The Longing is an "ultra-slow idle adventure" by the German indie developer Studio Seufz, released on 5th March, 2020 for PC and 14th April, 2021 for the Nintendo Switch.
The protagonist is only referred to as the Shade, created by the King who explains that he has now expended all his power and will thus rest. The Shade is to wait in the caverns that form his kingdom and wake him up... in 400 days. Not in in-game time, but in real time. (Although said time constantly progresses, even when the game is not active.)
Gameplay is all about waiting: the Shade walks extremely slowly, every action takes at least a minute, and many paths are blocked and don't open up until the player has literally waited hours up to months.
The game originally featured four endings and prevented the player from restarting (without deleting the game in the steam folders). A patch in April of 2020 added a fifth ending, more books and the option to restart the game.
The Longing provides examples of:
- 100% Completion: Build a bed, find and harvest all crystals, fill the cave with paintings, breed mushrooms, have some flowing water, have a fire, have all books, find the secret place, find something with eyes, find...
- Absurdly Long Wait: The game takes 400 days for the standard ending. Not in-game days, actual days (though there are ways to speed up the counter in the Shade's room). While some waiting times are realistic (a drawing taking 1 up to 5 minutes), other things are clearly meant to be this. For example, wandered for 4 hours in the Halls of Eternity for some paper? Better do something else now cause you have to walk the entire way back.
- And Your Reward Is Interior Decorating: Walked all the way up to the surface? Have some wood for a bed. Spent 15 minutes hacking a crystal? Hang it on your wall. Wandered through the Halls of Eternity for 4 hours? Have fun with your carpet and two books.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- The Shade can remember certain locations. If the player chooses that memory, the Shade will auto-walk there along the most direct route; this helps a great deal both with finding previous locations in the maze-like caves and reducing tedium on manually walking the same path for several minutes.
- The Shade's estimates on when a new area will become accessible are uncannily accurate. His dialogue recounting his dreams also foreshadows some of the hidden locations of the game, as well as hints towards the Bittersweet Ending and Golden Ending.
- Burning Lapis Lazuli in the Shade's home causes time to move backwards. This allows certain time-limited events such as collecting the crystal on the Shade's birthday to be revisited even if the time had already passed.
- Become a Real Boy: The adoption ending has the Shade be cleaned by the old woman, and he's next seen at their dinner table, looking like any other surface dwealler aside from the pointy nose.
- Bizarrchitecture: While most of the caves follow a very natural logic, some places are clearly this. Examples include the confusing cave system in the bottom left, the red reading rooms between the map room and red crystal room and definitely the Halls of Eternity.
- By the Lights of Their Eyes: When in pitch darkness, the shade's big yellow eyes are still visible. This is taken literally with Angst, who has the same eyes, and both characters can see the open eyes of the other.
- Central Theme:
- Time. The game is about waiting and about how much time passes. Making the home comfortable makes "time fly" while walking in the boring Halls of Eternity makes "time stop".
- Duty VS Desire. On one hand The Shade wants to obey The King and wait. They get comfortable in their cave and can just sit there and wait it out. On the other hand The Shade can try to leave the cave and find a purpose more fitting to them.
- Cool Chair: The reading chair is a really nice red arm chair. Also the massive throne of stone that The King sits on.
- Cradle To Grave Character: Due to the obscure way of how the "longing" is talked about, most players assume that waiting for the 400 days and then waking The King is this. They're wrong.
- Crystal Landscape: The White Crystal cave.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The Shade is all black, but perfectly harmless and friendly. The cliff at the end of the Darkness is the only light place, but is the area to kill The Shade. And even Angst is harmless.
- Death by Depower: The Shade is the last bit of power that The King has. If it leaves the caves and thus is too far away from The King, he'll die.
- Driven to Suicide: The Shade throws themselves off the cliff at the end of the dark hallway in one of the endings.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Shade, The King, The Face, The Old Man and The Troll Child. Also possibly Friend and Angst.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Halls of Eternity are a room where time stops and that have no end.
