.
• Was It Really Worth It?: Passepartout can question this if a slave ship is taken to West Africa. Characters who saw you arrive will make sure you face the moral consequences. Invoked even harder when you join a slave expedition through West Africa.

• What Happened to the Mouse?: With the huge cast of characters often having resolutions for their stories hidden in other locations, it's easy to accidentally miss a wrap-up and be left wondering what happened to a character. Even a wrong dialogue choice can abruptly cut off a character's story in some cases.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The Pope has decreed that automata are soulless creatures, though this view is not universally shared even among Catholics. In one encounter, Passepartout meets a group of nuns who believe that some automata do have souls, and even venerate an automaton saint. It's also possible for Passepartout to encounter individual automata who are human enough to make him reflect that they may be right.
• World Tour: "We are traveling around the world!"
• Worst News Judgment Ever: The newspaper headlines you see using the "wait" command while travelling. While they do include things that would legitimately be front-page news, there's also reports about Fogg's wager and about Passepartout in particular, even in places that obviously have much bigger issues than some random Englishman's valet.

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