The Longest Journey
From TLJwiki
An adventure game produced by Norwegian developer Funcom, the Longest Journey introduces us to April Ryan, a strong-willed heroine with a troubled past, and the twin worlds of Stark and Arcadia. April is troubled by nightmares, and strange events are happening in her quiet neighbourhood which are becoming harder to ignore. Guided by the mysterious Cortez, April discovers that the Balance, the powerful force that enables the twin worlds to exist, is in danger of failing because there is no Guardian in the Tower maintaining the Balance. It falls upon April, a Shifter who can move between the worlds, to restore the Guardian and save the Balance (helped by her sidekick Crow). However, powerful forces contrive to stop her, with the Chaos Vortex, the Vanguard and their leader Jacob McAllen first among them. On her side are Cortez and the White Dragon.
April's journey takes her through a multitude of locations across the twin worlds and beyond, leading up to a climactic but ambiguous ending, which made fans eager for a sequel.
The entire story is narrated by Lady Alvane, a mysterious figure whose tale brackets the game.
Release Dates
The Norwegian version of the game shipped the 19th of November 1999. Other language version releases followed:
- Sweden: December 1999
- France: December 1999
- Germany: March 2000
- United Kingdom: May 2000
- United States: November 2000
The game was highly acclaimed as a genre-saver and put Funcom on the map. Although it was never a large seller in any market, The Longest Journey (TLJ) gained a large and devoted fan-base that stubbornly stayed alive in the years after TLJ was released. In February 2003 their waiting and petitioning was rewarded with the news of 'spiritual successor' Dreamfall being in the works.
E. M. Forster's The Longest Journey (1907)
The plot concerns Frederick (Rickie) Elliot, a student and philosophy devotee at Cambridge who suffers from lameness. He abandons his close friends and stimulating conversation at college and falls into a life of suburban banality with the beautiful but shallow Agnes Pembroke. After various plot twists and turns Rickie discovers (SPOILER) that the vulgar Stephen Wonham is in fact his illegitimate half brother and, eventually, reconciles with him and returns to a happier life.
Echoes with TLJ the game include the trouble walking that April shares with Rickie, as well as (SPOILER) the plot twist that reveals that Cortez and McAllen are, like Rickie and Stephen, brothers. Unlike Rickie, April leaves a bland rural life behind at the beginning, and travels to study and make dear friends in the city.
Its title is taken from a line in P. B. Shelley's 'Epipsychidion', and refers to life itself.
