''80 Days'' is an
interactive fiction
''
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...
game released by
Inkle for
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
platforms on July 31, 2014 and
Android on December 16, 2014. It was released for
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and
OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
on September 29, 2015. It employs branching narrative storytelling, allowing the player to make choices that impact the plot.
Plot and gameplay
The plot is loosely based on
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...
's 1873 novel ''
Around the World in Eighty Days
''Around the World in Eighty Days'' (french: link=no, Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) is an adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in French in 1872. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employe ...
''. The year is 1872 and Monsieur
Phileas Fogg
Phileas Fogg () is the protagonist in the 1872 Jules Verne novel ''Around the World in Eighty Days''. Inspirations for the character were the American entrepreneur George Francis Train and American writer and adventurer William Perry Fogg.
...
has placed a wager at the
Reform Club
The Reform Club is a private members' club on the south side of Pall Mall in central London, England. As with all of London's original gentlemen's clubs, it comprised an all-male membership for decades, but it was one of the first all-male cl ...
that he can circumnavigate the world in eighty days or less. The game follows the course of this adventure, as narrated by Phileas Fogg's manservant
Passepartout, whose actions and decisions are controlled by the player.
After leaving London on an underwater train to Paris or a mail carriage to Cambridge, the player can choose their own route around the world, travelling from city to city. Each city and journey contains unique narrative content. The developers estimate that on one complete circumnavigation of the globe players will see approximately 2% of the game's 750,000 words of textual content.
In their role as valet, players must manage finances, their master's health, and time as well as buying and selling items in different markets around the globe. The choices made by the player in story sections can also have a large impact on how the journey proceeds.
The game has several secrets, easter eggs and hidden endings, as well as several references to Verne's works, including ''
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas'' (french: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers) is a classic science fiction adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne.
The novel was originally serialized from March 1869 through June 1870 in Pierre-Ju ...
'' and ''
From the Earth to the Moon
''From the Earth to the Moon: A Direct Route in 97 Hours, 20 Minutes'' (french: De la Terre à la Lune, trajet direct en 97 heures 20 minutes) is an 1865 novel by Jules Verne. It tells the story of the Baltimore Gun Club, a post-American Civil W ...
''. The game is partly inspired by the
steampunk
Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or ...
genre, featuring such elements as sapient mechanical transport, hovercraft, submersibles and a city that walks on four gigantic legs.
Reception
The game has a rating of 88/100 and 84/100 for iOS and PC respectively on
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
. Phil Cameron of ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was fo ...
'' described it as "one of the finest examples of branching narrative yet created".
AppleNApps said "The story is absolutely superb with the little twists, and nuances on the classic to keep you constantly engaged to press onwards."
PocketGamer
''Pocket Gamer'' is a video game website that focuses on mobile, portable and handheld games. The site launched in 2005 and is published and owned by UK company Steel Media Ltd. The site covers all major portable and mobile gaming formats, incl ...
said "It's rich with ideas, brilliantly written, and creates a world that you'll want to visit over and over again."
Gamezebo wrote "80 Days has a solid amount of depth to it,
nda great story...It's a challenge – but an intelligent one." GrabItMagazine said "the studio Inkle deserves high praise for creating an accessible and, ultimately, fun way for people to experience Verne's classic work."
It was named as ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
''s 2014 Game of the Year. Despite being a game, ''
The Telegraph
''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include:
Australia
* ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...
'' newspaper also named it as "one of the best novels of 2014". The lead writer,
Meg Jayanth
Meghna Jayanth is a video game writer and narrative designer. She is known for her writing on ''80 Days'' and ''Sunless Sea''. Jayanth worked at the BBC before becoming a freelance writer, and has also written for ''The Guardian'' on women and ...
, won a
Writers' Guild of Great Britain
The Writers' Guild of Great Britain (WGGB), established in 1959, is a trade union for professional writers. It is affiliated with both the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG).
History
The un ...
award for her work on the project.
The game received four
BAFTA nominations in 2015, for Best British Game, Best Story, Best Mobile Game and Game Innovation, as well as three
IGF nominations for 2014, for Excellence in Design, Excellence in Narrative and in the Grand Prize category.
References
External links
*
{{Around the World in 80 Days
2014 video games
Alternate history video games
Android (operating system) games
2010s interactive fiction
IOS games
Video games based on works by Jules Verne
Video games developed in the United Kingdom
Video games set in the 19th century
Video games set in London
Video games set in Cambridge
Video games set in Paris
Windows games
MacOS games
Steampunk video games
Single-player video games
Works based on Around the World in Eighty Days
Video games set in India
Mumbai in fiction
Kolkata in popular culture
Cultural depictions of Indian women
Nintendo Switch games
Independent Games Festival winners