:The Longing: is a semi-idle exploration game set in an underground kingdom with a sleeping king. You control The Shade, the keeper of this underground kingdom for 400 days while the king sleeps away.

SPOILERS AHEAD – READ AT OWN RISK

Collecting moss is a fun activity I can recommend. -The Shade

Playing :The Longing: is a fun activity I can recommend. At least, I loved it.

I’m not saying :The Longing: is a perfect game, but for what it is I found it highly enjoyable. My favorite aspect? The Shade, hands down. And I am super bummed the MakeShip of the Shade ended before I began playing. I love his dry sense of humor, his relatable depressive symptoms, and his general naivete. I wish I could be more like the Shade, honestly. Not that I’d like to be in his shoes, stuck in an empty kingdom for over a year, alone…. Plus, he’s so handy! I don’t think I could make a nice moss carpet or a moss bed like he did. He deserves friends, as in, more friends than just a spider.

I’m not going to say that I cried when the spider died, but I was actually sad.

Things I didn’t love. The movement speed could be a little frustrating. I know that is kind of the point, and that it’s idle in the respect that you could walk a little, do something else small, keep walking, do something small, rinse, repeat. And of course the Shade has no reason to hurry, he has plenty of time, so my final word is I can suck it up.

I wish there had been a little more to explore. After about 200 days I didn’t have much to do besides sit and read while I waited for the Shade’s birthday.

(Yes, I needed 100% achievements, no, I didn’t manage that without help).

That being said, I think the “”best ending”” is not something you would stumble upon very easily. I’m sure there is at least one person who was in the random place at the right time. And then did the right thing. I’m sure there was one. But the average player isn’t going to figure it out. Which frustrates me, probably because I’m the average-est player out there.

I left the kingdom in the end. I liked that ending, I liked the Shade got a family, even kind of a strange one. It seemed better than the ending my brother got which sounded dumb, actually. He went for the wake the King up after 400 days ending, which apparently just means you die. Which is dumb.

The creator of :The Longing: also made Lucky Tower, which is a silly game where they kill the cute animal that I played in college with friends. The vibe is definitely similar between the two games, though the execution is different. And executions happen in both, haha.

Overall, definitely recommend. Enjoy collecting some moss.