- Foreshadowing: The dreams. Also talking to The Face.
- Game-Breaking Bug: Before the April patch, it was possible for players to get stuck in the caves without a mattock as using them on the treasure glass breaks them instantly and the last mattock was behind a wall that has to be mined away. The patch made it so that The Shade doesn't hit the glass until the player actually has all three mattocks.
- Genre-Busting: A puzzle adventure game that combines Walking Simulator and Idle Game.
- Hell Is That Noise: Whenever the music stops, the ambience turns up. Especially in the upper parts of the caves, those sounds are...disturbing.
- Item Crafting: The Shade can draw paintings for the cave and - after reading a specific book - knit a moss carpet.
- Locked Door: The Door behind the hall of The King and the door beyond the map room. No key needed, only lots of patience.
- Mineral MacGuffin: The three special crystals needed for the Golden Ending.
- Multiple Endings: Five.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Shade gets lifted up by The Old Man who can't see it. The Shade leaves the caves, enters the mans house and gets adopted by him, an older woman and the troll child. Sadly, having left broke apart The King who will now never wake up.
- Two Bad Endings:
- The Shade gets lifted up by The Troll Child. The child gets scared upon seeing The Shade, lets go of the bucket and The Shade falls down the well shaft to their death.
- The Shade jumps to its death in a bottomless abyss.
- True Ending: The Shade waits for 400 days and then wakes up The King. Also equals as a subversion of The Hero Dies: Waking up The King destroys earth as he was holding it up while asleep, but he and The Shade survive. The text implies they are unable to die of age and thus will forever be alone in the darkness of the collapsed planet.
- Golden Ending: The Shade finds three special crystals, among them one that only appears for a short time around their birthday. When all crystals are put together, they open a portal of light and if the Shade goes through it, he will fly on top of the stork with a crown. While happy, the text with it implies that it's All Just a Dream or a case of Disappears into Light.
- The Needless: The Shade has no physical needs, potentially going the entire 400 days without once sleeping, eating, or drinking. While the Shade can sleep and eat mushrooms, it does this for pleasure.
- No Fair Cheating: In a bit of Developer's Foresight, the game has contingencies for if you use a Speedhack
. - Nothing Is Scarier: The Darkness. Especially when the player reaches Angst.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Though you only find out about it after the deed is done, The King intends to destroy the world, leaving literally nothing but himself and The Shade alive.
- The Pig-Pen: The Bittersweet Ending implies that The Shade isn't actually black but just covered in dirt and soot. They don't seem to mind and even mention in their diary that they don't need hygiene.
- Point of No Return: Using the bucket of The Old Man.
- Additionally, one of the endings will become inaccessible once a certain amount of time has passed. After 400 days, the Old Man will have died of old age, and thus can no longer help the Shade out of the well.
- Spell My Name with a "The": The Shade, the King, the Face, the Old Man and the Troll Child.
- Talking to Themself: The entire dialogue in the game is The Shade talking to themselves out of boredom, fear or contentment.
- Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: A few, used for gameplay or emotional effect.
- A single drop filling up a puddle or a plant growing takes time. Lots of time.
- Both the Old Man and Friend can and will die of old age.
- Someone accidentally pulling out a black creature from a well can get very scared.
- Video Game Caring Potential: The player can decide to make the cave of The Shade as comfortable as possible so their wait goes by faster.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: If the player so desires, they can have The Shade throw himself off a cliff to their death.
- Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: The games takes this to its logical conclusion. While there are plenty of things you can do to pass the time, some of which will speed up the wait or unlock bonus endings, there's nothing stopping you from just switching the game off, waiting 400 days, and switching it back on again.
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: The kingdom features an enormous treasure chamber filled with gold. The Shade considers the lot of it completely useless, though you can use some of it to pay for a secret.
